Unwillingness to communicate as a predictor of small group discussion behaviors and evaluations

This investigation hypothesized that (1) unwillingness to communicate is inversely related to amount of participation, information giving and information seeking in a small group discussion, (2) quality of decision making is inversely related to proportion of unwilling‐to‐communicate members, and (3) satisfaction with the decision is inversely related to individual unwillingness to communicate and proportion of unwilling members. Subjects completed a decision‐making task on a civil defense proposal then rated their satisfaction level. A priori ranks were assigned the decision alternatives to measure quality of decision‐making. Trained raters observed information giving, information seeking and total participation. Results supported all but the quality of decision‐making hypothesis.