Group polarization is the tendency of people to make decisions that are more extreme when they are in a group, as opposed to a decision made alone or independently.
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Study of this effect has shown that after participating in a discussion group, members tend to advocate more extreme positions and call for riskier courses of action than individuals who did not participate in any such discussion. This phenomenon was originally coined risky shift but was found to apply to more than risk, so the replacement term choice shift has been suggested.[1]
In addition, attitudes such as racial and sexual prejudice tend to be reduced (for already low-prejudice individuals) and inflated (for already high-prejudice individuals) after group discussion.
Group polarization has been used to explain the decision-making of a jury, particularly when considering punitive damages in a civil trial. Studies have shown that after deliberating together, mock jury members often decided on punitive damage awards that were either larger or smaller than the amount any individual juror had favored prior to deliberation. The studies indicated that when the jurors favored a relatively low award, discussion would lead to an even more lenient result, while if the jury was inclined to impose a stiff penalty, discussion would make it even harsher.
The study of group polarization began with an unpublished 1961 Master’s thesis by MIT student James Stoner, who observed the so-called "risky shift", meaning that a group’s decisions are riskier than the average of the individual decisions of members before the group met. The discovery of the risky shift was considered surprising and counter-intuitive, especially since earlier work in the 1920s and 1930s by Allport and other researchers suggested that individuals made more extreme decisions than did groups, leading to the expectation that groups would make decisions that would conform to the average risk level of its members. The seemingly counter-intuitive findings of Stoner led to a flurry of research around the risky shift, which was originally thought to be a special case exception to the standard decision-making practice. By the late 1960s, however, it had become clear that the risky shift was just one type of many attitudes that became more extreme in groups, leading Moscovici and Zavalloni to term the overall phenomenon "group polarization".
Thus began a decade-long period of examination of the applicability of group polarization to a number of fields, ranging from political attitudes to religion, in both lab and field settings. Basic studies of group polarization tapered off, but research on the topic continued. Group polarization has been widely considered as a fundamental group decision-making process and was well-established, but remained non-obvious and puzzling because its mechanisms were not fully understood.
Almost as soon as the phenomenon of group polarization was discovered, a variety of hypotheses was suggested for the mechanisms for its action. These explanations were gradually winnowed down and grouped together until two primary mechanisms remained, social comparison and influence. Social comparison approaches, sometimes called interpersonal comparison, were based on social psychological views of self-perception and the drive of individuals to appear socially desirable. The second major mechanism is informational influence, which is also sometimes referred to as persuasive argument theory, or PAT. PAT holds that individual choices are determined by individuals weighing remembered pro and con arguments. These arguments are then applied to possible choices, and the most positive is selected. As a mechanism for polarization, group discussion shifts the weight of evidence as each individual exposes their pro and con arguments, giving each other new arguments and increasing the stock of pro arguments in favor of the group tendency, and con arguments against the group tendency. The persuasiveness of an argument depends on two factors – originality and its validity. According to PAT, a valid argument would hold more persuasive weight than a non-valid one. Originality has come to be understood in terms of the novelty of an argument. A more novel argument would increase the likelihood that it is an addition to the other group members’ pool of pro and con arguments, rather than a simple repetition.
In the 1970s, significant arguments occurred over whether persuasive argumentation alone accounted for group polarization. Daniel Isenberg’s 1986 meta-analysis of the data gathered by both the persuasive argument and social comparison camps succeeded, in large part, in answering the questions about predominant mechanisms. Isenberg concluded that there was substantial evidence that both effects were operating simultaneously, and that PAT operated when social comparison did not, and vice-versa. Isenberg did discover that PAT did seem to have a significantly stronger effect, however.
Group polarization has also been found to occur with online (computer-mediated) discussions e.g. (Sia et al., 2002). In particular, research has found that group discussions conducted when discussants are in a distributed (cannot see one another) or anonymous (cannot identify one another) environment, can lead to even higher levels of group polarization compared to traditional meetings. This is attributed to the greater numbers of novel arguments generated (due to PAT) and higher incidence of one-upmanship behaviours (due to social comparison).
Within Pentagon circles "incestuous amplification" refers to positive reinforcement of one's own OODA loop that may contribute to group polarization. It was used to describe how officers and the enlisted personnel in the army can form very different analysis of the same situation because officers and enlisted personnel have different perspectives of the same problem, and how a prevailing view can become established wisdom by mere repetition.[2]
A type of group polarization, risky shift is defined as the difference between the mean level of risk taken by certain individuals facing a certain decision and the level of risk reflected in a decision made on the same question by a group composed of those same individuals. In a 1986 paper, D. J. Rothwell hypothesized that risky shift is attributable to individuals' exposure in a group setting to facts more psychologically alarming and opinions more extreme than those they would encounter or formulate on their own.[3]
Because the same process could expose individuals to less alarming facts and more moderate opinions than they would otherwise encounter, however, "cautious shift" is also theoretically possible.
One of the biggest problems facing group communication, risky shift shows the notion that groups will often make riskier decisions than those expressed from individual thinking. This is contrary to the wisdom of the time (1961), when many felt that, when assembled, a group’s thinking would more than likely lean on the more conservative side.
James Stoner developed awareness of risky shift while giving groups of six people choices between cautious and risky decisions. He found in all cases the inclination of groups to lean toward decisions inherently riskier than those made by the individuals themselves.[4]
There are two leading schools of thought on why choice shift occurs when moving from individual decision-making to group decision-making: persuasive arguments theory and social comparison theory.[5] The persuasive arguments theory states that, when in groups, individuals can be swayed to the riskier choice through communication with other group members. That is to say that hearing arguments from one or more colleagues can easily sway the thinking of an individual. Social comparison theory lends itself to a more “majority rules” school of thought, where comparing one’s own point of view with that of the most favored position can often shift an individual’s choices.
The risk tolerated by an individual is inversely proportional to his ownership or stake in the venture. Larger risks can possibly bring larger rewards. The decision of a group with a strong leader is strongly aligned with his or hers, making it similar to an individual's decision. This is reasonable as the leader has a strong sense of ownership, of stake, of the group itself and will thus make a more conservative gamble.
In a group without clear leadership, each individual has a relatively small stake, but is gambling the larger assets of the group, where there is less to lose. In a sense, there is little of the responsibility but all of the reward. The group decision, then, tends to be riskier, as no one fully assumes the responsibility of the decision undertaken. This is similar to the lack of risk alignment between financial funds managers and the owners of the managed funds that led to the financial debacle of 2008. The difference is the group as described herein is closed to external membership and assets.
Risky shift or the more generalized tendency for groups to adjust their views in light of social context has profound impact on juries, who often decide the severity of punishment in light of the strength of the evidence they are presented.
Historically, risky shift was revealed at an inopportune time. It alerted many political observers of the increased possibility of the escalation of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and USA. In such a context, risky shift could be attributed to the decision-making of some important political groups when deciding their group stance on a potential World War III.
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