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Group Decisions Many of the most important decisions in a society are made by
people working together in groups. Group polarization
One common belief is that group-based decisions are better because radical ideas are likely to be rejected, or at least moderated, by the rest of the group, resulting in a less risky or extreme decision. Imagine, for example, that you were accused of a crime (falsely, of course) and your case was being tried in a criminal court. Would you want a single person to decide your fate, or would you feel more comfortable with a jury of twelve people making that judgment? Many people would feel that a decision made by twelve jurors is more likely to be fair (or at least less risky for the defendant) than a decision rendered by a single juror. In 1961, James Stoner, then a graduate student at MIT, wanted to test the notion that group-based decisions are safer. Stoner asked fellow students to read twelve stories about people who were faced with difficult dilemmas. In each story, the characters could choose a course of action that might be highly rewarding, but which exposed them to a certain amount of risk. For example, the character might have to decide whether to move to a new but uncertain job, or to stick with a stable but less rewarding job. Stoner's readers were first asked individually what odds of success they would require before advising the character to take the new, riskier job. They were then asked to discuss the dilemmas in groups of four or five people until they reached a group decision acceptable to everyone. To Stoner's surprise, when he compared the recommendations made by individuals to the recommendations made by the groups, he found that the groups were actually more likely to recommend the risky course of action.. But group decisions are not always more risky than individual decisions. McCauley and colleagues <REF>(1973), for example, brought gamblers together at a racetrack and offered to place a bet on whatever horse the group picked. Although as individuals the gamblers tended to prefer the "long shots" that came with low odds of winning but high payoffs, as a group they usually agreed to be bet on the horse that was the favorite in that race (the one that had the best odds of winning but would also have the lowest payoff). So what is going on? Does group discussion make people risky or cautious? Three decades of subsequent research have shown that when people discuss issues in a group, they often end up taking a more extreme position than they would have without such discussion. In a process known as group polarization, <glossary term> members move away from a neutral position toward a more radical one <REF>(Kerr, 1992). Sometimes this movement is in the direction of caution, other times it is in the direction of risk. Group polarization is not limited to discussions of risk. Consider a study by David Myers and George Bishop <REF>(1970) in which they first surveyed a number of high school students and classified them according to their degree of racial prejudice. The researchers then arranged for groups of these students to get together and discuss several racial issues. Highly prejudiced students met with other prejudiced students, while the less-prejudiced students talked things over with others who were similarly tolerant. The degree of group polarization was dramatic. Students who were prejudiced to begin with became even more biased after the group discussion; students who were initially not very prejudiced became even less racially prejudiced after the discussion.
Why does group polarization occur? The most popular explanations focus on two processes that can occur in groups: informational influence and normative influence. |
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For example, innocence or guilt in a criminal trial is determined
by the decision of jury members. Cabinet members meet and make
policy recommendations to the President. Congressional committees
debate the merits of new legislation. Our dependence on group
decision making stems partly from a widely held belief that decisions
made by groups will be better than decisions made by individuals.
As we will see, although the group-based decisions are often different
from individual-based decisions, they are not necessarily better.
