ABSTRACT
In short, decisionmaking groups are pervasive throughout our society. The true state of affairs, however, is almost never as simple as one thinks. Marjorie Shaw (1932) was the first person to empirically test the assertion that groups are "better" at decisionmaking than are individuals. The Lorge-Solomon finding was quickly replicated (Steiner & Rajaratnam, 1961), and the notion that groups are inefficient decisionmaking units has since become one of the most widely accepted in the group’s field. Perhaps the most heavily studied aspect of decisionmaking groups, at least with regard to process, has been discussion. The group contains some inherent flaws that affect the decisionmaking process. Specifically, those flaws are ignorance of input from outsiders; lack of diversity in viewpoints and approaches to problems; tolerance of decisions that have not been first methodically analyzed; and a history of leaders who have failed to be impartial and have instead actively advocated solutions.
