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The research of the past decade has established a number of firm findings concerning the effects of group discussion on decisions involving risk. An examination of these findings, however, raises certain questions about the basic assumptions that have guided research. Evidence that the items of the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire (CDQ) produce systematically different responses both before and after group discussion casts serious doubt on the propriety of using CDQ scores as measures of a unitary disposition to take risks. And the conclusion that groups are invariably riskier than individuals is no longer justified. The risky-shift paradigm has generated an impressive body of facts, but these facts reveal the inadequacy of the paradigm itself. The field therefore faces a theoretical crisis. The central task for theory is not to explain "the risky shift," but to account for the much more complicated effects of group discussion. The attainment of a proper understanding of these effects will require the use of theoretical orientations and the collection of data that focus much more closely than in the past on the concrete properties of the decision-making process and the exact way in which group discussion affects them.

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