Thin Slices of Workgroups

Abstract

In this paper, we explore whether perceivers can accurately assess the effectiveness of groups, the group properties perceivers use in their judgement, and the contextual and individual differences that allow some perceivers to be more accurate. Across seven studies, we present consistent evidence that perceivers can judge workgroup effectiveness in videos of different lengths—60, 30, and 10 seconds—and in 10-second silent videos and 10-second audio clips. We find that perceptions of collective properties of groups, including cohesion, affective trust, and cognitive trust partially mediate perceivers’ ability to accurately judge groups. Furthermore, increased attentional focus improves perceivers’ ability to judge group effectiveness. Finally, we find that perceivers with higher levels of social sensitivity are more accurate at judging group effectiveness. We discuss the implications of these findings for the groups literature and social perception literature.