Group and Individual Decision Making: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Ethical Considerations

Surname 1
Name
Tutor
Course
Date
GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING
Introduction
Many essential decisions in our society are made by individuals or groups of individuals
for example governing bodies, committees, business partners, families, juries, and teams.
Experiments in different contexts show systematic differences between group and individual
decision making (Strandburg et al. 769). There exists a large literature especially in social
psychology analyzing and documenting this phenomenon, mentioning it as the ‘group shift ‘or
‘discontinuity effect’. The first part of this paper discusses the group and individual decision
making. The second part illustrates how ethical it is to influence the decision making of other
individuals.
Decision making refers to the process of making decisions or a decision, based on
selections made amongst different competing actions (Greco, Salvatore, Figueira, and Ehrgott
150). Decision making needs making a define selection between the available alternatives course
of actions. The outcome of decision making may be negative and positive as future
consequences.
Group Decision Making
Group decision making is a participatory process in which two or more individuals acting
collectively, examine situations or problems, evaluate and consider available alternative actions,
and then select a solution from among the available alternatives (Liao et al. 63). It also refers to a
situation whereby members of a group reached decision that is acceptable to every group of the

Surname 2
member. The decision made is not attributed to a single individual since all the people as well as
social group processes; for example, social influence contributes to the decision making. The
existing differences between individuals and groups decision is that Groups have a habit of
making decisions that are highly extreme as compared to decisions made by individual members.
Those that are in the group always make a decision on how they should achieve a task, select
new member or collaborate (Wu et al. 56). The members of a group are still individuals but
decisions that they make reflects mutual expectation and relationships. Nevertheless, the number
of individuals that take part in the decision-making process varies greatly but they are mostly
represented by a total of two to seven (Dong, Yucheng, Xia and Francisco 135).
Aspects
There are 2 significant aspects of group decision making. The two aspects include:
Risk shifting phenomenon
One significant aspect of decision making in a group is that element of risk of a decision
is shifted to group members. Therefore, members who are in favor of risky decisions attempt to
convince others to take risky decisions. After considering the various aspects of the decision,
group members will gain enough confident thereby taking risky decisions. All the members will
be responsible for the final outcome of any decision (Chen, Xia, Hengjie and Yucheng 105).
Group Think
This is a mode of thinking in any group where all members are working toward arriving
at unanimity. The group members are convinced to reach a consensus. This phenomenon is
observed in many institutions. For instance, numbers of legislative and parliament assemblies use
the decisions that their parties are using and losing their own thinking in the process.
Advantages of Group decision making

Surname 3
 Members of a group have more information and idea for making decisions as
compared to one person. They have the ability to analyze and evaluate the
alternatives in a clear manner by considering different aspects.
 A group decision has more commitment and acceptability on the part of
individuals who use it as an individual’s decision. Individuals understand the
decision better because they have witnessed it develop.
 Interaction among different people contributes to more creativity. This is because
individuals will learn different ideas from each member of a group.
 Group decisions making act as a communication function because different
aspects of the problem are analyzed, discussed and understood.
 All the members that participate in decision making are more contented with the
decision and they will fully support it.
Disadvantages
The following are the limitations of group decision making:
 Groups are well-known for wastage of energy and time in coming together as well
as discussing the things.
 The process of decision making becomes very expensive since many people are
involved in decision making.
 If there is disagreement, there may be ill-feeling and conflicts among members.
 There is a tendency of passing the bulk to other members when decision proves to
be wrong.
 Delay in decisions making may prevent management from taking decisions when
required