Participation Equality and Influence: Cues and Status in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Groups

Abstract

We examined staus effects in face-to-face and computer-mediated three-person groups. Our expectation that low status members in computer-mediated group discussions would participate more qqually, and have more influence over decisions, that their counterparts in face-to-face groups was not confirmed. The results suggest that knowledge of status diffecrences and labels were used to form cognitive impressions of other group members. It seems that when group members are aware of the status charecteristics of the group, social cues were magnified rather than reduced. Implications of these findings for mixed status cooperative work groups and for the design of computer communication systems are discussed.