Not even the most brilliant, ethical, and rational person has the ability to research every conceivable implication and alternative before making every decision in life. Group decision-making is another method of decision-making, where the decision is often arrived at by consensus or committee, such as coming to a decision as to where to take a family vacation. The decision is often time-consuming, because ideally it must please everyone, although quite often no one is fully pleased (Petress, 2002). Multiple levels of irrationality are injected into the process, even if the 'team leader' (the parents who are paying for the vacation) have the final veto. To make the group decision-making process more efficient, often a vote is taken at the end of the discussion if the effort is supposed to be democratic. It can be superior to individual decision-making in that individuals can point out when group members are being irrational, and use persuasion to change their minds, but just as easily it can have the opposite effect, and persuade the rational members of the group to make the more popular, but not necessarily...

The more popular decision might not be the most affordable or efficient decision, and it might not be the most popular of all, merely advocated by the most vocal group members.
Works Cited

Baker, G. (2004). "Decision Making." University of Florida. Retrieved 20 Oct 2007 at http://www.unf.edu/~gbaker/Man6204/Decision.PDF

Levitt, Barbara & Clifford Nass. (Jun 1989) "The lid on the garbage can: institutional constraints on decision making in the technical core of college-text publishers." Administrative Science Quarterly. Retrieved 20 Oct 2007 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4035/is_n2_v34/ai_7376934

Petress, Ken. (2002). "An alternative model for decision-making." Journal of Instructional Psychology. Retrieved 20 Oct 2007 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCG/is_3_29/ai_91707794/pg_1

Williams, Tim. (Mar 2004). "Setting Impossible Standards."

New Zealand Journal of Psychology. Retrieved 20 Oct 2007 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3848/is_200403/ai_n9383815