Social Psychology Of Group Decision Making Research Paper

Social psychologists have long been interested in processes involved in group decision making, and whether groups make better or different decisions than do individuals—it is a field with significant applied relevance. There are many different ways to approach the study of group decision making (e.g., social communication approaches, social influence perspectives), there are many different facets of group decision making (e.g., persuasion, negotiation), and there are many different group decision making phenomena (e.g., juries, groupthink). Group decision making almost always involves psychological movement of group members from a relative diversity of positions to a more consensual position or to agreement on a group position. Group decision making reduces opinion differences within groups. Group decision-making can therefore be considered a social influence phenomenon (even a conformity phenomenon) that often also involves discussion, argument, persuasion, and leadership.

1. Social Combination Models

Social combination models relate the distribution of initial opinions in a decision making group to the final group decision (Stasser et al. 1989). These models, unlike social communication models, are not really concerned with interpersonal communication processes that transform individual positions into a group decision, but rather with the decision making rules that determine how group members combine their preferences (initial positions) into a group decision— the focus is on group preferences and their change over time. There is now an array of social combination models (Baron et al. 1992). Some are complex computer-simulation models, whereas others are more immediately related to real groups.

1.1 Social Decision Schemes

Social decision schemes are explicit or implicit decision-making rules that groups can adopt to decide how to combine information into a group decision (Davis 1973). Knowledge of the initial distribution of individual opinions in the group, and what rules the group is operating under allow reliable prediction of the final group decision. These rules include: (a) unanimity—discussion pressurizes deviants to conform; (b) majority wins—discussion confirms the majority position, which is then adopted as the group position; (c) truth wins—discussion reveals the position that is demonstrably correct; (d) two-thirds majority—unless there is a two-thirds majority the group is unable to reach a decision; (e) first-shift—the group adopts a decision consistent with the direction of the first change in opinion by any member of the group. For intellective tasks (where there is a demonstrably correct solution, as in, e.g., a mathematical puzzle) groups tend to adopt the truth wins rule, and for judgmental tasks (with no demonstrably correct solution, e.g., for aesthetic preference) the majority wins rule.

Rules vary in (a) strictness—i.e., the degree of agreement required by the rule (unanimity is very strict and majority less strict), and (b) distribution of power among members—i.e., authoritarian rules concentrate power in one member, whereas egalitarian rules spread power evenly. Generally, the stricter the rule the less the power concentration—unanimity is very strict but low in power concentration, whereas two-thirds majority is less strict but has greater power concentration. The type of rule adopted can, mainly due to its strictness, influence not only the group’s decision but also members’ preferences, their satisfaction with the group decision, the perception and nature of group discussion, and members’ feelings for one another. For example, stricter decision rules can make the process of reaching final agreement exhaustive, slow, and difficult, but can enhance liking among members, and satisfaction with the quality of the decision.

1.2 Social Transition Schemes

Kerr’s (Stasser et al. 1989) social transition scheme model focuses on the actual pattern of member positions that a group, operating under a particular decision rule, moves through en route to its final decision. To track opinion transitions, member opinions are monitored during the process of discussion, either by periodically asking the discussants, or by getting them to note any and every change in their opinion. These procedures can be intrusive, and therefore one issue concerns the extent to which they affect the natural ongoing process of discussion.

2. Jury Decision Making

Social combination models have often been tested with simulated juries, as the laboratory analogue has similar characteristics to an actual jury (e.g., ad hoc collection of people who initially do not know one another). Of course, juries are important decision making groups in their own right (Hastie et al. 1983), not only because they are held up as a symbol of all that is democratic, fair and just in a society, but also because of the consequences of their decisions for defendants, victims, and the wider community. For instance, the 1992 Los Angeles riots were sparked by a ‘not guilty’ jury verdict, and the murder trial of O. J. Simpson in the mid-1990s became a national obsession in the USA. Juries are groups, and thus prey to all the consequences of group processes involved in group decision making.

Research on juries indicates that the initial majority position usually prevails in determining the final verdict. Close cases, which are associated with an even split of initial juror positions, tend to produce a hung jury. Hung juries, which are considered a relatively favorable outcome from the perspective of the defendant (the case is often dismissed), are less likely as jury size decreases from 12 to six persons, and if the decision rule changes from unanimity to some form of majority. Because jurors are instructed to presume the defendant innocent while reasonable doubt remains, juries have a leniency bias. This bias tends to surface (via acquittal) in close cases where there is an even split of opinions.

Juries are decision making groups that make a decision about a person. Thus, characteristics of the defendant and of the victim can affect the jury. Physically attractive defendants are more likely to be acquitted or to receive a lighter sentence, though biases can be reduced by furnishing sufficient factual evidence, presenting the jury with written rather than in vivo testimony, or explicitly directing the jury to consider the evidence alone. In the USA (and probably elsewhere) race can also affect the jury. Blacks are more likely to receive prison sentences, and people who murder a black are less likely than those who murder a white to receive the death penalty. Another issue is the influence of laws and penalties on the jury. Harsh laws with stiff penalties (e.g., the death penalty) tend to discourage juries from convicting. The jury foreman is important in guiding the jury to its verdict, because he she occupies the role of leader. Research suggests that the foreman is likely to be someone of higher socioeconomic status, who has had previous experience as a juror, or simply initially occupies the seat at the head of the table.

3. Risky Shift And Group Polarization

Folk wisdom has it that people in groups make inherently more conservative decisions than they do on their own—individuals are likely to take risks, while group decision making is a tedious averaging process that errs towards caution. This is consistent with traditional social psychological perspectives on conformity and group influence processes—through mutual influence, people’s attitudes tend to converge on the group mean (Turner 1991). However, under some circumstances groups can make more risky decisions than individuals. Specifically, groups that already favor risk to some extent (i.e., the mean of the members’ prediscussion opinions favors the risky pole of a decision making dimension) tend, through group discussion, to arrive at a group decision that is even more risky than the mean. This has been called risky shift. Later research showed that if the group initially favors caution then there is a cautious shift, and indeed that group decisions can be more extreme than the mean of the members’ prediscussion opinions on a range of decision making dimensions that do not involve risk or caution, provided that the group initially tends towards one direction. Hence, the effect was renamed group polarization. It is defined as a tendency for groups, as a consequence of discussion, to make decisions that are more extreme than the mean of individual members’ initial positions, in the direction already favored by that mean.

Since 1960, research has produced many different explanations of group polarization. They can be simplified to three major perspectives: persuasive arguments, social comparison cultural values, and self-categorization.

(a) Persuasive arguments theory. Focuses on the persuasive impact of novel information. A group that leans in one direction will generate, during discussion, more novel arguments favoring that direction than the opposing direction, and, because novel arguments are persuasive, will cause members to become more committed to their original position and thus the group to shift more in that direction.

(b) Social comparison cultural values. Focuses on people’s motivation to avoid social censure and to seek social approval. Group discussion reveals the group’s views, which are assumed by members to reflect what is socially desirable or culturally valued, and so group members publicly shift in the direction of the group in order to gain approval and avoid disapproval.

(c) Self-categorization theory. Argues that people in decision making groups psychologically identify with the group and use the group’s position, which is cognitively represented as a prototype, to define themselves. The prototype is formed not only to capture similarities within the group but also to distance the group’s position from outgroup or non-in-group positions. Thus, extreme groups form polarized prototypes. The process of categorizing oneself as a group member (self-categorization) causes people to conform to this prototype and, thus, produces group polarization.

4. Groupthink

Groups sometimes employ defective decision-making procedures that produce poor decisions that can have disastrous consequences. Janis (Janis and Mann 1977) coined the term groupthink to define a style of thinking in cohesive groups in which the desire to reach unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt proper rational group decision-making procedures. The main cause of groupthink is excessive group cohesiveness, but there are other factors that relate to structural faults in the group (e.g., lack of impartial leadership) and to the immediate decision making context (e.g., high stress). Together, these factors generate a set of symptoms that are associated with defective decision making procedures. For example, there is inadequate and biased discussion and consideration of objectives and alternative solutions, and a failure to seek the advice of experts outside the group. A number of American foreign policy decisions with unfavorable outcomes (e.g., the 1961

Bay of Pigs fiasco, the unsuccessful defense of Pearl Harbor in 1941) have been attributed to groupthink in Presidential decision-making committees. Groupthink is probably a lot more common than one would like to think. It is a serious pitfall of group decision making, and groups need to be particularly vigilant in order to avoid it. A special decision making procedure, called the nominal group technique, is available to help groups avoid groupthink.

5. Group Remembering And Transactive Memory

Group decision making involves collective recall of information (see Clark and Stephenson 1995). Group remembering is not simply a retrieval activity in the pursuit of veridical recall, rather it is a constructive process where comparisons among group members shape the resultant group memory. Complex ideas can sometimes be transformed through group discussion into much simpler, and thus distorted, shared knowledge—a process called social representation, that is similar to rumor transmission. Group remembering may not be more accurate than individual remembering, but may be subject to implicit or even intentional bias.

Another feature of group remembering is transactive memory. Groups often need to bring a large amount of information to bear upon a decision, and thus they develop a differentiated memory structure where individuals or subgroups specialize in different memory domains. Where this occurs people not only have to remember their own part of the puzzle, but they also need to know who specializes in what memories—they develop a transactive memory structure. Research shows that group functioning and decision making is compromised where people have not acquired a transactive memory, or where such a system has not developed in the group.

6. Intergroup Decision Making

Decision making groups often contain factional rifts. In fact, many decision making groups can be considered interactive decision-making contexts where representatives from different groups are brought together to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement (Brown 2000). In this sense, the group is actually a context for intergroup decision-making aimed at reducing intergroup conflict. Examples of intergroup decision making include negotiations between nations, hostage crises, union management confrontations, and parliament. The intergroup dimension introduces an additional dynamic to group decision making, because decision makers are charged with the responsibility to argue on behalf of their group, not themselves (Pruitt and Carnevale 1993).

When people are bargaining on behalf of groups to which they belong they tend to bargain more fiercely and uncompromisingly than if they were bargaining for themselves. The effect is enhanced when negotiators are aware that they are being observed by their constituents, either directly or through the media. This bullish strategy of intransigence is less likely to secure a satisfactory compromise than a more interpersonal orientation in which both parties make reciprocal concessions. Direct negotiation between group representatives is therefore likely to reach an impasse where neither group feels it can compromise without losing face.

To break the deadlock a third party can be recruited to mediate between the groups (Pruitt and Carnevale 1993). To be effective, mediators should have power, must be seen by both groups to be impartial, and the groups should already be fairly close in their positions. Biased mediators are ineffective because they are not trusted, and weak mediators are ineffective because there is little pressure for intransigent groups to be reasonable. Although mediators have no power to impose a settlement they can help in several important ways: (a) they can reduce the emotional heat associated with deadlock; (b) they can help reduce misperceptions, encourage understanding, and establish trust; (c) they can propose novel compromises that allow both groups to appear to win—i.e., change a zero-sum conflict (in which one group’s gains are the other group’s losses—the more one gains the more the other loses) into a nonzero-sum conflict (i.e., both groups can gain); (d) they can help both parties make a graceful retreat, without losing face, from untenable positions; (e) they can inhibit unreasonable claims and behaviors by threatening to publicly expose the group as being unreasonable; and (f) they can reduce intragroup conflict and thus help a group clarify its consensual position.

Where mediation fails, the last resort is arbitration, where a third party is invited to impose a mutually binding settlement. Arbitration can backfire because both groups adopt outrageous final positions in pursuit of a favorable compromise. One way to combat this is through ‘final-offer arbitration,’ where the third party chooses one of the final offers. This tends to encourage more reasonable final positions.

7. Motivation And Status

Group decision making is influenced by how hard members are prepared to work towards a group decision. Research on performance motivation suggests that people are often less motivated to work hard in groups than they are on their own—a phenomenon called social loafing (see Baron et al. 1992). A final aspect of group decision making is that some people have greater influence over the decision making process because they have higher status or occupy a leadership position. Research on status within groups shows that influence over group decisions and group action stems from possession of specific status characteristics, abilities and skills directly related to the group’s function, and of diffuse status characteristics, membership of social categories that have high status in society at large (see Ridgeway 2001). Finally, leadership research suggests that effective leaders are people who can instill and inspire others with their own vision for the group, so called, transformational leaders who can transform a group so that its decisions reflect the leader’s preferences.

8. Future Directions

Due to its applied relevance the study of group decision making is always popular. However there are some key directions for future research. One such direction is the study of shared cognition—how groups create shared memories and representations and influence people to think in a collective manner. Another direction is the study of how intergroup relations impact decision making in groups. And finally, the study of computer-mediated decision making by virtual groups is a new area that is already attracting great attention.

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