The Social Side of Decision Making
In our group for this assignment we used a few techniques to arrive at a combined agreement. Group Polarization was definitely present in this group, so was dictatorship and conformity. The group worked together verbally; since a face to face was not applicable. Moscovici & Zavalloni describe group polarization as a “tendency for a group discussion to amplify the inclinations of group members.” (Moscovici, S., & Zavalloni, M., 1969). Group polarization creates what Moscovici & Zavalloni call the risky shift, where group members will more likely tend to agree to disagree and take more risks than if the member of the group were to be working alone independently. When people are in a group they are more …show more content…

However, with all this said, there was one instance of social loafing where the member did not complete their portion on time; “individuals are less likely to help as the number of people in the group increases.” (Plous, 1993).
The difference between individual and group decision is making is simply produced. For an individual decision maker the individual is working alone, the presence of biases will be more present; because in groups this is diffused as the group size increases.
In a group setting however this is different. If the group does well, this it is likely that the group will claim the responsibility of the success together. If the group produces a failure this is where things change and finger pointing starts. In a group the group itself is not as willing to take the blame and whoever had the responsibility of the failed portion will get the blame instead.
Then again “group accuracy depends on a variety of factors, including the nature and difficulty of the task, the competence of the group members, the way that group members are allowed to interact, and so forth. (Plous, 1993). It was claimed by Hastie following his experiments that a group decision will more likely be accurate than if an individual were to make it alone. (Hastie, 19986). Also with a group decision process there are more skills and knowledge involved and because each person brings something different to the table the outcome can tend to be better than if it