What we discovered after carrying out the practical was that many of the class means changed after group discussion. Some of the probabilities changed by a small amount and others more dramatically. For situation 1 the mean only rose from 29.3 to 30, which is quite an insignificant rise. However, in situation 2 there was a large rise from 35.3 to 39.4. A change in either a cautious or a risky direction is known as group polarisation and the class data demonstrates that group discussion does affect decisions.
The class results do not clearly show whether groups are more or less likely to adopt the risky options. In three of the situations groups did decide to go for more risky options, but in the other three situations they opted for more cautious options. It was expected that a risky shift would be shown in the scenarios involving Peter, Henry and George. It was also expected that a cautious shift would be shown in the other cases of Betty and Mark situations. It is also believed the Alan situation is ambivalent. In the class results there was a risky shift in the Peter, Henry and George situations, which was expected. There was also a cautious shift in the Betty and Mark situations, which was also expected. In the case of Alan the class averages show a more cautious shift. This shift was very small, which shows this scenario’s outcome was quite ambivalent. Furthermore, some individual groups results were quite different form the average. For example, the average probability for situation 1 rose by 0.7, but group 4 shows a cautious shift of six, which is quite a significant shift. This shows that some groups were more or less cautious than the class mean suggests.
There are a number of real life implications if groups adopt risky courses of actions. As stated in the introduction, many group decisions are compromised, as there is excessive cohesiveness. Furthermore, Baron (1994) also points out that people often don’t share their information and don’t pool their expertise. In the case of juries or governments, this means the wrong decisions can be made and wrong action taken. One example of a government group adopting risky action is the American invasion of The Bay of Pigs. Forsyth (1990) states that President Kennedy had too much at stake to make the decision alone and so he formed a group to discuss the issues such as could they be certain of a victory. The risky option was to invade Cuba and the cautious route to use diplomatic means. The decision was made to invade Cuba, which showed the group had not urged restraint, but had encouraged individuals to form more extreme ideas. In this case it was both militarily and politically a complete failure. This shows that groups are not always more informed than individuals. However, this does not mean that group decisions are completely useless. Although group decisions should be treated quite cautiously, they are still affective as they do hold different opinions and ideas.
ReferencesBaron, A (1994) Social Psychology: Understanding Human Interaction (7th ed) Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Forsyth, D (1990) Group Dynamics (2nd ed) America: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Hogg, M. Vaughan, G (1998) Social Psychology (2nd ed) Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall Europe.
Stoner (1961) cited in Carlson, N. Busksit, W. Martin, G. (2000) Psychology: The Science of Behaviour. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited
Maeve Doherty
14901021
Legal, Social and Educational Sciences
PSY101
Lab Report
Group 2
Dr Norma Rainey
