Freeing the Collective Mind: Making Decisions With or Without Group Biases

This chapter shows that group membership and its associated cognitive bias within the self makes the assumption of “individual” decision-making problematic in that it creates a cognitive illusion of the “self” versus “others”, when the self is in essence dynamic and relational. The consequence of such illusion is a mirror effect in resource allocation based on group bias. It makes the whole system of resource allocation entirely reliant on the arbitrary nature of human perception, which differ across individuals. Aggregating group biases at the macro-level then leads to herd behaviour which can have a positive or negative impact on resource allocation, consumption and conservation. Group dynamics can however work towards resource allocation and conservation if decisions are made without group biases at the micro-level, or if group biases are regulated at the macro level.