24.1: Group Reasoning

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Many policies are fashioned or overseen by legislative bodies, advisory panels, committees, coalitions, boards, or other groups. Under some conditions, the cognitive shortcomings of group members can be attenuated by the group, but under some conditions they are accentuated. Groups are also susceptible to biases of their own, including polarization (making a more extreme decision than group members would make individually), outgroup homogeneity (seeing other groups as more homogeneous than they really are), and such nebulous but real afflictions as Janis’ “groupthink” (which occurs when a group feels that it must be right and fails to perform a reality check).

We often feel that groups are more likely to arrive at balanced, reasonable conclusions and decisions than individuals working alone. Other things being equal, we tend to suppose that groups have the following advantages:

They typically have more information than single individuals.
More viewpoints are likely to be represented.
Problems that one person might overlook are more likely to be noticed.
They are likely to take fewer risks and make fewer extreme recommendations.

And indeed, groups often do a better job than individuals working alone. But not all the above points are true of all groups, and groups also exhibit various biases and weaknesses.