Advantages And Disadvantages Of Group Decision Making

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the impact that directive leaders, participative leaders, and devil’s advocates can have on group decision making – particularly the overall quality of the final decision, the process of the group decision making, and five groupthink symptoms for decision making groups. Experimenters directly manipulated the style of leadership being applied as well as devil’s advocacy in comparison to previous studies which also separately observed these same aspects of group decision making. This experiment also included measurements of the objective and subjective outcomes of group decision making by including the quality of the decision, the amount of disagreements before a group decision was reached, and any

A non-equivalent comparison group design will be used. The design is considered a quasi-experimental design, which attempts to control for threats to internal validity (Rubin & Babbie, 2014). This design has strengths and limitations. A strength of the design is that the data can be easily collected before and after participants have completed treatment, as the design allows for a pre-test and a post-test. Results can be easily collected to explain whether treatment is effective among court-mandated offenders who have completed the programs without relapse and, consequentially, if court-mandated treatment is more effective than voluntary participation in treatment. The nonequivalent comparison group design

Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran developed the Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making theory to “offer practical advice on how participants can act to ensure better group decisions” (Hirokawa, 1999, p. 170). They believe that as long as the members in a group care about the issue and are reasonably intelligent, the group interaction will have a positive effect on the final decision. In order for a group to reach a high-quality solution, Hirokawa and Gouran believe the group 's decision-making process needs to fulfill four task requirements they refer to as requisite functions of effective decision making. "Three core assumptions define the functional perspective: (1) groups are goal oriented; (2) group performance varies in quality and quantity, and can be evaluated; and (3) internal and external factors influence group performance via the interaction process.” (Wittenbaum, 2004 p. 19).

To close the gap between actual and desired performance, decisions need to be made. Decision making involves making a selection from among alternative courses of action. Implementation and evaluation of the implementation provide feedback into the next cycle of group decision making.

This case, as well as the previous two, are prime examples of how detrimental groupthink can have on the effect of your career or the lives of several others. It may not always be easy to recognize the dangers or altercations groupthink may have, which is why you should always appoint ‘mind guards’ to contradict the decisions made within a group setting. It is always beneficial to seek an outside source for their opinion, as it may be just the idea that the group has

Decision making is affected by the Group Think because of the lack of openness that should be displayed and offered by everyone involved. The development of the organization is dependent on the ability of the group to make decisions that are thought through and not made solely on pressures and accepted or narrow minded ways that are not thought out.

A group is a set of people or things that are considered and classified together who frequently interact and mutually influence each other. Whereas each individual of a group differs greatly from one another, each member shares a common goal or expectations. Universities, for example, are groups of students who are seeking a higher education in a specific area of study. Government parties are groups of people who share certain political beliefs and seek to attain and maintain government power. Wall Street firms are comprised of highly motivated bankers who graduated from the most prestigious universities. Despite the individual differences of every member, the common goal remolds their individualism by inputting its own expectations and goals

Furthermore, research suggests that conflict in the decision making process promotes creativity amongst group members (Nemeth 1986), higher levels of commitment and satisfaction from group members (Peterson 1999), and group members become more knowledgeable about the interests of their co workers (Peterson 2007). In comparison to the first simulation, this result was evident in the second attempt. On the other hand, the decision making process was time consuming. Luckily, there were no time constraints, however, towards the end of the task, group members including myself, became tiresome and overworked. Eventually, I began to lose control of my group and those with the most useful information provided to them during the simulation began to

To add on to what Rachel said, groupthink can also occur if the leader is well respected or persuasive. It does have it pros and cons. If used properly the group can come to a solution with everyone contributing. It gives everyone of a sense if worth because they contributed. A con can be peer pressure as when everyone agrees on one solution. This leads mental inefficiency and decrease in moral judgement. As some patients may just go with everyone says in order to avoid conflict. If you want to avoid groupthink then you can have an outsider come in and question the views of the members or or assign the role of critical evaluator to each member of the group.

2 When ________ is of importance in decision making, group decisions are preferred to individual decisions.

When groups exhibit groupthink the end result is disastrous decision making. This was evident concerning the decision regarding postwar Iraq with all the looting. The self-censoring of doubts presented a false picture and only served to maintain a false unity that gave an illusion of unanimity. Placing direct pressure resulted in an estimate filled with data that was not iron clad. Instead of narrowing down on one course of action, as in

When reviewing the concepts of groupthink, it is important for one to realize that not all group based decisions are necessarily bad decisions. The concept of groupthink and the negative results that arise are based on the reality that group decisions are made without regard to alternative measures, validity of information, or risks and consequences associated with such decisions. Groupthink seems to dispatch the critical thinking skills of the individuals in the process and decisions made can have disastrous results. The following essay will discuss the results of groupthink decisions made by the United States government that lead to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as critical errors made by US command that greatly increased the impact

The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack

An important part of our learning and growing experience must stem from our ability to analyze and reflect upon the groups that we have been members in. This reflection can define our understanding of the weaknesses both in ourselves and in the others within our group; and it can help to shape the way that we act in future groups. Adjusting ourselves to compensate for our weaknesses, based upon an honest and thorough examination of our actions within a group setting, is one of most important thing for any person to do. It is only through this evaluation that we can improve ourselves and our interactions with others. This paper will examine a group that was required to make an important decision about adding a new member

Janis defines Groupthink as a "a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action" (Janis 9). Janis further states that "Groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures" (Janis 9). Groupthink can lead to bad judgments and decisions being made. It serves as a simple way to deal with difficult issues.