James Stoner wanted to know if people made more risky decisions when they were part of a group, so he decided to conduct a simple, and elegant experiment. The experiment had two parts. In the first part, people had to play a life coach. They were given scenarios where they had to help someone make an important decision which had a significant risk as a downside. For example, the imaginary client could be seeking their advice on choosing to do something they have wanted to do for some time, but it might mean a huge financial risk. Do they do it?
The participants in the experiment, who were playing the life coach, were asked to choose, how confident should the client be before taking the leap? If the participant was conservative, they would urge utmost confidence before taking the leap. If they were adventure seeking, they would advise the client to go ahead even if there was a 10% chance to succeed. So take risk. So far, so good.
Post this, the groups were broken down to five people per group and were asked to discuss the scenarios and reach a consensus. The results were startling. Groups tended to make riskier decisions than individuals! There have been various iterations of this experiment and the results have tended to be similarly contrasting. For example, in certain experiments, the group decisions have tended to become more conservative than individuals. What explains this? Polarization of this sort is not just limited to groupthink, but on the whole groups tend to be more dogmatic, and justify irrational expectations. There is now over 50 years of research on how group decision-making only leads to below-average outcomes. Put people in a group and it generally leads to a polarized outcome, if you want to check it out see the first internet chatroom you can get into, even the ones where you would least expect them, say a watch enthusiasts chat room, tempers tend to run high.
