Group Discussion Pitfalls
Groups have greater informational and motivational resources, and therefore have the potential to outperform individuals. However they do not always reach this potential. Groups often lack proper communication skills. On the sender side this means that group members may lack the skills needed to express themselves clearly. On the receiver side this means that miscommunication can result from information processing limitations and faulty listening habits of human beings.
It is also the case that groups sometimes use discussion to avoid rather than make a decision. Avoidance tactics include the following:
• Procrastination. Replacing high priority tasks with tasks of lower priority. The group postpones the decision rather than studying the alternatives and discussing their relative merits.
• Bolstering. The group may quickly or arbitrarily formulate a decision without thinking things through to completion. They then bolster their decision by exaggerating the favorable consequences of the decision and minimizing the importance of unfavorable consequences.
• Denying responsibility. The group delegates the decision to a subcommittee or diffuses accountability throughout the entire group, thereby avoiding responsibility.
• Muddling through. The group muddles through the issue by considering only a very narrow range of alternatives that differ to only a small degree from the existing choice.
• Satisficing. A combination of satisfy and suffice. Members accept a low risk, easy solution instead of searching for the best solution.
• Trivializing the discussion. The group will avoid dealing with larger issues by focusing on minor issues.
Two fundamental laws that groups all too often obey:
Parksinson’s Law: A task will expand to fill the time available for its completion. (Ex: Groups that plan to meet for an hour stay for the duration).
Law of triviality: The amount of time a group spends discussing an issue will be in inverse proportion to the consequentiality of the issue (Ex: Committee discusses $20 million stadium fund for 3 minutes).
Cognitive Limitations and Subsequent Errors Individuals in a group decision-making setting are often functioning under substantial cognitive demands. As a result, cognitive and motivational biases can often impact group decision making. According to Forsyth (2006), there are three categories of potential biases that a group can fall victim to when engaging in decision-making.
1. Sins of Commission: The misuse, or inappropriate use of information. These can include: a) Belief perseverance: when a group utilises information in their decision making, which has already been deemed inaccurate b)Sunk cost bias: when a group remains committed to a given plan of action solely because an investment has already been made in that given plan, despite its usefulness c)Extra-evidentiary bias: A group choosing to rely on information, despite being explicitly told it should be ignored d)Hindsight bias: When group members falsely over-estimate how accurate their past knowledge of a given outcome
2. Sins of Omission: The overlooking of useful information. These can include: a)Base rate bias: When group members ignore applicable information they have concerning basic trends/tendencies b)Fundamental attribution error: When group members base their decisions on inaccurate appraisals of individuals behaviour
3. Sins of Imprecision: Relying too heavily on heuristics, which over-simplify complex decisions. These can include: a) Availability heuristic: when group members rely on information that is readily available, in making a decision. b)Conjunctive bias: When groups are not aware that the probability of one event occurring will always be greater than the probability of two events occurring together. c) Representativeness heuristic: when group members rely too heavily on decision-making factors that seem meaningful, but in reality are somewhat misleading.
Indeed, in a group-decision making context, it would be beneficial for group members to be cognisant of the aforementioned biases and errors which may affect their ability to make informed and tactful decisions.
Read more about this topic: Group Decision Making
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