Social decision schemes of the same four-person groups on two different intellective tasks.

501 female high school students took the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and the Otis Quick-Scoring Mental Ability Test first as individuals and then were assigned to cooperative groups or control individual conditions for a 2nd test administration. 10 social decision scheme models were tested at each of 3 ability levels for each task as theories of the underlying group process. As predicted, the best-fitting social decision scheme on the RAT represented a truth-wins process, while the best-fitting social decision scheme on the Otis test represented a complex combination of a truth-supported-wins process when 3 or 4 members knew the correct answer, an increment from grouping when 2 members knew the answer or no members knew the answer, and strong conformity pressures against a single correct member. Results extend previous research in which the group task and group members have been confounded to a demonstration of different social decision schemes for the same groups on different group tasks.