Effects of Norm‐oriented Group Discussion on Individual Risk Taking and Conservatism1

Abstract

In prior research, group discussion of risk-relevant material has led to systematic shifts in the direction of greater risk taking by the participants.The initial purpose of the set of studies presented here was to determine whether discussions of risk-irrelevant material would produce comparable risky shifts. In Study I, individual risk-taking levels were assessed in 97 females (constituted as 24 small groups) both before and after a discussion of current women's fashions. There was no risky shift. A near-significant conservative phift obtained, possibly due to the normative influences implicit in the group discussions. These influences were made explicit in Study II by providing intervening discussion materials consisting of ethical conflicts pitting universalistic ethical norms against particularistic obligations to friends or indUlgent self-interest. Subjects (~= 60 females constituted as five-person groups) unanimously favored the ethical norms and subsequently shifted in a consistently conservative direction. In Study III (~= 55 females constituted as five-person groups) the discussions dealt with the same ethical conflicts but were focused on recommending a particular course of action. Under these altered conditions, no overall significant shift in either direction occurred.However, groups converging on unethical alternatives subsequently became more risky, those converging on norm-maintaining alternatives became more conservative.Implications for future research are considered.Effects of Norm-Oriented Group Discussion on Individual Risk Taking and Conservatism l 2 Henry A. Alker and Nathan KoganIt is now a well-established fact that individuals engaged in a group discussion concerning matters of risk will as a consequence manifest shifts in the direction of greater risk taking (see Kogan & Wallach, 1967). The customary research paradigm in the foregoing work has involved (1) assessment of an individual's risk-taking disposition prior to group discussion, (2) SUbsequent group discussion of the situations contained in the previously administered risk-taking instrument, and (3) a postdiscussion assessment of individual risk-taking tendencies based on the same instrument. The task used in many of the relevant studies has been the hypothetical Choice-Dilemmas questionnaire (Kogan & Wallach, 1964). It is presumed that group discussion specifically focused on the content of that instrument directly accounts for the risky-shift phenomenon. Such a conclusion is reinforced by the evidence that repeated administrations of the Choice-Dilemmas questionnaire without the intervening group experience did not yield systematic shifts in preferred risk levels (Wallach, Kogan, & Bem, 1962).In sum, group discussion of risk-relevant decision situations appears to be the critical causal factor in the risky-shift effect. Such an inference is not entirely warranted, however, for we do not presently know whether the efficacy of the group experience depends upon the specific content of the discussion. In the research at is...

Evaluation of Choice‐Dilemma Alternatives: Utility, Morality and Social Judgement

“…In fact, whilst there have been impressive attempts to relate individual and group decisions to subjects' perceptions of the relative desirability, or 'subjective expected utility' (SEU) of alternative outcomes (Vinokur, 1971: Vinokur & Burnstein, 1974, there seems to have been no comparable attempt to relate such decisions to subjects' perceptions of the relative morality of alternative actions. The few studies that have paid any attention to this problem seem to share the assumption that increasing the salience of ethical considerations leads to more cautious decisions (Rabow et al, 1966: Rettig, 1966; Alker & Kogan, 1968). An additional purpose of this study, then, is to compare, for a specified set of dilemmas, the relative contributions to individual decisions of utilitarian and moral considerations.…”