Communication and Group Cognitive Complexity

This study explores the effects of group size, group composition, and group argument frequency on group cognitive complexity (GCC). We evaluated a sample of 509 students organized into 106 groups who participated in a group cognitive mapping activity. As hypothesized, we found that group argumentation has an inverted U-shaped association with GCC. Group member familiarity did not moderate this relationship. We also found that task-related arguments mediate the relationships between group size and gender diversity on one hand, and GCC, on the other. Moreover, we found that optimal group-level cognitive benefits were observed in group discussions in which the ratio between task-related and nontask-related group arguments was 3 to 1. The discussion focuses on the practical and theoretical implications of these findings