The impact of group decision making on indecisiveness-related decisional confidence

Indecisiveness is an individual difference marked by chronic choice difficulty and delay in decision making. This study examined whether past differences between decisives and indecisives at the individual level also emerge at the group level. Ninety-seven undergraduates were identified as decisive or indecisive using Frost and Shows’ Indecisiveness Scale and were then assigned to individual or group conditions. Both individuals and groups completed the same task of selecting a speaker to give a talk on campus from a set of five choice alternatives. Indecisiveness was related to post-task confidence at the individual level, but not at the group level. Process variables revealed few differences. The results suggest that past findings of differences between group and individual confidence might be due to changes in the confidence of indecisive individuals only.