Psychological entrapment in group decision making: An assigned decision rule and a groupthink phenomenon.

Abstract

This study addressed interpersonal factors affecting group entrapment and also attempted to delineate a conceptual link between collective entrapment and I. L. Janis's (1972Janis's ( , 1982 notion of groupthink. Two experiments were conducted in which 3-person groups were assigned either majority or unanimity rule as an official consensus requirement for their initial decision. It was expected and confirmed that groups whose initial decision processes were guided by unanimity rule were entrapped more often to the chosen course of action than were groups with majority rule. The results also suggested that homogeneity of members' opinions at the outset of interaction and group's rationalization norm were responsible for the observed difference. Discussion is focused on the implications of these findings for administrative decision contexts and their conceptual link to the notion of groupthink.Completing Tennessee-Tombigbee is not a waste of taxpayer dollars. Terminating the project at this late stage of development would, however, represent a serious waste of funds already invested.-Senator Sasser, November 4,1981 (Arkes & Blumer, 1985) This statement seems to illustrate most eloquently the nature of a phenomenon called entrapment. Psychological entrapment refers to a faulty decision-making process "whereby individuals escalate their commitment to a previously chosen, though failing, course of action in order to justify or 'make good on' prior investments" (Brockner & Rubin, 1985, p. 5). Delaying withdrawal from a financially failing venture and loaning additional funds to an objectively unpromising project ("throwing good money after bad") are among typical consequences of such decision-making processes. These decision-making processes are also irrational from the perspective of traditional economic theories (e.g., von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944). Classical economic theories assert that decision makers evalu-

Personnel Turnover and Team Performance

“…Most of this work has dealt with "entrapment," in which groups escalate their behavioral commitment to failing courses of action in order to justify their sunk costs (e.g., Bazerman, Giuliano, & Appelman, 1984;Dietz-Uhler, 1996;Kameda & Sugimori, 1993). The present study differed from the typical group entrapment study in two major ways.…”

“…Given that a unanimity decision rule increases group members' commitment to their decision (cf. Kameda & Sugimori, 1993) and satisfaction with it (cf. Miller, 1989), participants in our choice condition may have experienced especially strong commitment to their strategy.…”

Discrepancies and Analogies in Artificial Intelligence and Engineering Design Approaches in Addressing Collaborative Decision-Making

“…The main objective of the clearly defined collaborative decision-making process is to ensure its quality. The correlation between the formalization of the decision-making processes and its outcome has been explored and confirmed by several studies (Courtright, 1978;Kameda & Sugimori, 1993;Neck & Moorhead, 1995).…”

A student teamwork induction protocol

“…Studies in Higher Education, 40 (7), 1273-1290. http://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.879468 reach a consensus and that members should mostly agree with each other can be problematic: the group's initial unanimity about a decision can create a sense of 'group entrapment' further on, making the group members feel compelled to continue along the path of the same decision despite reasons for an alternative (Kameda & Sugimori, 1993). Therefore, to prevent the problematic group dynamics which are associated with high group cohesion, an ideal group assessment scenario should most probably involve students who are unfamiliar with each other or only acquainted as study peers.…”

“…Sub-optimal coordination in groups is a common problem (Janicik & Bartel, 2003) and involves poor synchronization between group members (Rogelberg, Barnes-Farrell & Lowe, 1992), a leadership style that is inappropriate for the task (Peterson, 1997) or poor sharing of pertinent information (Winquist & Larsson, 1998). A third source of group productivity losses is problematic group dynamics; examples are counterproductive norms or modus operandi as far as decision-making is concerned (Postmes, Spears & Cihangir, 2001) and a sense of being 'trapped' into continuing down the path of a faulty decision (Kameda & Sugimori, 1993). Certain individual differences within the group can likewise be problematic in creating group productivity losses.…”