ADMS 2511 Lecture 35: ADMS 2511 Lecture 35 Notes
1 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ADMS 2511 Lecture 35 Notes – When Group Size Increases
Introduction
• People grow more intimidated and hesitant as group size increases, and, although there
is no magic number that will eliminate groupthink, individuals are likely to feel less
personal responsibility when groups get larger than about 10.
• Encourage group leaders to play an impartial role.
• Leaders should actively seek input from all members and avoid expressing their own
opinions, especially in the early stages of deliberation.
• Appoit oe group eer to play the role of devil’s advoate.
• This eer’s role is to overtly hallege the ajority positio ad offer divergent
perspectives.
• Stimulate active discussion of diverse alternatives to encourage dissenting views and
more objective evaluations.
• Group members might delay discussion of possible gains so they can first talk about the
dangers or risks inherent in a decision.
• Requiring members to first focus on the negatives of an alternative makes the group less
likely to stifle dissenting views and more likely to gain an objective evaluation.
• While considerable anecdotal evidence indicates the negative implications of groupthink
in organizational settings, not much actual empirical work has been conducted in
organizations in this area.
• In fact, researchers on groupthink have been criticized for suggesting that its effect is
uniformly negative and for overestimating the link between the decision-making process
and its outcome.
• A study of groupthink using 30 teams from 5 large corporations suggests that elements
of groupthink may affect decision making differently.
• For instance, the illusion of invulnerability, assumption of morality, and illusion of
unanimity were positively associated with team performance.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
