Theories on group vs. individual decision-making?

unfortunately, in any situation, a group decision can be compromised by a not- so - reasonable party involved. however, relying on one person for a decision is how we got involved with war in iraq and how alot of women's heads got cut off. so empowering the wrong (moronic) candidate can seriously affect things.. including your research. i think the intelligence and rationalisation of the person or persons involved is more important than how many party's are involved. a group decision has benefits in the sense they have to come to an agreement, where as an individual does not have to agree with other but this may cause issues further down the line as without boundaries or other peoples opinions, it is easy to get carried away in a position of power (h*tler for example). but this is why in the court systems, we have judges and jury's... which might be worth discussing in you essay or what ever it is your doing.

The literature on group based political decision making, and in the field of foreign policy decision making, was greatly infuenced by Janis' model of 'Group-Think' in the early 1970s. This argument was roughly that people in groups are likely to make riskier decsions than are indviduals. It was supported by small scale lab studies of decision making. The political blunders of the Bay of Pigs and of the extension of the Vietman conflict were attributed to this 'problem'. Since the late 1990s however there has been some more critical discussion of this 'group think 'model of foreign policy making. See especially the article by Hart Stern and Sundelis which summarises the 'group think' model then discusses a more complex model of foreign policy making by groups (web site below) that seems to be more relevant to your area of interest. Try, too, accessing material in the 'Google Scholar 'search engine by using the terms 'group think and foreign policy making'. Incidentally, the scholarly articles on USA foreign policy decision-making usually don't posit it as the decisions of a single individual , even if that individual is the President.

There's a few theories on conformity that might help you.

You could look up Asch's line experiments, and Sherif's experiments using the autokinetic effect.

There's also different theories on group cohesiveness, such as "group polarisation", which is "the tendency for groups to produce fairly extreme decisions".

Janis also developed a theory called "groupthink", which is "the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups", and may have negative consequences.

Hope this helps!

I would focus on individuals rather than groups if they need my decision for anything.

There's still going to be the group-minded part of thinking, to some extent.... otherwise what need is there for a decision?

I've got those fears sometimes... I think it's just expectation related though. Building a perspective of the self is pretty much how groups are chosen.