Diversity and Shared Team Mental Models in the Military

Abstract

Diversity provides a number of advantages to military teams including an increased information and experience pool for task completion as well as broader perspectives for problem solving. There can be a number of problems with diversity, however, including how team member background differences affect shared team mental models of team tasks (common knowledge, expectations, and sensemaking). This report examines a number of factors in such shared models, such as team development stages, training, task experience, and task cohesion, and presents a model of how diversity affects these factors' influence upon shared team mental models, team processes, and team performance. Recommendations follow for how the military might enhance shared team mental models in order to improve the performance of diverse teams.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA403424

Entities

People

  • Stephen B. Knouse

Organizations

  • Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Agreements
  • Applied Psychology
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Cognitive Science
  • Cohesion
  • Command And Control
  • Computer-Aided Instruction
  • Department Of Defense
  • Measurement
  • Military Operations
  • Military Personnel
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Teamwork
  • Training

Readers

  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.