Group Decision-Making

Abstract

Group decisions are ubiquitous in everyday life. Even when decisions are made individually, decision-makers often receive advice or suggestions from others. Thus, decisions are often social in nature and involve multiple group members. The literature on group decision-making is conceptualized as falling along two dimensions: how much interaction or information exchange is allowed among the group members, and how the final decision is made. On one end, group decisions can be made simply by aggregating member preferences or judgments without any interaction among members, with members having no control or say in the final judgment. One the other end, groups’ decisions can involve extensive member interaction and information exchanges, and the final decision is reached by group consensus. In between these two endpoints, various other strategies are also possible, including prediction markets, Delphi groups, and judge–advisor systems. Research has shown that each dimension has different implications for decision quality and process depending on the decision task and context. Research exploring these two dimension has also helped to illuminate those aspects of group decision-making that can lead to better-quality decisions.

Choice blindness and choice-induced preference change in groups

“…However, it was not higher than what would be expected if two independent observers had aggregated their scores, suggesting no additive effects from group membership. This result is in contrast to findings from related areas, in which groups systematically outperform the individual (Bahrami et al, 2010;Knott et al, 2007;Malcolmson et al, 2007b;Tindale & Winget, 2019). These results are promising for scaling choice blindness manipulations to larger groups, which could allow for novel ways of studying the impact of false feedback and erroneous beliefs in social settings.…”

“…In line with this, dyads have been found to outperform individuals in standard change blindness experiments, but only if they are allowed to communicate during the task (Knott, Nelson, McCroskey, & Miller, 2007). Correcting the choice blindness manipulation can be characterized as one of independent aggregation of judgments, a case where groups typically outperform individuals through 'wisdom of the crowds' effects (Tindale & Winget, 2019). In sum, we expect higher correction rates for groups compared to individuals, and we cannot a priori discount the possibility that correction levels will be so high so as to make it difficult to study preference effects in groups using it.…”

Self-induced class stratification in competitive societies of agents: Nash stability in the presence of envy

“…It is well established that people live not in isolation, but that social context influences memory, cognition and risk taking in general [ 1 – 3 ], that it leads to accountability [ 4 ] and to group decision making [ 5 ]. A key aspect of social context is the quest for social status [ 6 , 7 ], which has been modelled using several types of status games [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Group decision support systems for current times: Overcoming the challenges of dispersed group decision-making

“…The decision-making process consists in the selection of one or more alternatives as the solution for a certain problem [4]. As we have seen, most decision-making processes that occur in large organizations are performed by groups.…”

“…Today, in large organizations, most decision-making processes (strategic and operational) are carried out in a group. There are several reasons why this is so, such as: it is believed that it is possible to make better decisions in group [2,3] and the current organizational structure of organizations demand it [4]. When a decision-making process is performed in group, the chance to detect a problem is higher, and subsequently, the decision-makers can work together to find a solution for that problem.…”