Making better decisions in groups

Abstract

We review the literature to identify common problems of decision-making in individuals and groups. We are guided by a Bayesian framework to explain the interplay between past experience and new evidence, and the problem of exploring the space of hypotheses about all the possible states that the world could be in and all the possible actions that one could take. There are strong biases, hidden from awareness, that enter into these psychological processes. While biases increase the efficiency of information processing, they often do not lead to the most appropriate action. We highlight the advantages of group decision-making in overcoming biases and searching the hypothesis space for good models of the world and good solutions to problems. Diversity of group members can facilitate these achievements, but diverse groups also face their own problems. We discuss means of managing these pitfalls and make some recommendations on how to make better group decisions.