Preface Task conﬂict, information processing, and decision-making: The damaging effect of relationship conﬂict Frank R.C. de Wit a,⇑ , Karen A. Jehn b , Daan Scheepers c a Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands b Melbourne Business School, 50 Leicester Street, 3053 Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia c Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands article info Article history: Received 29 June 2011 Accepted 14 July 2013 Available online 13 August 2013 Accepted by Richard Moreland Keywords: Task conﬂict Relationship conﬂict Information processing Decision making abstract A popular theoretical assumption holds that task-related disagreements stimulate critical thinking, and thus may improve group decision making. Two recent meta-analyses showed, however, that task conﬂict can have a positive effect, a negative effect, or no effect at all on decision-making quality (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; De Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012). In two studies, we built upon the suggestion of both meta-analyses that the presence of relationship conﬂict determines whether a task conﬂict is positively or negatively related to decision making. We hypothesized and found that the level of perceived relation- ship conﬂict during task conﬂict (Study 1), and the actual presence (vs. absence) of relationship conﬂict during task conﬂict (Study 2), increased group members’ rigidity in holding onto suboptimal initial pref- erences during decision making and thus led to poor decisions. In both studies the effect of relationship conﬂict on decision making was mediated by biased use of information. Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction Many researchers and practitioners have argued and found that task-related disagreements can stimulate critical thinking, and thus may improve group decision making (e.g., Amason, 1996; Deutsch, 1973; Jehn, 1995; Nemeth, 1995; Schulz-Hardt, Brodbeck, Mojzisch, Kerschreiter, & Frey, 2006). In contrast to these ﬁndings, two meta-analyses of the intragroup conﬂict literature found no support for an overall positive association between task conﬂict (disagreements that follow from different task-related viewpoints) and group performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; De Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012). Although De Dreu and Weingart’s initial meta-anal- ysis of 30 studies on intragroup conﬂict even showed an overall negative association between task conﬂict and group performance, a more recent meta-analysis of 116 studies by De Wit, Greer, et al. (2012) showed that overall, the association between task conﬂict and group performance is neither negative nor positive. Moreover, De Wit et al.’s results showed that the association between task conﬂict and group performance depends on moderating factors such as the association between task conﬂict and relationship con- ﬂict (disagreements that arise from interpersonal incompatibilities and include affective elements such as feeling friction and tension; Jehn, 1994). More speciﬁcally, in line with earlier ﬁndings by De Dreu and Weingart, the ﬁndings of De Wit et al. showed that task conﬂict and group performance were more positively related among studies where the association between task and relation- ship conﬂict was relatively weak rather than strong. These results suggest that groups are more likely to beneﬁt from a task conﬂict when it occurs in the absence (vs. presence) of a relationship conﬂict (e.g., Shaw et al., 2011). Yet meta-analyses can only suggest inferences at the study level, not at the group or individual level, and so the two meta-analyses could not test this hypothesis directly, nor could they investigate the processes that may underlie the damaging effect of relationship conﬂict (cf. Lau & Cobb, 2010). To ﬁll this void, we present here two studies of how relationship conﬂict impairs the link between task conﬂict and group decision-making. We propose that the presence of rela- tionship conﬂict during a task conﬂict has two important conse- quences. First, it makes group members more likely to rigidly retain an initially preferred decision alternative. Second, it makes group members process information in a biased manner, using their own information during decision making, rather than the information they could (or do) receive from other group members. By examining the damaging effect of relationship conﬂict on the linkages among task conﬂict, information processing, and decision making, our research clariﬁes one of the circumstances that may help or hinder the potential beneﬁcial effect of task conﬂict on group performance (e.g., Behfar & Thompson, 2007; De Dreu, 2008; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn & Bendersky, 2003). In addi- tion, it extends experimental research on task conﬂict and group 0749-5978/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.07.002 ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: FWit@fsw.leidenuniv.nl (F.R.C. de Wit), K.Jehn@mbs.edu (K.A. Jehn), Scheepersdt@fsw.leidenuniv.nl (D. Scheepers). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 122 (2013) 177–189 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp