In 1981 two researchers, Garold Stasser and William Titus, set out to challenge strongly-held beliefs about group decision making.
The researchers attempted to use a number of formal models to identify what would happen when people are not fully informed.
The theory, in this case, would state that polarization of judgments is due to culturally pooled arguments.
This phenomenon has a tendency to co-occur and interact with the shared information bias to produce poor decisions.
[3] Stewart and Stasser (1998) state that shared information bias, and in turn hidden profiles, occur more often for judgment-based tasks because of the ultimate goal of reaching consensus.
Shared and unshared information are markedly different in the amount time each is debated in group discussion.
In hidden profile situations, groups rarely find the alternative decision, likely the optimal one.