Decision Making In groups Flashcards
Group Polarisation
- having a group discussion strengthens the average inclination of group members
- beliefs about covid vaccine containing microchip changed after group discussion (Moscovici & Zavalloni,1969)
Myers and Bishop (1970) racial attitudes within US
- Put people with like minded views into the same group
- This increased the gap between high and low prejudice groups
Real-world examples: in group communities
Gangs (Cartwright,1975), when rivals gangs have a strong dislike towards each other, this leads to larger commitment to their ‘gang’ - involve themselves in more criminal activities
Everyday polarisation
- associate ourselves with like minded people
- read newspapers that fit our political beliefs
- Wright (2003), internet makes it much easier for small groups to rally like minded people I.e. Facebook groups2
Polarisation - Persuasive arguments theory
- group discussion is not always needed, putting arguments onto a document has the same impact
Polarisation - social comparison
- normative influence - pressure to conform to social norms
Evaluating the explanations
Self categorisation theory (SCT)
- Turner (1985)
- can become more polarised just because we value our identity and want to differ from others
- e.g. summer camp studies, one group wen around being rude and swearing so other group decided tp be classy and polite
Criticisms of polarisation research
- External validity Is weak as most studies use lab groups which means that findings can’t be applied to real world settings
‘Groupthink’
- confirming to the consensus of the group without having an opinion.
Victims of groupthink
- distorted style of thinking, where members of the group can’t make rational decisions
- causes, symptoms and treatments
Symptoms
- personal pressure i.e. loudest person in the room
- self censorship i.e. don’t want to deal with people not agreeing
- Mindguards i.e. members who remove trouble by not sharing specific ideas
- Apparent unanimity i.e. no one disagrees out loud.
- Illusion of vulnerability - group members are intelligent or well known.
- Illusion of morality - i.e. disagreeing would be not moral
- Biased perceptions
- Defective decision making, choose first solution and just think of reasons for this
Causes
Cohesiveness - don’t want to disrupt the group harmony
Isolation - don’t share decision making outside close circle
Leadership - don’t go against leader as they are respected
Decisional stress - important decisions made under stressful conditions i.e. medical decisions
Worlds worst aviation disaster
- Tenerife airport crash
- 583 passengers died
- Captain who made decision was influential leader and may hours experience
- norm is to not question captain
- decisional stress as max number of hours nearly up - have to move passengers to another plain
Challenger disaster
- 73 seconds after challenger launched, everyone died due to explosion
- meetings held regarding not launching due to high crosswinds
- engineers recommended not to launch
- Cohesive group, as worked together long time so believed in challenger
- 2 top level managers were pro launch
- isolation of experts views
- stereotyped view of engineers saying they were risk adverse
Evaluating group think research
- Bernthal & Insko, 1992 - not all forms of cohesiveness are detrimental problems mainly within friendships
- Reliance of eye witness accounts for historical events
Contemporary study (Forsyth, 2020)
- studied media reports of anti quarantine groups in the US
- Anti vaccination society formed to fight against mandatory smallpox vaccine
- many protested against covid vaccine ‘groupthink’ as shared goals and identity
stress, as illness anxiety and change to routine - top conspiracy theory included 5G mobile networks associated with covid vaccine
