H. 11 Making Decisions

Question 1

Functional theory of group decision making (4)

Answer 1

1. Oriental phase
2. Discussion phase
3. Dicision phase
4. Implementary phase

Question 2

Functional theory of group decision making
1. Oriental phase
> shared mental model

Answer 2

stating the goals and objectives, accounting for timing

→ shared mental model: knowledge, expectancies, and other cognitive representations that group members have in common. Plans are important: they are what makes the difference between successful and non-successful groups.

Question 3

Functional theory of group decision making

2. Discussion phase

Answer 3

communication between people to share information about a certain goal (solving problems, making decisions, mutual understanding).

Question 4

Functional theory of group decision making
2. Discussion phase
> Collective Information Processing Model

Answer 4

general theoretical explanation of a group’s decision that assumes that groups used the communication and discussion between the members to collect and process the needed information and to use it to make decisions and choices with it.

Question 5

Functional theory of group decision making
2. Discussion phase
> Collective Memory
> Trans-active Memory Processes

Answer 5

• Collective memory: shared reservoir of information that is located in the memory of two or more members.
• Trans-active memory processes: increase the
  group’s capacity to store the information and to apply it by dividing the data between the members.

Question 6

Functional theory of group decision making
2. Discussion phase
> Cross-cuing

Answer 6

Cross-cuing: process that prevents that when a member says something the memory of another is adapted. (retrieval cues for information that others might posses in the group – can improve the retrieval of memories, but can block them as well!)

→ time spend discussing correlates with the quality of the decision of the group.

Question 7

Functional theory of group decision making
3. Decision phase
> Social Decision scheme

Answer 7

phase in which the decision is made.

Social decision scheme: group’s method to transform the individual input into one single decision, often also implicit.

Question 8

Functional theory of group decision making
3. Decision phase
> Deligating
> Averaging
> Voting
> Reaching Consensus
> Crowd Sourcing

Answer 8

• Delegating: When the decision is a pointed to certain individuals, authority, expert(s) or an oligarchy (coalition speaks for the group).
• Averaging: middling through individual preferences (mathematical formulation). Often very accurate, but often without discussion (and thus without accompanying advantages, but no bias and inaccuracy), and members can have the feeling that their decision doesn’t matter much.
• Voting: voting to make a decision, often the majority rule, sometime the two-third majority rule, Borda count method (when some alternative get more points when they are perceived as being more important) and the veto-schema.
• Reaching consensus: unanimous decision, where everyone agrees with the decision. Needs a lot of time, and can cause wrong decisions.
• Crowd sourcing: Obtaining information, guesses, ideas and the service of a high number of individuals, often via the internet.

Question 9

Functional theory of group decision making

4. Implementation phase (2)

Answer 9

phase in which the plan is put to work, and in which it is evaluated whether the decision was of a good quality. Sometimes it depends on the truthfulness of the criticism (social justice), two forms of justice on which implementation depends:

• Distributive Justice
• Procedural Justice

Question 10

Functional theory of group decision making
4. Implementation phase (2)
> Distributive Justice
> Procedural Justice
> Voice Effect

Answer 10

• Distributive justice: how rights, sources, and costs are divided and appointed to members, and how honest this division is.
• Procedural justice: receive honesty from the used methods to make decisions and to choose the sources (usage of honest and impartial procedures).
  → This works in the best way when the decision is consistent, without self-interest, based on accurate information, with the possibility to improve the decision, where the interests of all the parties is represented according to moral and ethical standards.
• Voice effect: being more involved with the implementation when individuals have the idea that their ideas and opinion had a voice in the case.

Question 11

Normative Model of Decision Making (5)

Answer 11

model to determine when groups need to be used, and when they have to be avoided (depends on the situation).
Identifies five basic types:
1. deciding,
2. consulting (leader shares a problem with the individual members or with the group),
3. facilitating (analysis of the problem) and
4. delegation (group reaches a decision without the leader, the leader facilitates support, clearity and sources).
> It depends on the situation which of the five types should be used.

Question 12

Planning fallacy

Answer 12

Inclination of individuals and groups to underestimate the time, energy and sources that are needed for some project. There are also often miscommunication and mistakes in a group.
Meetings are essential to make decisions, but when there are too many, they become boring, uninteresting and inefficient. Thus, one can better have less meetings, because this increases their quality.

Question 13

Parkinson’s Firs Law
vs
Second Law of Triviality

Answer 13

Parkinson’s first law:
the task will expand to fill the time needed for its completion.

Second law of triviality:
the time that a group spends discussing will be the exact opposite of the time needed for the number of consequences of the case.

Question 14

Discussion to avoid making a decision
> Procrastination
> Bolstering
> Denying Responsibilty
> Muddling through
> Satisicing
> Trivializing the Discussion

Answer 14

• Procrastination: delay of decision
• Bolstering: making a decision quickly and randomly without thinking it through, and then strengthening this decision by exaggerating the positive outcomes.
• Denying responsibility: avoidance of taking responsibility by letting the decision be made by a subordinate or just someone else.
• Muddling through: considering only a small number of alternatives
• Satisficing: to accept an easy solution with a low risk instead of searching for the best solution;
• Trivializing the discussion: taking too much time for trivial issues and not for the important ones.

Question 15

Shared information bias
> Definition?
> Leads to which effect?

Answer 15

being preoccupied with the shared information for too long during the discussion, which results in the common knowledge effect (often because of little time). Hidden profile is only found when unshared information is shared (new information for the majority).
Can be avoided by discussing the decisions for a long time → ensures more room to share new information.

Question 16

Group decision support systems (GDSS)

Answer 16

more elaborately categorizing the total amount of information, and distributing this collectively.
In this way the group has access to databases, search-machines to localise the information, communication-tools to send the messages to individuals, and shared writing areas which allows the projects to be thought-true etc.

Question 17

Three possible biases (Kerr et al.)
1. Sins of commission

> Belief Perseverance
Sunk Cost Bias
Extra-evidentiary Bias
Hindsight Bias

Answer 17

1. Sins of commission
   Using the information for the wrong goal:

• Belief perseverance: trusting on inaccurate information.
• Sunk cost bias: maintaining the direction of the action taken in the first step. Time and money are already spend, thus the project is kept on (even when it leads nowhere).
• Extra-evidentiary bias: neglecting the information given beforehand
• Hindsight bias: inclination to overestimate someone’s earlier knowledge.

Question 18

Three possible biases (Kerr et al.)
2. Sins of ommission

> Base Rate Bias
Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 18

2. Sins of ommission
   Missing important information

• Base rate bias: failing to give some attention to information of general inclinations (base rate)
• Fundamental attribution error: not linking the situation, but the characteristics of the person to someone’s behaviour.

Question 19

Three possible biases (Kerr et al.) 
3.	Sins of imprecision
> Availabilty Heuristic
> Conjunctive Bias
> Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 19

3. Sins of imprecision
   unjustly following the rules of thumb/the heuristics to simplify the decision.

• availability heuristic: Basing the decisions on the available information.
• conjunctive bias: not recognizing that the probability of two situations that happen together is smaller than when only one situation were to happen.
• Representativeness heuristic: being absurdly dependent on clear but misleading aspects.

Question 20

Disfunctional post-decision-inclinations

Answer 20

Not acknowledging the responsibility that accompanies decisions.

Question 21

Disfunctional post-decision-inclinations
> Group Serving Attributions
      o	self-serving
> Abilene Paradox
      o	pluralistic ignorance and entrapment
      o	high sunk costs

Answer 21

• Group serving attributions: blaming failures and mistakes on external factors;
  o self-serving: the denial of all personal responsibility, but claiming all the credit for success.
• Abilene Paradox: The inclination that goes against your intuition, where a certain action is chosen that no one would want individually
  o pluralistic ignorance and entrapment: when a group has total commitment to a plan too soon and keeps on investing even through there are high sunk costs (where someone often has already done so much, that he or she refuses to stop). Investment thus have already been made and the project continues, even though it will lead to nothing.

Question 22

Group’s polarisation

Answer 22

inclination of the group’s members to take a more extreme position in the direction of the preference of the majority of the members before the discussion. Discussion goes from the centre to the extremes.

Question 23

Group's polarisation:
> Risky Shift Effect
> Choice Dilemma Questionnaire
> Social Comparison
> Persuasive-arguments Theory
> Social Identity
> Polarisation (effects)

Answer 23

• Risky shift effect: Group-decisions are more risky than the decisions made by individuals.
• Choice dilemma questionnaire: self-report to measure the readiness to make risky decisions. (a number of scenarios are sketched)
• Social comparisation: When individuals discuss opinions in a group, they move into the direction that they think is consistent with the values of the group (or culture).
• Persuasive-arguments theory: an explanation of the polarisation in groups that assumes that group members change their opinions during discussions and that in general the majority follows (because the group dispenses more arguments for that position).
• Social identity: changing your position when you know the position of others (but not their arguments).
• Polarisation: The collective effort of a group can increase when individual optimists come together to obtain success. Sometimes it causes mistakes and bias, but it can also have a positive impact on the groups and members.

Question 24

Janis’ theory of groupthink

> 3 antecedents

Answer 24

1. Cohesiveness
   Decision makers ensure that the group is cohesive (members don’t want to argue back), friendship comes first, and the relations with others are most important → no more internal disputes
2. Structural mistakes of the group or organisation (style of leadership, isolation of the group)
3. Provocative situational context (stress of external sources, low self-esteem) causes group thinking.

Question 25

3 Symptoms of group thinking

Answer 25

• overestimation of the group (illusion of inviolability/morality)
• closed-mindedness (collective rationalisations, stereotyping)
• Pressure for uniformity (self-censorship, illusion of unanimity, pressure, mindguards: making sure that the group gets no information that take away the trust in a plan or leader.

Question 26

3 Symptoms of defect in decision making

Answer 26

• Neglect in the research into objectives and alternatives.
• Bad information research
• Mistakes in the processing of information and decision forming.

Question 27

o Group-centrism

o Cognitive Closure

Answer 27

Group-Centristm: syndrome on group’s level caused by the excessive efforts of the members to maintain their group’s unity and to encourage, what results in disrupting the relations between members and the capacity to make decisions. The members often make haste in making the decision and use inefficient information.

They also strive for cognitive closure: the desire to make a definitive decision (quick and complete), no insecurity, confusion or ambiguity.