15 - Situation dependence of group and individual decision making and bad decisions

Abstract

The finding of the previous chapter suggest that even in group meetings and group decision-making, individuals can detect irrational meetings and worst choices if they observe them in a situation without interaction. In this chapter, computer simulations of group decision-making and the jury theorem were used to show that if the members of a group were independent of each other, they would be more likely to avoid the worst possible choice. These considerations suggest that the reason why the worst choice is made in group decision-making is that the cognition, judgment, and decision of irrational meetings and decisions are distorted due to the influence of interaction among group members. In this chapter, I point out the phenomenon of preference reversal due to situation-dependent decision-making, which is known as the framing effect, and attentional shifts as distortions of cognition, judgment, and decision-making under such interactions. In addition, by reinterpreting the jury theorem in group decision-making, I discuss the possibility that group decision-making may be distorted by these situation-dependent effects.