Chapter Six: Group Discussion: Defective Decision  Making and Problem Solving



Decision: a choice between two or more alternative.
Problem solving necessitates decision making, but not all decision making involves a problem to be solve.

Information: The Raw Material of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking requires group members to analyze and evaluate ideas and information in order to reach sound judgments and conclusions.
Faulty information processing by a group will likely lead to low-quality decisions but sound information processing will likely lead to high-quality decisions.

Information Overload-Scope of the problem-Consequences
A single edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to be exposed to in an entire life time in seventeenth -century England.

In a survey of  business managers---
43% of senior managers claimed that information overload made them ill.
46% claimed that they work longer hours just to keep up with the flood of information
61% believe that they receive too much information

Consequences of information overload are--
It impedes critical thinking (example the McMartin preschool case)
Promoted indecisiveness
Information bulimia-binge and purge process of information processing.
(Like the brain dump that occurs after a big exam)
Group Attention Deficit Disorder -it is hard to focus on any one thing


Closer Look: The McMartin Preschool Case--The case of alleged child cult molestation overwhelmed jurors in a 1 year trial.  63,000 pages of testimony, 917 exhibit, 65 charges, 200 children filed suit.

Closer Look: Technology and the Bias of Speed- Technology that was supposed to save us time has accelerated the pace of our lives. "Technology reduces the amount of time it takes to do any one task, but also leads to the expansion of tasks people are expected to do."


Coping with information overload
Screen information- limit exposure to information
Shutting off the technology- turn off your cell phone
Specialization- know a lot about a little
Selectivity- attend to information that related directly to group goals and priorities
Limiting the Search-set time for searching and time for deciding
Pattern recognition-chunk information into meaningful units.


Information underload
Information underload is usually a problem of too much closedness in a system,
Subordinates usually complain that Supervisors do not provide enough job related information

Mindsets: Critical Thinking Frozen Solid
Perpetual mindsets (bias, preconceptions, and assumptions) interfere with effective group decision making and problem solving.

Confirmation Bias is a tendency among all of us to seek our information that confirms our beliefs and attitudes and to ignore or distort information that contradicts our currently held beliefs and attitudes
The perpetuation of unwarranted beliefs is the natural result of confirmation bias.
The competent communicator combats the problem of confirmation bias as follows:
Seek disconfirming information and evidence
Vigorously present disconfirming evidence to the group
Play devil's advocate.
Gather allies to help challenge confirmation bias.

False Dichotomies-either-or thinking is the tendency to view the world in terms of opposites and to describe this dichotomy in the language of extremes: rich/poor  good/bad  honest/stupid  success/failure

The competent communicator combats the problem of false dichotomies in small groups as follows:
Be suspicious of absolutes
Employ the language of qualification  (Aviad wishy-washy fence straddler language )
Do use most, rarely, mostly, occasionally

Closer Look: Brown Eyes versus Blue Eyes: We versus us/ superior versus inferior false dichotomies.

Collective Inferential Errors: Uncritical Thinking
Inferences are conclusions about the unknown based on the known.
The principal problem with inferences is that e too often assume inferences are mere description of fact even when they rest on insufficient or faulty information.
Felix Unger in The Odd Couple said, "To assume is to make an ass out of u and me."

Prevalence of the problem
Group polarization - When a group exhibits a predominant initial tendency, group discussion seems to amplify the initial position of the group members, If the inference is a bad one, the group may engage in collective misjudgment.
As many as half of a group's decision statements may be inferences.

Closer Look: The uncritical Inference test: True false of ?


General sources of inferential errors
Two types of inferential errors are
Faulty or misinformation base--drawn from poor information
Limited information base-
The problem is that we are prone to make inferences based on extremely limited or faulty information without ever realizing that we've made a guess, and not identified a fact.

Closer Look:  The Blandina Chiapponi Case: A woman raped, the jury acquitted, one juror said she dressed as if she wanted it, people became angry at jury without all the information

Specific sources of inferential errors
Vividness: Graphic, outrageous, shocking and controversial things stick in our minds.
After Columbine, people believed youth violence was worse than it really is
Unrepresentativeness: One person's opinions represents the group's
Correlation: (post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) people often assume causation from a correlation


Error correction:  Practicing critical thinking
One person can affect the entire system.
Communication competence can be contagious.


Groupthink:
Groupthink is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when member's striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.
Cohesiveness and concurrence-seeking are the two central features of groupthink.
A group does not have to display all the symptoms to experience the poor quality decisions that accompany full blown groupthink

Symptoms of Group Think
Overestimation of the Groups Power and Morality
"The illusion of invulnerability"
The unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group
close-mindedness
Rationalizations that discount warnings or negative information
Negative stereotyped views of the enemy
Pressures toward Uniformity
Members engage in self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity is fostered
Direct pressure is applied to deviants
Self-appointed mindguards protect the group from adverse information that might contradict shared illusions.

Preventing groupthink: Promoting vigilance
Members must recognize the problem of groupthink as it begins to manifest itself.
The group must minimize status differences.
"Staff members seldom criticize what the boss has endorsed.
Seeking information that challenges an emerging concurrence
Develop the norm that legitimizes disagreements during discussion sessions.
Have a devil's advocate
Institute a dialectical inquiry- a subgroup develops a counterproposal and defends is side by side with the initial proposal.
Assign a group member the reminder role-- reminds against bias and group think.


TROUBLE WITH GROUPS
Groupthink occurs when groups let the desire for consensus override careful analysis and reasoned decision making. (Janis 1972)
Group members think the group and its members are invulnerable to dangers.
Members create rationalizations to avoid dealing directly with warnings or threats.
Group members believe their group is moral
Those opposed to the group are perceived in simplistic, stereotyped ways.
Group pressure is put on any member who expresses doubts or who questions the groups’ arguments or proposals
Group members censor their own doubts.
Group members believe all members are in unanimous agreement, whether such agreement is stated or not.
Group members emerge whose function is to guard the information that gets to the other members of the group, especially when such information may create diversity of opinion.

Test to see if your group experiences Groupthink...
Have you ever felt so secure about a group decision that you ignored all the warning signs that the decision was wrong? Why?
Have you ever been party to creating a rationalization to justify a group decision? Why?
Have you ever defended a group decision by pointing to you group's inherent sense of morality?
Have you ever participated in a "we-versus-they" feeling---that is, in depicting those opposed to you in simplistic, stereotyped ways?
Have you ever applied direct pressure to dissenting members in efforts to get them to agree with the will of the group?
Have you ever applied direct pressure to dissenting members in efforts to get them to agree with the will of the group?
Have you ever served as a "mind guard"--that is, have you ever attempted to preserve your group's cohesiveness by preventing disturbing outside ideas or opinions from becoming known to other group members?
Have you ever assumed that the silence of the other group members implied agreement?

Group leaders can prevent Groupthink by:
encouraging members to raise objections and concerns;
refraining from stating their preferences at the onset of the group's activities;
allowing the group to be independently evaluated by a separate group with a different leader;
splitting the group into subgroups, each with different chairpersons, to separately generate alternatives, then bringing the subgroups together to hammer out differences;
allowing group members to get feedback on the group's decisions from their own constituents;
seeking input from experts outside the group;
assigning one or more members to play the role of the devil's advocate;
requiring the group to develop multiple scenarios of events upon which they are acting, and contingencies for each scenario; and
calling a meeting after a decision consensus is reached in which all group members are expected to critically review the decision before final approval is given.



Group Think:
 The Space Shuttle

Gouran, Dennis & Randy Hirokawa, and Amy Martz. A Critical Analysis  of Factors Related to the Decisional Processes Involved in the challenger Disaster. Central States Speech Journal FaII1986 page 119-135.

     "On Jan 28, 1986 the highly successful American Space Shuttle Program tragically ended 73 seconds into launch. One of several missions involving civilian personnel, the flight of Challenger was to symbolize the inseparability of space exploration and the future of education. Instead, Millions of people sat witness to a tragedy that was to become the most significant setback in the history of the United States space program and one that would quickly attract the label 'The Challenger Disaster' ."
     Within days, President Reagan appointed a commission to determine the cause of the accident The Commission conducted an extensive investigation. "Its inquiry produced the finding that the primary cause of the accident was a mechanical failure in one of the joints of the right solid rocket booster, in which and O-ring malfunctioned ."
     "The Commission discovered that what proved to be the cause of the accident had been,. in some quarters, a continuing concern, especially in the several months immediately prior."  "Members of the Commission appropriately concluded that there was a contributing cause-'FLAWS IN THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS. and that the accident was rooted in history."
     "Numerous opportunities to prevent the launch presented themselves in the 20 hours that preceded; but on each occasion, one or more influences surfaced and reduced the chances for altering the collision course upon which NASA had set itself.
Perceived pressure to produce a desired recommendation and concurrence with those initially opposed to the launch.
An apparent unwillingness by several parties to violate perceived role boundaries
Questionable patterns of reasoning by key managers
Ambiguous and misleading use of language that minimized perception and risk
A frequent failure to ask important questions relevant to the final decision

" A simple act of disagreement.. was to undermine the respect which NASA had achieved and which it must now struggle to regain. "


The Ersatz Decision also known as the Abilene Paradox (Harvey, 1974) is called the fake decision. An entire group decides to do --and did--something that nobody wanted to do.

Metafile Companion Picture (32-bit)

"Organizations frequently take action contrary to the desire of any of the members."  

The ability to manage agreement.  It happens because of :
Action anxiety
Negative fantasies (fear of separation)
Scapegoat (placing blame)
Solution:
Own up to your own beliefs and feelings