Influence of historical context on group decision-making

Abstract

“Black Swans” andgroup decision making have become familiar terms in the relevant fileds. There have been many Black Swan events in history, such as the current covid9 epidemic or the failed launch of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. In the run-up to the Challenger launch, NASA conducts a conference call. This contains typical group decision-making issues. As an example, through access to information. Aboutexamine the impact of the social and historical context of the Challenger launch on the conference call, and author also analyses the impact of these contextual factors on the decision-making group. In order to identify these potential factors so that they can be avoided in future decision making. Some Black Swan events are accompanied by group decisions, which can influence the direction of events. However, the decision makers and participants in group decisions are also influenced by different factors. For example, social context and pressure. In high pressure or reactive situations, group decisions can be biased in different ways. In the case of Challenger, the decision makers were influenced by public opinion and the pressure of the international situation at the time, which led to problematic decisions. This is why it is more important in group decision-making to look at the problem of the event itself and consider the problems that existed. This paper using a literature review research method with Challenger as the subject of the study, examines the impact of the historical context and social environment on decision-making at the Challenger pre-launch group meeting. The research results show that the context created economic, public opinion and time pressures on NASA. These pressures in turn had a huge impact on the decision makers. In the end the panel's decision making was flawed.