Reaching consensus on consensus: A study of the relationships between individual decision‐making styles and use of the consensus decision rule

The present study investigated relationships between individual decision‐making styles, procedural talk, and emergent group decision rules. Individual participants in 57 decision‐making groups reported their preferences for each of five individual decision‐making styles. These preferences were weighted by the amount of each member's procedural talk to estimate communicative attempts to influence the group's emergent decision rule. Significant positive correlations were found between the percentage of group members perceiving the establishment of a consensus decision rule and group members’ weighted preferences for rational and dependent individual decision‐making styles. The authors conclude by suggesting the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.