Transcript Decision Making in Groups

Decision Making in
Groups
Outline
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Why make decisions in groups?
Activity
Information sharing in groups
Activity
Group polarization
Why Make Decisions in Groups?
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1) More knowledge, more ideas, better memories
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2) Evaluate opinions better, catch errors.
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3) Have standards for making decisions
 Social decision schemes:
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The process by which individual inputs are
combined to yield a group decision
4) Can hide from individual responsibility
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Group Decision Making Exercise
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Group Decision Making Activity
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Crime on Sesame Street
Who dunnit?
Exercise Instructions
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Instructions
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INDIVIDUALLY read through the scenario and
all of the evidence
INDIVIDUALLY make your decision as to who
committed the crime
As a GROUP discuss the case and
unanimously agree on who committed the crime
Are Group Decisions Always Good?
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Of course not.
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Why do groups sometimes fail?
Information Sharing Problems in
Groups
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Fail to pool unshared information effectively
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Tendency to oversample shared information
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This tendency is exacerbated in tasks without
‘correct’ decisions
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Leaders can prompt members to revealed
unshared information
Group Decision Making Exercise
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INDIVIDUALLY, read the scenarios and check
the solution you favor.
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As a GROUP, discuss the scenarios and
reach an unanimous opinion on each of them.
Group Decision Making Exercise
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Examine your scores:
 1. Calculate your score prior to the discussion by
summing your odds and dividing by 3.
 2. Calculate your group’s prediscussion average
score.
 3. Compute your group’s postdiscussion score.
 4. Draw a diagram of your group indicating the
location of each person, the group’s prediscussion
score, and the discussion score along a continuum
from risk to caution.
Groups: Moderating or Polarizing?
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Common belief:
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Groups exert a moderating effect on their
members
Groups more moderate decision makers than
individuals
But then…
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In the early 1960s researchers questioned this
assumption
Risky Shift Research
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Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire (CDQ)
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12 life-situation problems involving a central
person with a choice between more or less risky
courses of action.
The participant's task is to choose the lowest
likelihood of success he or she would demand
before recommending the risky alternative.
SS complete the CDQ alone, after
discussing it with a group, and again alone
Risky Shift Research
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Comparing individual responses to group
responses:
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SS generally advocated riskier decisions in
groups!
This change carried over to later individual
choices
This is the RISKY SHIFT
Risky Shift Research
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Researchers found risky shifts on many
attitudes, beliefs, values, judgements and
perceptions.
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Some researchers found a different kind of shift:
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Shift toward caution
Risky shift is part of a larger process!
Group Polarization
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Discussion leads to group polarization:
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Judgments made after group discussion will be more
extreme in the same direction as the average of
individual judgments prior to discussion.
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The direction of the polarization depends on the
group members’ original viewpoints.
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Thus, before we can predict how the discussion will
polarize the group, we must know the initial
opinions of the members.
Group Polarization
Risky Shift
Cautious Shift
1
Risk
5
7
3
A
B
9
C&D
E
F
Caution
Why?
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Why do we shift our judgments to match
the position that our group initially values?
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Two theoretical explanations:
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Persuasive arguments theory
Social comparison theory
Persuasive Arguments Theory
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After discussion, we can generate more
arguments favoring the more valued
alternative.
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With the CDQ, arguments favoring risk rather
than caution are more plentiful.
Social Comparison Theory
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During group discussion people actively
compare themselves with others
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When they discover that some members of the
group have stronger attitudes than they do, they
begin endorsing more extreme positions.