POLARYZACJA GRUPOWA W WARUNKACH DEBATY DELIBERATYWNEJ

Abstract

In social psychology the group polarization refers to the tendency for groups to make decisionsthat are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members. This phenomenon constitutesa potential obstacle to positive outcomes attributed to deliberative debates. A deliberative debateis a particular kind of a group discussion tasked with fi nding group consensus on controversialissues. The idea of deliberation originates from the writings of John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, AmyGutmann and Denis Thompson. Deliberative debate imposes numerous normative requirementson the communication, relationships among the disputants and their approach to the issue underdiscussion. These normative requirements make a big difference between deliberative debates andthe situations in which the phenomenon of polarization was observed. Thus, we presume that indeliberative debates conditions the phenomenon of group polarization may be limited.The paper investigates the following questions: would the normative conditions of deliberationlimit the occurrence of polarization in discussing groups? and What infl uence (if any) would thepolarization process have on the quality of group decision? In the light of the empirical data we concluded what follows: (1) In 50% of the analyzed casesof group discussion the phenomenon of group polarization was observed despite the normativeconditions of deliberation. (2) The occurrence of group polarization in some cases coincided withmaking the fi nal decisions which did not alter the initial preferences of the disputants (but did nottotally predestinated the fi nal outcome).