Decision-making

Question 1

Decision-making in groups leads to what?

Answer 1

often to better results

Question 2

What is the ODDI model? What happens if it’s not followed?

Answer 2

The usual sequence of making decisions as a group:
orientation, discussion, decision, implementation

Groups that fail to follow this sequence tend to do worse.

Question 3

The orientation phase of ODDI is concerned with what?

Answer 3

concerned with the questions of what the goal is and what means are to be used to reach the goal

Question 4

What is goal clarification? What is goal path clarification?

Answer 4

Goal clarification looks at the group’s overall mission, problems, and criteria when setting a particular goal

Goal path clarification specifies tasks and sub-tasks, organizing roles

Question 5

Which phase is most often neglected by groups in decision-making? Why?

Answer 5

The orientation phase is the one most often neglected by groups and is often the best predictor of which groups succeed and which groups fail.

Planning of this sort is not a popular task.

Question 6

What is the planning fallacy?

Answer 6

the tendency to severely underestimate the time needed

• people often underestimate how long a given task will take

Question 7

The discussion phase of ODDI can be thought of as what?

Answer 7

a form of collective information processing

Question 8

What are the two types of memory that groups have to work with during the discussion phase?

Answer 8

Collective memory is memory that is held by at least two group members (often because the one person who knew the information shared it).

Transactive memory is the way we describe the distribution of memory across multiple members.
This is often done deliberately, as different group members become specialists in different types of information.

Question 9

What is cross-cuing?

Answer 9

Cross-cuing is the process by which comments by one group member may jog the memory of another group member.

Question 10

Discussion is a way of doing what?

Answer 10

enhancing memory; it also allows expressions of opinion, persuasion attempts, attempts at orientation, and expressions of emotion and solidarity.

Question 11

What is one thing that discussion is especially good at pointing out?

Answer 11

detection of errors – can be good and can also lead to conflict

Question 12

Nominal groups often do better than real groups when recalling what? Why is this?

Answer 12

unorganized information

transactive memory is far from perfect

Question 13

What is a downside to discussion? Why does this occur?

Answer 13

Misunderstandings are often common in groups, due both to poor communication by senders and poor decoding by receivers.

Question 14

What are the most common problems with meetings?

Answer 14

poor meeting planning, lack of skill in communication, egocentric behaviour, low engagement, getting sidetracked, interruptions, inadequate leadership, negative emotions, and lack of follow-up

Question 15

The decision stage of ODDI is determined by what?

Answer 15

Social decision schemes determine how the group arrives at a decision.

Question 16

What are the four social decision schemes for making a decision?

Answer 16

Averaging

Voting (majority or supermajority)
People can feel alienated if they are on the wrong side of close votes, especially if it happens repeatedly.

Consensus
This is less likely to alienate people but can be very time-consuming.

Delegating
One person (often the leader) or a subcommittee makes the decision.

Question 17

What is a majority vote? What is a supermajority vote?

Answer 17

Majority is 50% plus one

Supermajority is another threshold that is previously agreed upon (e.g., 60%)

Question 18

Why is consensus so time-consuming?

Answer 18

• if there is no consensus, a subcommittee is formed with a few that have voted and then they return to the main group with recommendations / proposals - then another vote is taken, etc.

Question 19

What does the implementation phase entail?

Answer 19

Implementation includes not only putting the plan into action but also evaluating the consequences.

Question 20

Implementation tends to be more successful when what happens?

Answer 20

When the plan is perceived to be fair by the group.

Question 21

What is distributive justice? What is procedural justice?

Answer 21

Distributive justice concerns the distribution of costs and benefits.

Procedural justice relates to how the outcome was arrived at.

Question 22

People are generally more willing to buy into a plan and implement changes when what occurs?

Answer 22

People who are involved in implementing changes generally buy in more than people who just have them imposed from above.

Question 23

Why is evaluation an important part of the implementation process?

Answer 23

Evaluation is often neglected but it can be important (especially in the case of failure) so that the group can learn to do better next time.
Nevertheless, this process is often done in a haphazard way or skipped altogether.

Question 24

What are the three general categories of decisional biases?

Answer 24

Sins of commission: Misusing information.

Sins of omission: Failing to seek or use relevant information.

Sins of imprecision: Engaging in heuristic processing - - taking quick, cognitive shortcuts instead of going into it in some detail

Question 25

When making decisions, just like individuals, groups are at risk of what kind of bias? What are three ways to prevent this?

Answer 25

confirmation bias, - tendency to seek out information that supports the point of view already taken

It is helpful to avoid stating existing opinions publicly.

It is very helpful to have a group with at least two members who dissent from the minority opinion.

Financial incentives may also help. - groups will be more accurate in decision making when they have a financial incentive to do it right (behavioural economists)

Question 26

What is shared information bias? What does it lead to? Why does it happen?

Answer 26

it is common for groups to spend most or all of their time talking about information they all know rather than about information only one or two group members possess

Doing this may increase the odds of reaching consensus.

Talking about what everybody knows may also help individuals enhance their reputations within the group.

Question 27

How can shared information bias be avoided?

Answer 27

Experienced group members also discuss more unshared information.

More time allocated to discussion may help because shared information is discussed first.

Having groups where not everybody agrees is also good.

Question 28

What is group polarization?

Answer 28

the 1960s, some findings seemed to indicate that groups tended to make riskier decisions than individuals.
Later work found that groups sometimes made cautious shifts as well. The phenomenon was therefore renamed group polarization.

Question 29

What are the three theories proposed for group polarization? Are they mutually exclusive?

Answer 29

Social comparison: People notice what direction the majority of the group is leaning, and may move in that direction in order to make a good impression on other group members.

Persuasive arguments: If the majority of a group already lean a certain way, arguments in favour of that position will naturally tend to arise more frequently.

Social identity: If people come to identify with the group, they will tend to interpret the majority opinion on an issue as being prototypical of the group and will adopt the position to be a “good” group member.

The theories are not mutually exclusive - they may all be in play at once

Question 30

What are the three main symptoms of groupthink?

Answer 30

Overestimation of the group’s invulnerability and morality

Closed-mindedness

Uniformity pressures

Question 31

What are the two forms of closed-mindedness of groupthink?

Answer 31

Collective rationalization- coming up with reasons why the flaws are not flaws

Stereotyping- “Castro is a communist, therefore he’s bad/wrong/evil” - the stereotypes kept them from realizing that the Cuban people didn’t hate him

Question 32

What are the four forms of uniformity pressures of groupthink?

Answer 32

Self-censorship - keeping your opinion to yourself because everybody else has a different one

Illusion of unanimity- it looks like everybody agrees to the same thing because no one is objecting or voicing different opinions (pluralistic ignorance)

Direct pressure to conform - overt or covert pressure

Self-appointed mindguards - individuals that decide that the leader doesn’t need to be exposed to alternate points of view

Question 33

What are three symptoms of defective decision-making associated with groupthink?

Answer 33

No survey of objectives and alternatives

Poor information search

Other information-processing errors

Question 34

What are four causes of groupthink? What is a caveat to this list?

Answer 34

Cohesiveness

Insulation of the group from outsiders

Directive leadership style

Provocative situation (especially outside threat)

Note: There are other models of faulty group decision-making. In particular, cohesion is so common that it is unlikely to be a major contributor to groupthink.

Question 35

What are three ways to prevent groupthink?

Answer 35

Limit premature concurrence-seeking - - start with keeping an open mind

Be humble, consult experts, correct misperceptions and biases.

Use effective decision-making techniques.

Question 36

What are some effective decision-making techniques that can be used to prevent groupthink? (5)

Answer 36

Analyze a wide range of courses of action.

Take all alternatives seriously.

Look at even small details of the consequences of the chosen course of action.

Make contingency plans.

Though I did not spot it in your book, designating one or two individuals as devil’s advocates can also be helpful.