Problem-Solving and Decision-Making in Groups

Many factors influence the decision-making process. For example, how might a group's independence or access to resources affect their decisions? What potential advantages and disadvantages come with decisions made by groups that are more or less similar in terms of personality and cultural identities? In this section, we will explore how situational, personality and cultural influences affect decision-making in groups.

Situational Influences on Decision Making

A group's situational context affects decision-making. One key situational element is the degree of freedom that the group has to make its own decisions, secure its own resources, and initiate its own actions. Some groups undergo multiple approval processes before doing anything, while others are self-directed, self-governing, and self-sustaining. Another situational influence is uncertainty.

In general, groups deal with more uncertainty in decision-making than individuals because of the increased number of variables that comes with adding more people to a situation. Individual group members can't know what other group members are thinking, whether or not they are doing their work, and how committed they are to the group. So the size of a group is a powerful situational influence, as it adds to uncertainty and complicates communication.

Access to information also influences a group. First, the nature of the group's task or problem affects its ability to get information. Group members can more easily decide about a problem when other groups have similarly experienced it. Even if the problem is complex and serious, the group can learn from other situations and apply what it learns.

Second, the group must have access to flows of information. Access to archives, electronic databases, and individuals with relevant experience is necessary to obtain any relevant information about similar problems or to do research on a new or unique problem. In this regard, group members' formal and information network connections also become important situational influences.

The urgency of a decision can have a major influence on the decision-making process. As a situation becomes more urgent, it requires more specific decision-making methods and types of communication.

The origin and urgency of a problem are also situational factors that influence decision-making. In terms of origin, problems usually occur in one of four ways:

1. Something goes wrong. Group members must decide how to fix or stop something. For example, a firehouse crew finds out that half of the building is contaminated with mold and must be closed down.
2. Expectations change or increase. Group members must innovate more efficient or effective ways of doing something. For example, a firehouse crew discovers that the district they are responsible for is being expanded.
3. Something goes wrong, and expectations change or increase. Group members must fix/stop and become more efficient/effective. For example, the firehouse crew has to close half the building and must start responding to more calls due to the expanding district.
4. The problem existed from the beginning. Group members must go back to the origins of the situation and walk through and analyze the steps again to decide what can be done differently. For example, a firehouse crew has consistently had to work with minimal resources in terms of building space and firefighting tools.

In each case, the need for a decision may be more or less urgent depending on how badly something is going wrong, how high the expectations have been raised, or the degree to which people are fed up with a broken system. Decisions must be made in situations ranging from crisis level to mundane.

Personality Influences on Decision Making

A long-studied typology of value orientations that affect decision-making consists of the following types of decision makers: the economic, the aesthetic, the theoretical, the social, the political, and the religious.

• The economic decision-maker makes decisions based on what is practical and useful.
• The aesthetic decision-maker makes decisions based on form and harmony, desiring a solution that is elegant and in sync with the surroundings.
• The theoretical decision maker wants to discover the truth through rationality.
• The social decision-maker emphasizes the personal impact of a decision and sympathizes with those who may be affected by it.
• The political decision-maker is interested in power and influence and views people and/or property as divided into groups with different values.
• The religious decision-maker seeks to identify with a larger purpose, works to unify others under that goal, and commits to a viewpoint, often denying one side and being dedicated to the other.
  

In the United States, economic, political, and theoretical decision-making tends to be more prevalent decision-making orientations, which likely corresponds to the individualistic cultural orientation with its emphasis on competition and efficiency. But situational context, as discussed before, can also influence our decision-making.

Personality affects decision-making. For example, "economic" decision-makers decide based on what is practical and useful.

The personalities of group members, especially leaders and other active members, affect the group's climate. Group member personalities can be categorized based on where they fall on a continuum anchored by the following descriptors: dominant and submissive, friendly and unfriendly, and instrumental and emotional. The more group members there are in any extreme of these categories, the more likely that the group climate will also shift to resemble those characteristics.

• Dominant versus submissive. More dominant group members act more independently and directly, initiate conversations, take up more space, make more direct eye contact, seek leadership positions, and take control over decision-making processes. More submissive members are reserved, contribute to the group only when asked to, avoid eye contact, and leave their personal needs and thoughts unvoiced or give into the suggestions of others.
  
  
• Friendly versus unfriendly. Group members on the friendly side of the continuum find a balance between talking and listening, don't try to win at the expense of other group members, are flexible but not weak, and value democratic decision-making. Unfriendly group members are disagreeable, indifferent, withdrawn, and selfish, which leads them to either not invest in decision-making or direct it in their own interest rather than in the group's interest.
  
  
• Instrumental versus emotional. Instrumental group members are emotionally neutral, objective, analytical, task-oriented, and committed followers, which leads them to work hard and contribute to the group's decision-making as long as it is orderly and follows agreed-on rules. Emotional group members are creative, playful, independent, unpredictable, and expressive, which leads them to make rash decisions, resist group norms or decision-making structures, and often switch from relational to task focus.