Cooperative Versus Conflictive Problem Solving in Three Telecommunication Modes.

Forty-eight two-person teams communicated through channels simulating various modes of telecommunication teletypewriter, telephone, and closed-circuit television, and, as a control, face-to-face conversion. Each team was required to solve one of four problems. Two cooperative proplems, a class scheduling and a geographic orientation problem, required the mutual exchange of factual information to reach the unique problem solution. Two conflictive problems, an issue ranking and a budget negotiation problem, were formulated to engender contention between the two team members. Performance was assessed on three classes of dependent measures time to solution, behavioral measures of activity, and measures of verbal productivity.