Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 22, 195202 (2001)

Reections on shared cognition

JANIS A. CANNON-BOWERS1* AND EDUARDO SALAS2
1

Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, Orlando, U.S.A.

Department of Psychology, and Institute for Simulation & Training, University of Central Florida,
Orlando, U.S.A.
2

Summary

The purpose of this paper is to highlight several fundamental questions that remain regarding
shared cognition: (1) What must be `shared'? (2) What does `shared' mean? (3) How should
`shared' be measured? and (4) What outcomes do we expect shared cognition to affect? A
general and integrative description of these questions is provided. In addition, the value of
shared cognition is discussed along with recommendations for future research. Copyright
# 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction
The notion that shared cognition benets team and organizational performance has been around for
over 20 years (see Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994). In the past ten years,
interest in this concept has grown tremendously, as evidenced by this volume and the number of chapters and articles appearing about the topic. However, as we look across the body of theorizing and
empirical study, we note a number of issues associated with shared cognition that must be addressed
if the utility of this concept is to be exploited fully. Hence, our goal here is to highlight in a broad
sense several fundamental questions that exist regarding shared cognition. We will not attempt to
review or even summarize the vast literature in these areas. Rather, we seek to provide a general, integrative description of the problems we think confront the eld. In addition, as editors we take the liberty of being critics bringing attention to the crucial issues but not necessarily providing the answers
to them. Hopefully, our observations will stimulate others to conduct needed research.
As noted, we believe that several fundamental questions regarding the nature of shared cognition
still exist. These fall into four broad (and related) categories: (1) What is shared? (2) What does
`shared' mean? (3) How should `shared' be measured? and (4) What outcomes do we expect shared
cognition to affect? The remainder of this paper is organized around these issues. But before we even
address these, we thought it necessary to rst review the most fundamental question of all: what do we
gain by invoking the shared cognition construct in the rst place? We conclude the paper with recommendations for future directions.

* Correspondence to: Janis A. Cannon-Bowers, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, 12350 Research Parkway,
Orlando, FL 32826-3457 U.S.A.
E-mail: Cannon-BowJA@navair.navy.mil

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What is the Value of the Shared Cognition Construct?

To begin our discussion, we thought it valuable to rst revisit the notion of shared cognition, and its
value. In other words, is it useful to even talk about shared cognition, and if so, what does it buy us in
terms of team and organizational performance? The answer, we believe, is three-fold. First, shared
cognition has potential value as an explanatory mechanism. That is, it helps us to understand team
performance by explaining how members of effective teams interact with one another. We make this
assertion on the same basis we did ten years ago when we observe expert, high performance teams
in action, it is clear that they can often coordinate their behavior without the need to communicate
(Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993). In addition, others note that when team members share knowledge,
it enables them to interpret cues in a similar manner, make compatible decisions, and take appropriate
action (see Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994; Cooke et al., 2000; Mohammed and Dumville, 2001).
Therefore, the concept of shared cognition can help us to explain what separates effective from ineffective teams by suggesting that in effective teams, members have similar or compatible knowledge,
and that they use this knowledge to guide their (coordinated) behavior.
Once the explanatory power of the shared cognition concept is upheld, the construct has the potential to be a valuable predictive variable in teams. It should be possible, for example, to assess shared
cognition in a team and then make predictions about that team's likely effectiveness. Essentially,
shared cognition could serve as an indicator of a team's `readiness' or `preparedness' to take on a particular task. From a practical standpoint, such prediction would enable practitioners to not only identify teams with potential performance problems, but also to have insight into how they might be xed.
This leads to the third reason that the notion of shared cognition may have value, namely, it may help
practitioners to diagnose a team's problems and provide insight into how to solve them. For example, if
it is found that team members' poor communication can be attributed to a lack of shared knowledge,
practitioners could use this information as a basis to diagnose and then remediate the team's problems.
In this more practical sense, shared cognition research can help establish an understanding of the elements of effective teamwork, which can in turn lead to better interventions for improving team performance.
So, perhaps what we have done is established that the shared cognition concept has potential value.
The question then becomes are we beginning to see progress toward this goal? Unfortunately, this is
where our answer is not as optimistic as we would like. The problem seems to be that researchers have
interpreted the shared cognition label to mean so many different things, that we are not at all sure that
any two authors mean the same thing when they use it. This brings us back to the four questions posed
above. If we can begin to agree on the answers to these, then we believe that the utility of the shared
cognition construct can be realized.

What Must be Shared?

The rst question that must be addressed when discussing shared cognition is what do team members need to share? This question has been posed by others (e.g., Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994;
Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Rentsch and Hall, 1994; Cooke et al., 2000; Mohammed and Dumville,
2001) at various times, but has never been answered denitively. Our review of this question leads us
to suggest that `what is shared' falls into one of four broad categories: task-specic knowledge,
task-related knowledge, knowledge of teammates and attitudes/beliefs. Turning rst to task-specic
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knowledge, theories holding that team members need to share task-specic knowledge typically argue
that this type of shared knowledge allows team members to take action in a coordinated manner without the need to communicate overtly (e.g., see Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993). Essentially, team members act on knowledge that each holds without the need to discuss it. According to Cannon-Bowers
et al. (1993), this type of shared knowledge leads team members to have compatible expectations
for performance. In such cases, the nature of the knowledge being shared is highly task-specic; in
fact, it involves the specic procedures, sequences, actions and strategies necessary to perform a task.
For the most part, this type of knowledge can be generalized only to other instances of similar tasks.
The second category of `what is shared' we label `task-related knowledge'. This category describes
theories arguing that team members need to have common knowledge about task-related processes, but
not necessarily to a single task. For example, Rentsch and Hall (1994) argued that team members need
to have similar knowledge about teamwork (what it is, how it operates, its importance) in order to be
effective. Such knowledge is task-related in the sense that it contributes to the team's ability to accomplish the task. However, in contrast to the rst category, it is not task-specic; rather it holds across a
variety of (albeit similar) tasks. Therefore, we argue that such knowledge is task-related, but not
task-specic.
Our third category involves team members' knowledge of each other. Examples of theories
that espouse this denition include transactive memory (Moreland, 2000) and team mental models
(Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Mathieu et al., 2000). These perspectives argue that team members need
to understand each other their preferences, strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies in order to maximize performance. In addition, the transactive memory position holds that over time team members
learn the distribution of expertise within the team. This type of shared knowledge should benet task
performance by helping team members to compensate for one another, predict each other's action,
provide information before being asked and allocate resources according to member expertise. That
is, as members become more familiar with one another, they can adjust their own behavior in accordance with what they expect from teammates. For example, a `blind' or `no-look' pass in basketball
(where one player throws the ball to a teammate without looking) depends in part on the passer's
ability to predict where his/her teammates are likely to be. Understanding the idiosyncrasies of teammates can be useful in making such predictions. As with our second category, this category is also taskrelated, but not necessarily task-specic. That is, knowledge of teammates is probably useful across a
variety of tasks rather than a single task. However, in this case, the knowledge is team-specic. It only
holds when team membership remains constant.
We chose the term `shared attitudes/beliefs' to refer to the last broad category of what needs to be
shared. By this we mean theories that hold that when team members are similar in terms of their attitudes and beliefs it will cause them to have compatible perceptions about the task/environment and
ultimately reach effective decisions. Examples here include shared beliefs (Cannon and Edmondson,
2001) and cognitive consensus (Mohammad et al., 2000). This category is the broadest in the sense
that shared attitudes/beliefs are not task-specic or even task-related; rather they are more generic
in nature. They are believed to affect task performance in the sense that when team members have
similar attitudes/beliefs, they arrive at compatible interpretations of the environment, which enable
them to reach better decisions. In addition, other desired outcomes such as cohesion, motivation
and consensus are hypothesized to result.
It is probably clear at this point that the term, shared cognition does not refer to a unitary concept.
In fact, it is probably the case that some of all of the types of knowledge described in these four categories needs to be shared in effective teams. The problem is that, to date, authors have not been consistent in their denition of shared cognition, or in how it is labelled. Considering that no fewer than 20
labels have been used to describe various types of shared cognition (e.g., collective cognition, team
knowledge, team mental models, shared knowledge, transactive memory, shared mental models see
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Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994 for more) it is no wonder that clear statements of what shared cognition is and how it operates are not possible. Moreover, we contend that each of the four types of shared
cognition discussed here represents a different construct with its own nomological network (i.e., antecedents, covariates, consequences, etc.).
Turning back to the practical questions posed earlier, this lack of denitional precision presents a
problem because each type of shared cognition operates differently (which means that how it is
assessed and ameliorated is also different). Hence, the power of the construct to drive performance
improving interventions is also limited. Efforts to clarify denitional issues (and agreement on labels)
are clearly needed.

What Do We Mean by `Shared'

Another issue that cuts to the core of shared cognition is what is meant by the term `shared'. Again,
others have addressed this (e.g., Cooke et al., 2000; Mohammed and Dumville, 2001; Cannon-Bowers
et al., 1993), and we will not attempt to review the literature here. Instead, we summarize this issue by
again proposing four broad categories of what `shared' means. These are: shared or overlapping, similar or identical, compatible or complementary, and distributed.
The rst category, shared or overlapping, refers to situations where two or more team members need
to have some common knowledge. It does not mean that team members need fully redundant knowledge. A typical example here would be a surgeon and a nurse clearly they cannot be expected to have
identical knowledge, but portions of their knowledge bases need to be shared.
Our second category is similar/identical. In this case, we literally mean that team members need to
hold similar, if not identical, knowledge. This category applies most directly to shared attitudes and
beliefs that is, team members must hold similar attitudes and beliefs in order to draw common interpretations. For example, it may be the case that when all team members have a similar belief about the
value of feedback for team development, it will be better accepted by members, offered more freely
and hence, more effective. In fact, when such attitudes are not shared, resulting confusion and failed
expectations can have an obvious negative impact on performance.
While this category (similar/identical) is related to the rst (shared/overlapping), it is slightly different. The rst category implies that there is a knowledge base associated with the task, and that a
portion of that knowledge base must be common to members. In this case, we mean that certain attitudes and/or beliefs must be similar in team members to drive effective performance. The notion that
what is shared is a subset of a larger knowledge base is not the case here.
The third category that denes `shared' is complementary or compatible. As we have argued, it may
not be that team members need to have shared or similar knowledge, but that the knowledge must lead
team members to draw similar expectations for performance. This is not to say that shared or similar
knowledge will not lead to similar expectations, only that it may not be necessary. In addition, in teams
with specialized roles, it may be that compatible, but different, knowledge may be what is crucial to
task performance. An example here may be a multidisciplinary team where each member brings specialized expertise to the problem. In such a case, it might be most important that team members have
accurate expectations for themselves, their teammates and the task to guide behavior. Such expectations may be derived from dissimilar knowledge, the fact that it leads to complementary behavior
causes us to include it in our denition of shared cognition.
The nal category, distributed, refers to a different denition of the term shared (see Mohammed
and Dumville, 2001; Cooke et al., 2000). In this case, the issue is whether knowledge is effectively
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apportioned across members. In contrast to the other categories, the implication here is that team members must have adequate coverage of task knowledge. In many high performance teams, such as military combat teams, the systems and tasks are so complex, that it would be impossible for any single
team member to hold all the knowledge required to succeed. In such cases, team members' knowledge
is specialized and distributed. Importantly then, team members are forced to coordinate since task success depends on the knowledge of several members.
As was clear when discussing the nature of what is shared, it is equally evident here that the denition of `shared' is not unitary. In fact, in any given team, some knowledge will have to be shared, other
knowledge similar, and yet other knowledge distributed or complementary. Obviously, the implications of this problem for explanation, prediction and intervention (as described earlier) are extensive.
We simply must understand better what different authors mean when they use the term `shared'. We
applaud Mohammed and Dumville (2001 this volume) for attempting to dene when the term shared
means distributed and when it means overlapping. More attempts to integrate in this manner are
needed.

How Should Shared Cognition be Measured?

A third issue related to shared cognition concerns measurement. In the broadest sense, shared knowledge can be measured in two ways. The rst is by assessing the structure of team member knowledge
and the second is to measure the content of team member knowledge. Of these, the latter actually
includes many possibilities, while the former is more (conceptually at least) straightforward, but practically very difcult. On a conceptual level, it has been argued that when team members hold similar
knowledge structures, these will lead them to share knowledge during task performance (see CannonBowers et al., 1993 and Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994 for more explanation). This argument hinges
on the belief that expert knowledge is organized in a manner that supports performance. At the team
level, we extrapolate this position to hypothesize that when team members are similar in their organization of knowledge, it will enable them to generate shared knowledge during the task.
The practical problem with this position is that assessing knowledge structures is not a wellspecied activity. Others have reviewed such techniques (see Cooke et al., 2000), so we will not do
that here. Sufce to say that the psychometric properties of techniques to measure knowledge structures at the individual level, and then to assess similarity at the team level, require further attention.
The second type of measurement involves assessing the content of shared knowledge. Based on
what we have said thus far, it should be evident that there are different categories of knowledge content
that must be measured in order to assess shared cognition. These include things like: task knowledge
(both declarative and procedural), contextual (organizational) knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, teammate
knowledge, interpositional knowledge, expectations, and predictions. Moreover, how each of these is
assessed depends on the distinction made earlier. That is, is the knowledge supposed to be shared, similar, complementary and/or distributed? Hence, when measuring shared cognition not only must the
content of shared cognition be specied, but also the way it must be shared.
To complicate matters further, Rentsch and Hall (1994), as well as others (Cooke et al., 2000), have
argued that the agreement (or sharedness) of team member knowledge is only a part of the picture.
These authors argue that the accuracy of shared cognition must also be assessed. For example, two
team members may have shared knowledge, but they may both be wrong. At least in some cases, then,
accuracy becomes an issue. Obviously, it is not an issue when dealing with shared attitudes or beliefs.
However, in this case, team members may have shared attitudes or beliefs that are negative and hence
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detrimental to task performance. The point is that sharedness however it is dened is only a part of
the picture.
We conclude this section by stating the obvious better measures of shared cognition are needed. In
fact, if the measurement issue isn't solved, then the explanatory and predictive power of the shared
cognition construct is questionable. But, the measurement issue cannot be solved until we agree on
the denition and labels we use to describe shared cognition. In fact, many of the measurement issues
become less troublesome when a clear theoretical statement of the construct is available.

What Outcomes are Affected by Shared Cognition?

A nal point that we would like to make regarding shared cognition has to do with what we expect
from it. Various authors have suggested that shared cognition will lead to better task performance, better team processes, better organizational outcomes and/or more positive attitudes. The problem is that
it is not always theoretically clear why the particular relationships are hypothesized in a particular
study. Moreover, if we accept that shared cognition will lead to a host of `good things', without being
more precise and specic about what we expect to change and why, it will never be possible to use this
construct for diagnostic purposes as suggested earlier. In other words, in order for the notion of shared
cognition to be useful, it is necessary to specify when, how, why, and the conditions under which it
might affect various outcomes.
With respect to expected outcomes, we see several trends in the literature. The rst is to expect
shared cognition to lead to better task (and hence organizational) performance directly. In this case,
issues such as the accuracy, efciency, quality of output, volume, timeliness and the like are of interest.
Typically, these outcomes are expressed as being task-specic. A second perspective holds that shared
cognition leads to better team processes, which in turn lead to better task performance. In this category
we put things such as better (more efcient) communication, more accurate expectations and predictions, consensus, similar interpretations, and better coordination. All of these outcomes are taskrelated (using our earlier terminology); that is, they apply to a host of similar tasks, but are not limited
to a single task.
The last category of outcomes is more generic still. Here we include motivational outcomes such as
cohesion, trust, morale, collective efcacy and satisfaction with the team. These outcomes have a
looser association with task performance, but are generally thought to improve it. Moreover, they
should generalize across a host of tasks.
The point of this section is related to the questions posed earlier what is shared and what do we
mean by shared drive what we expect will result from shared cognition. For example, if we dene
shared cognition as being task-specic, then we would probably expect a direct impact on task performance. On the other hand, if we dene shared cognition as shared beliefs, then the impact on performance is probably indirect (through team process, for example).

Where Do We Go from Here?

Given what we have said, it is obvious that the concept of shared cognition is neither simple nor unitary. In fact, the term has been used to mean so many different things, that it may be on its way to being
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meaningless. In order to keep that from happening, we offer the following proposals. First, we recommend that when researchers are studying shared cognition that they are very specic in dening what
they think should be shared, what they mean by shared, how and what they intend to measure shared
cognition, and to what they expect it will lead. In addition, more attempts to integrate across disciplines
like the one by Mohammed and Dumville (2000) are needed. Second, we recommend that more
empirical studies be conducted in which various concepts can be tested. In particular, it would be informative to see studies that dene shared cognition in several ways in order to assess the applicability of
different aspects. By the same token, efforts to look at different tasks and task characteristics are
needed so that we can begin to associate these with shared cognition. Ultimately, it seems to us that the
type of shared knowledge required by a team is going to be task-related.
Our nal recommendation echoes that of others. We simply need better measures of shared cognition. By better we mean techniques that have acceptable psychometric properties as well as appropriate validity. In addition, it would be helpful if the measurement techniques were conceptually linked to
the denition of shared cognition being adopted by the author. Eventually, a set of sound measures
associated with each type of shared knowledge should result.
As stated at the onset of this paper, we posed a number of questions here, but did not offer many
solutions. We hope that the community of researchers working in the shared cognition area provide
those. Clearly, there is much to be gained by having a deeper and more accurate understanding of team
performance in organizations, and shared cognition holds promise as a means to accomplish this.

Author biographies
Janis A. Cannon-Bowers, PhD is a Senior Research Psychologist in the Science and Technology
Division of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD), Orlando, Florida.
As the team leader for advanced surface training research at NAWCTSD, Dr Cannon-Bowers has been
involved in several research projects directed toward improving training for complex environments.
These have included investigation of training needs and design for multioperator training systems,
training effectiveness and transfer of training issues, tactical decision making under stress, the impact
of multimedia training formats on learning and performance, and training for knowledge-rich
environments.
Eduardo Salas is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida where he also holds
an appointment as Principal Scientist for human factors research at the Institute for Simulation and
Training. He is also the Director of UCF's PhD. Applied Experimental and Human Factors Psychology
Program and Editor of Human Factors Journal. Previously, he was a Senior Research Psychologist and
Head of the Training Technology Development Branch of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division for 15 years. During this period, Dr Salas served as a Principal Investigator for numerous
R&D programmes focusing on teamwork, team training, decision-making under stress and performance assessment.

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