BPS Research Digest: Is your time always running out? - BPS Research Digest

In two studies, Roger Buehler at Wilfrid Laurier University and his colleagues followed hundreds of business students as they undertook lengthy group projects. They asked the students to estimate individually how long the different project stages would take, and they also asked them to make a group estimate once they had discussed the projects together. Their estimates were compared with how long the work actually took. In a third study, hundreds of participants estimated individually, and in groups, how long a group puzzle task would take them. As a guide, they were even told how long the task had taken other groups. Findings from all three studies pointed to the same conclusion – in groups we become even more unrealistically optimistic about how long things will take us.

This rings true. We all talk like committees are time wasters and yet when we get in a group there's a psychic reward to being a positive team player.