Status Threat and Group Dogmatism

Experimentally composed 5-member groups completed an initial problemsolving exercise. In the status-threat condition, members then received negative evaluative feedback regarding their group performance. In the control condition, members received relatively favorable feedback. Groups then discussed and reached consensual judgments on a set of Dogmatism Scale items. As hypothesized, the groups subjected to status threat adopted significantly more dogmatic beliefs than groups in the control condition. In addition, it was found that group dogmatism scores were consistently lower than the average individual pretreatment dogmatism scores within the group, suggesting that the groups tended to be more flexible than their component members.