Group Members
- Lu Lu
- Fan Zhang
- Michael Stunes
Problem Statement
College students socialize in groups of 3 or more by eating out but often have trouble deciding where to go. Group decisions are inherently difficult to make due to the following factors:
- No designated arbitrator --- Indecision and differing interests contribute to a lack of decisiveness, which is further exacerbated by the lack of a lead decider.
- Differing opinions --- The larger the group, the more likely there will be conflicting preferences.
Often, the ultimate decision is unsatisfactory because of one or more of the following reasons:
- The process was inefficient --- From our preliminary studies, it may take 10 minutes to an entire day to reach a group decision. This may be a result of contention or just a lack of strong preferences.
- Group members’ opinions were not equally weighted in determining the final choice --- Oftentimes, a dominant personality will take over the decision making process,
- Group members were not comfortable being open and honest about their true opinions due to fear of judgment and confrontation.
Goals
Our project aims to address the problem statement by achieving the following 3 high-level goals:
- Fairness --- Every group member’s opinion is weighed equally in the decision making process.
- Efficiency --- The entire decision making process should take at most 5 minutes.
- Openness and honesty --- Every member of the group should feel comfortable expressing his/her true opinions (e.g., preferences, rejections) without fear of judgment and confrontation.
Obstacles
The following problems lie in the way of making a fair, efficient, open and honest group decision:
- People can be unpredictable ---Their dispositions and opinions may change depending on the context. For example, a hungry person may be more willing to compromise, whereas a person who has had a rough day may be less patient. a person who normally loves Chinese food may not want to go may be strongly averse to going to a Chinese restaurant because he/she has had Chinese food for the past three meals.
- People are not open and honest about their true opinions --- This often happens because people are afraid of judgment and confrontation by their peers, especially those whom they don’t know as well.
- People have different personalities (e.g. aggressive vs. passive, rigid vs. flexible) --- Weaker personalities tend to be dominated by stronger ones, and consequently, their opinions are given less importance.
- People are unaware their true opinions --- Sometimes, people are not aware of their preferences until a concrete suggestion is offered. At that point, they do have rejections, but no concrete suggestions.