Question

What is the difference between groupthink, group polarization and groupshift? How do these phenomena influence the consensus-building process in a group decision-making situation?

Answer 1

Groupthink is adjusting one's opinion to that of group opinion in order to avoid conflict or to conform to social acceptance norms. This happens because a person does not want to disturb group cohesion and the group do not evaluate their decisions rationally. Groupthink results in decision conformance rather than making decisions based on critical evidence and reasoning. Group decisions also ignore the members whose opinions are different.

Group polarization is extreme opinions among members of group which results in members forming opinion based on their preferences and considering it the only best option. Group polarization results in extreme views where members are not even ready to consider other viewpoints. Polarization blurs their reasoning power and does not even consider evidence when provided. Group polarization result in people wanting to find evidence to suit their thinking and not making conclusions from evidence.

Groupshift- Groupshift is the tendency of individual members to shift their decisions to extreme positions in groups while individually they have conservative positions. This happens due to the confirmation bias of a person, Due to same thoughts and support from other members, a person will shift his position to extreme rather than remaining centric.The disadvantage of groupshit is that it does leave a open mind to consider other factors or opinions which is important in decision making within groups.