| There are robust findings in the interteam literature that suggest interteam relationships are more competitive than interpersonal relationships (i.e., group discontinuity effect). Previous studies suggest that allowing intra-team communication increases the team discontinuity effect because having communication among team members strengthens in-group favoritism norms. Drawing on the Information Sampling Theory (Stasser, 1989) and Social Decision Making Theory (Kerr, 2001), I argue that communication among team members sways groups to compete more because members are more likely to focus on sharing more popular opinions to compete than opinions to cooperate. Accordingly, I propose that having team discussion interventions that facilitates a discussion of cooperative opinions will increase team decisions to cooperate. Specifically, I hypothesized that making teams discuss pros and cons of both cooperative and competitive decisions will make teams become more cooperative. In addition, I proposed that having cooperative individuals to speak first during team discussion will increase team decisions to cooperate. Participants played a Prisoner's Dilemma Game for six trials as an individual or a three-person team. In individual conditions, individuals played PDGs individually. In the control team condition, teams played the PDGs and each trial allowed for two minutes of team discussion.;In the balanced team condition, teams played PDGs and team members discussed using a decision guideline. In the cooperative primacy condition, the most cooperative team members were given opportunity to speak first during team discussion for two minutes for each trial. Teams competed more than individuals thereby replicating the group discontinuity effect. Consistent with our prediction, teams with balanced team discussion made more cooperative choices than teams in the control condition. Teams with cooperative primacy made the most cooperative choices in the first two trials but their cooperation rates decreased over time. These results suggest that having team discussion interventions can potentially allow teams to make more cooperative choices and decrease the discontinuity effect. Implications and limitations are discussed. |
