Taking Steps to Avoid Failure of Deliberation

As we discussed in class, there are certain situations in which group deliberation fails. In many cases shared “facts” or information is weighted with more importance than facts that aren’t shared among all group members. Also, in group decision making the person that speaks first is often able to shape the conversation. Information cascades can shape the context of deliberation and lead to failure to come to the correct conclusion.

As a class, we came up with a few possible solutions to this problem. (Deliberating on how to make deliberating work better).Two of the ideas we reached involve secret voting prior to any discussion and breaking into smaller groups.

Write Answer/Verdict First

This is an easy way to avoid information cascades leading to incorrect conclusions. This will also prevent deliberators from putting too much weight on shared facts/information. By writing down what they think, they will have made their decision prior to being influenced by what others think.

The obvious issue with this is that the decision is being made without taking all possible evidence into account. By taking this step to eliminate one factor that often leads to inaccurate conclusions, we may be creating an even bigger problem by not giving each person access to all the information that is available. To deal with this possibility it may make sense to first write down the answer as individuals and then discuss. Having made a decision before hearing the others’ information, they may be less likely to make a decision due to information cascades or shared information. Clearly this has benefits and disadvantages, which must be balanced.

Break Out in Groups

            Another issue that comes up from group deliberation is that, generally, the first person to speak is able to shape the deliberation from that point forward. Every response beyond the first one must be given in terms of how it relates to the first person’s thoughts.

            For a deliberation to avoid the failure resulting from one person’s thoughts shaping the entire conversation, the group can break out into separate groups. This practice may not prevent the bias associated with the first idea/answer presented, but it at least presents several first ideas/answers to shape the conversation. Smaller groups can see the same benefits of working together and sharing information. However, by breaking up into groups, deliberations is less likely to fall victim to the problems associated with information cascades, weighting shared information, and letting the first information shape the discussion.

            Obviously this isn’t the perfect solution to the problem of deliberation failures. One issue is the tendency of people with similar thoughts and ideas to move to more extreme beliefs after discussion. If group members were broken into groups and happened to end up with like-minded people, they may feel even more strongly than they did originally. This may result in more complications, making it difficult to reach a verdict.

            After examine the different ways groups can work together  (or alone) to deliberate, it is clear that there is no clear solution. Perhaps there will always be some issue in the way of getting groups to deliberate without succumbing to the problems that arise from information cascades, shared information, etc. It may just be that different groups need to approach deliberating in different ways depending on the situation. There may not be a clear cut way to make group deliberation most effective, but being aware of the potential problems may help.