IT support for reducing group judgment biases

Systematic biases have been found in both individual and group judgments, calling for research into debiasing approaches. Although individual debiasing has been studied to some extent, no parallel effort exists for group debiasing. The paper advocates the use of group support systems (GSS) for group debiasing and presents a theoretical perspective on how the impact may be achieved. Special attention is paid to two important judgment biases: representativeness bias and availability bias. A research model is developed on which propositions are derived.

[1]  Robyn M. Dawes,et al.  Representative thinking in clinical judgment , 1986 .

[2]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[3]  R. Hastie,et al.  The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line , 1986 .

[4]  Kishore Sengupta,et al.  Cognitive Feedback in GDSS: Improving Control and Convergence , 1993, MIS Q..

[5]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability , 1973 .

[6]  Harvey J. Brightman,et al.  Nominal and Interacting Groups as Bayesian Information Processors , 1983 .

[7]  L. Beach,et al.  Experience and the base-rate fallacy. , 1982, Organizational behavior and human performance.

[8]  Allen Newell,et al.  Human Problem Solving. , 1973 .

[9]  Jay F. Nunamaker,et al.  ELECTRONIC BRAINSTORMING AND GROUP SIZE , 1992 .

[10]  Joel Harmon,et al.  Social judgment analysis and small group decision making: Cognitive feedback effects on individual and collective performance , 1990 .

[11]  Ping Zhang,et al.  Fast timing estimation for CDMA waveforms in a near-far environment , 1996, Proceedings of GLOBECOM'96. 1996 IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference.

[12]  J. Valacich,et al.  Idea Generation in Computer-Based Groups: A New Ending to an Old Story , 1994 .

[13]  Gerardine DeSanctis,et al.  Group decision support systems: a new frontier , 1984, DATB.

[14]  S. R. Hiltz The Network Nation , 1978 .

[15]  I. Steiner Group process and productivity , 1972 .

[16]  I. Janis,et al.  Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment , 1977 .

[17]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  From negotiation to negotiation support systems: a theoretical perspective , 1992, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[18]  I. Janis Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes , 1982 .

[19]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  A communication-based framework for group interfaces in computer-supported collaboration , 1991, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[20]  Robert Libby,et al.  Accounting and human information processing : theory and applications , 1981 .

[21]  Alexander Pollatsek,et al.  Understanding conditional probabilities , 1987 .

[22]  Jay F. Nunamaker,et al.  Electronic meeting systems , 1991, CACM.

[23]  A. Dennis,et al.  When a Group Is Not a Group , 1993 .

[24]  William G. Cole,et al.  Understanding Bayesian reasoning via graphical displays , 1989, CHI '89.

[25]  Janet A. Sniezek,et al.  Revision, Weighting, and commitment in consensus group judgment , 1990 .

[26]  Nancy Paule Melone,et al.  The base-rate fallacy : contrasting processes and outcomes of group and individual judgment , 1990 .

[27]  J. Valacich,et al.  Computer brainstorms: More heads are better than one. , 1993 .

[28]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Judged frequency of lethal events , 1978 .

[29]  R. Rice Task Analyzability, Use of New Media, and Effectiveness: A Multi-Site Exploration of Media Richness , 1992 .

[30]  F. Hansford-Miller 13. Judgement and Choice: The Psychology of Decision , 1988 .

[31]  Jay F. Nunamaker,et al.  Using Two Different Electronic Meeting System Tools for the Same Task: An Experimental Comparison , 1990, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[32]  L. R. Hoffman Homogeneity of member personality and its effect on group problem-solving. , 1959, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[33]  Kaoru Ono,et al.  Group Consensus Processes on Cognitive Bias Tasks: A Social Decision Scheme Approach , 1988 .

[34]  D. Eddy Judgment under uncertainty: Probabilistic reasoning in clinical medicine: Problems and opportunities , 1982 .

[35]  W G Cole,et al.  Three Graphic Representations to Aid Bayesian Inference , 1988, Methods of Information in Medicine.

[36]  A. Tversky,et al.  Evidential impact of base rates , 1981 .

[37]  Rebecca A. Henry,et al.  Accuracy and confidence in group judgment , 1989 .

[38]  Marshall Scott Poole,et al.  Decision development in small groups II: A study of multiple sequences in decision making 1 , 1983 .

[39]  A. Tversky,et al.  Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness , 1972 .

[40]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design , 1986 .

[41]  John Short,et al.  The social psychology of telecommunications , 1976 .

[42]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  A Theoretical Perspective of Negotiation Support Systems , 1992, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[43]  R. Gallupe,et al.  Unblocking brainstorms. , 1991, The Journal of applied psychology.

[44]  R. Birdwhistell Kinesics and context , 1970 .

[45]  I. Benbasat,et al.  The Effects of Group, Task,Context, and Technology Variables on the Usefulness of Group Support Systems , 1993 .

[46]  Max Henrion,et al.  Explanation of bayesian conditioning for decision support systems , 1989 .

[47]  Gerd Gigerenzer,et al.  Presentation and content: The use of base rates as a continuous variable. , 1988 .

[48]  M. Bar-Hillel The base-rate fallacy in probability judgments. , 1980 .

[49]  Gerardine DeSanctis,et al.  A foundation for the study of group decision support systems , 1987 .

[50]  Linda Argote,et al.  Individual versus group use of base-rate and individuating information , 1986 .