The study described in this article examined the integrative complexity of shared conceptualizations of group culture: how they can be distinguished from member cognitions about group culture and how they affect taskperformance over time. Twenty-two workgroups wrote weekly essays about their collective activity over a 12-week period. Group members first wrote independent accounts and then collaborated to create a single group account of their activity during that week During thefirst 5 weeks of that period, the integrative complexity of group essays was not significantly differentfrom that of average individual essays but was significantly lower than that of essays written by the highest complexity members. During the last 5 weeks, the level of group complexity increased at a greater rate than either the average orhighest individual levels, until it was significantly greater than that of the average individual and statistically equivalent to that of the highest member The results also supported the notion that the relation of integrative complexity-at the group level-to the quality of decision outcomes depends on the nature of the task Taken as a whole, these findings support the developing notion that thoughts and ideas can be conceived as collective, rather than purely individual, phenomena.
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