Group Decision Foibles
As individuals our reasoning is beset with biases and cognitive errors. Making decisions as a group is often no better.
Yes, there are things we can do to vet each other, pool expertise, and offset errors when coming together. There are also, however, many new and special ways our reasoning can go astray when individual heuristics and biases combine in group settings.
In this post we’ll discuss three group decision-making foibles: pluralistic ignorance, hidden profiles, and unwarranted belief perseverance.
Pluralistic Ignorance
Researcher Todd Rose has found that our beliefs about group majority opinions are very often wrong. When enough members of a group or team misperceive its own majority position, the result is a phenomenon called “pluralistic ignorance”. Here, the shared narrative of the group no longer accurately reflects the true views or positions of its members.
This can have important implications. After all, to better get along we often place what we think our group wants above our own preferences or opinions. Thus, when enough people in a group wrongly ascribe views or beliefs to other members, pluralistic ignorance can lead to the Abilene Paradox, wherein a group democratically elects to do something most of its members do not actually support.
If this seems amazingly irrational, remember, we are tribal creatures. Fitting in and getting along is often more important than being right. This explains what Timur Kuran dubbed “preference falsification”, which is when people misrepresent their views to better align with a group. Preference falsification can further fuel pluralistic ignorance, making it easier for leaders to hide behind collective illusions and stymieing the effectiveness of any group decision-making processes.
Hidden Profiles
In group decision making we tend to focus on information that is already public knowledge and adheres to the shared narrative. This means what is discussed in a meeting will likely be what is already known and supportive of pre-discussion preferences. Novel information is both less likely to be shared and less likely to be repeated if stated. When the best path forward is undiscoverable because of information that is left unshared, this is known as a “hidden profile”.
In their 1993 paper, “The Common Knowledge Effect”, Gigone and Hastie observe that the largest determining factor of a post-discussion decision is the participants’ pre-discussion views. This means that, sadly, the actual content of a discussion is not as important as who supports what at the onset of the meeting. (Incidentally, this is why the techniques discussed here are vital.)
Unwarranted Belief Perseverance
If a belief is based on Data X, then when Data X are shown to be false, the belief should reset to its state prior to learning Data X. This…is often not what happens. Data X can be thought of as a pillar. The belief based on it is like a slab balancing on top. Once Data X are in place and the slab is supported, narratizing will often then add other “pillars”, such that if Data X are removed, the slab will remain firmly in place.
In a classic study, Anderson, Lepper, and Ross (1980) led participants to believe in a relationship between a personality trait and a behavioral outcome. After this, participants were told that the data was made up. Regardless, they still later generalized the relationship to both new people and test items, even though they were explicitly told the relationship was not real. This effect was even more evident in people who had written causal narratives explaining why the relationship “made sense”.
In short, once a narrative is in place, we may continue to use it to assess the likelihood of the events it purportedly explained—even after the data it was originally based on has been debunked. In other words, narratives make “unwarranted belief perseverance” worse. If the data discussed in a meeting are most likely to already align with the group’s shared narrative, then this will produce a disagreement deficit that makes unwarranted belief perseverance worse.
What to Do?
Instead of assuming other people’s views or preferences, check! As an old Italian saying goes, “Put the fish on the table.” If it’s left hidden, the room will eventually stink. To ensure that business decisions are based on the latest and most relevant information we need to counteract unwarranted belief perseverance. We need countermeasures against foibles such as false group consensus, anchoring and adjustment, and the confirmation bias.
Remember, facts don’t influence. Instead of debating, a smarter approach can be to incorporate better facilitation both outside and within the meeting in question. Meet with stakeholders to flesh out their various views and agendas. Gather these “relational frames” to collaboratively enrich the larger combined problem frame. Collecting this rich information up front is a preventative measure against hidden profiles.
Use artful facilitation and structured activities to better gather, organize, and leverage the group’s collective expertise in ways that offset the downsides of standard meeting discussions.
Remember that group decisions follow group discussions…and that usually means meetings. Meetings are design products. If they are poorly designed, poor decisions will result.
Until next time.