CHAPTER 17
FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
ON GROUP DECISION MAKING
Outline
I. Introduction.
A. Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran believe that group interaction has a positive
effect on decision making.
B. Hirokawa seeks quality solutions; Gouran desires appropriate decisions.
C. The functional perspective specifies what communication must accomplish for jointly
made decisions to be wise.
II. Four functions for effective decision making.
A. Hirokawa and Gouran draw on the analogy between biological systems and small
groups.
1. Group decision making must fulfill four task requirements to reach a high-quality
decision.
2. These tasks are requisite functions of effective decision making—hence the
functional perspective label.
B. Function #1: Analysis of the problem.
2. Misunderstandings of situations are compounded when group members make
their final decision.
4. Group members must determine the nature, extent, and probable cause(s) of
the problem.
C. Function #2: Goal setting.
1. A group needs to establish criteria for judging proposed solutions. If the group
2. With no definitive goals to focus their discussion, it’s difficult for group members
to know whether they’re making an appropriate decision.
D. Function #3: Identification of alternatives.
1. Hirokawa and Gouran stress the importance of marshalling a number of
different viable options from which to choose.
2. Groups need to identify courses of action.
E. Function #4: Evaluation of positive and negative characteristics.
1. Group members must test the relative merits of each alternative they identified
against the criteria that emerged in the goal setting function.
3. Other group tasks have a negative bias—the downside of options is more
important than identifying their positive qualities.
III. Prioritizing the four functions.
A. Originally, they thought that no single function was inherently more central than the
others.
B. Hirokawa discovered the groups that successfully resolve especially difficult
problems usually take a common decision-making path.
IV. The role of communication in fulfilling the functions.
A. Traditional wisdom suggests that talk is the channel or conduit through which
information travels between participants.
1. Verbal interaction makes it possible for members to distribute and pool
information, catch and remedy errors, and influence each other.
3. Communication is best when it does not obstruct or distort the free flow of ideas.
B. In contrast, Hirokawa believes that group discussion creates the social reality for
decision making.
C. Hirokawa and Gouran outline three types of communication in decision-making
groups.
1. Promotive—interaction that calls attention to one of the four decision-making
functions.
3. Counteractive—interaction that refocuses the group.
D. Since most communication disrupts, effective group decision making depends upon
counteractive influence.
V. Thoughtful advice for those who know they are right.
A. Be skeptical of personal opinions.
1. Groups often abandon the rational path due to the persuasive efforts of other
self-assured group members.
2. Unsupported intuition is untrustworthy.
B. Follow John Dewey’s six-step process of reflective thinking, which parallels a doctor’s
treatment regimen.
2. Diagnose the cause of the ailment.
4. Consider possible remedies.
6. Implement or prescribe the best solution.
C. Hirokawa and Gouran’s four requisite functions replicate steps two through five of
Dewey’s reflective thinking.
D. To counteract faulty logic, insist on a careful process.
VI. Ethical reflection: Habermas’ discourse ethics.
A. Jürgen Habermas suggests a rational group process through which people can
determine right from wrong.
B. Being ethical means being accountable.
C. People in a given culture or community can agree on the good they want to
F. Three requirements must be met to have an ideal speech situation:
1. Requirement of access for all affected parties
3. Requirement of justification or universal application
VII. Critique: Valid Only If New Functions Are Added Or Scope Is Narrowed
A. Although the functional perspective is one of the three leading theories in small
group communication, its exclusive focus on rationality may cause the mixed
experimental results it’s had.
1. They advocate adding a historical function requiring the group to talk about how
E. Recently, Gouran has raised doubts about the usefulness of the functional
perspective for all small groups.
2. Groups addressing questions of fact, conjecture, or value may not find the
requisite functions relevant.
3. The scope of the functional perspective is more limited than first believed.
Key Names and Terms
Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran
Functional perspective
A prescriptive approach that describes and predicts task-group performance when four
communication functions are fulfilled.
Requisite functions
Requirements for positive group outcome; problem analysis, goal setting, identification
of alternatives, and evaluation of pluses and minuses for each.
Problem analysis
Goal setting
Establishing criteria by which to judge proposed solutions.
Identification of alternatives
Generation of options to sufficiently solve the problem.
Evaluation of positive and negative characteristics
John Dewey
Early twentieth-century American pragmatist philosopher developed the six-step
process of reflective thinking.
Reflective thinking
Thinking that favors rational consideration over intuitive hunches or pressure from
those with clout.
Jürgen Habermas
A German philosopher and social theorist who suggests a rational process through
which people can determine right from wrong.
Discourse ethics
Jürgen Habermas’ vision of the ideal speech situation in which diverse participants
could rationally reach a consensus on universal ethical standards.
Ideal speech situation
Cynthia Stohl and Michael Holmes
Critiquing the functional perspective, these communication researchers, from University
of California, Santa Barbara and Ball State respectively, advocate adding historical and
institutional functions to the process.
Bona fide groups
Real-life groups; intact groups with stable yet permeable boundaries and
interdependent within their immediate context.
Principal Changes
The chapter has been edited for clarity and readability. Previous editions included a
discussion of the Functional Oriented Interaction Coding System (FOICS); that material has
been removed from this edition. The critique section has been revised to have a more
extended discussion of bona fide groups.
Kick-off Questions & Interaction Starters
• What do you like about working in groups? What don’t you like?
• Can you make a good decision without an established process?
Suggestions for Discussion
The plusses and minuses of parsimony
Hirokawa and Gouran’s tightly constructed, highly rational, theoretically elegant
approach to small group decision-making contrasts instructively with the expansive,
epistemologically complex, theoretically amorphous approaches to communication presented
by scholars such as Pearce and Cronen (chapter 6) and Barthes (Chapter 26). The functional
perspective—imbued with a faith in reason that is virtually platonic in nature, as well as a
willingness to pare down the complex reality of a confusing social process to a few key
variables and components—demonstrates both the strengths and the weaknesses of social-
Changing your mind as a group reaches its decision
As you analyze this theory with your students, ask them to consider whether the
functional perspective adequately treats the potential importance of complex developmental
sequences and the emergent aspects of decision-making. In some cases, what may be most
important about a group’s deliberations is that its goals changed once it began examining
solutions. In another case, careful attention to a group’s process might reveal that it began
with alternatives before moving back to the problem, only to clarify its goal once it was faced
with having to make a choice. Other times, a group may abandon the process after realizing
the unfeasibility of every possible solution. In many cases, it does seem as though the
developmental sequence of events may help us to understand what was most important in a
given group’s work. An analogy to writing might help. When students embark upon research
Connecting it to Elaboration Likelihood Model
If you are progressing through the book linearly, you’ve already covered ELM. If so, you
might make the connection between the theories. Clearly, the functional perspective relies on
group members being able to process centrally the tasks at hand. In fact, moments when the
group gets off track might represent peripheral processing. Given a working knowledge of both
theories, encourage your students to think through the steps again. How does centrally
processing about the process of decision making change it? Are groups generally motivated to
think about process? I would argue they are not. Often, instead, we default to previously used
Theory of group communication or of problem solving?
I’ve often wondered if the functional perspective is—at its core—more of a theory about
problem solving itself than it is a theory about communication’s role in problem solving. Could
most of the concepts that are discussed in this chapter apply equally well to one person’s
thought process? Certainly the quote from Ray and Tom (“Click and Clack”) Magliozzi, which
has little if anything to do with communication, supports this line of challenge. As you discuss
this theory, it’s important to think about how the process is different simply because it is done
by a group. In what ways does the interaction between people alter the process? Clearly, given
the identification of disruptive and counteractive forms of communication, there are times
when we get off topic. What is it about groups that might be a defining, and dare I say positive
factor?
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analytically about the problem at hand and what goals ought to be considered. Once again,
with less voices, it would be easy to miss something important. If a task is complex or requires
some varied expertise, a group usually outperforms an individual. As a theory of group decision
making, encourage students to put the group back into the equation. These questions may
prompt students to think about how a group (rather than an individual) makes a higher quality
decision.
Sample Application Log
Melodie
I’d like to take the theorist’s opinion that prioritizing, or the developing of a logical progression
of a group is essential if it is to function, and look at my summer’s experience. I was the
assistant director for S.I.C.M, the children’s program at College Church this summer. Our
group of interns struggled with accomplishing tasks, and a large part of that was due to our
lack of prioritizing. In the leadership role, our director did point out positive qualities of the
Exercises and Activities
Putting actual points on the line
If you are willing to put some actual teeth behind your discussion of this chapter, you
might try this exercise. If you give a weekly quiz (which I’d strongly endorse), for the quiz the
week BEFORE you cover the Functional Perspective, have an alternate few questions/points.
After students have completed the quiz, break them into groups (usually, we use 4-6 people
and to make it interesting, I assign the group so they aren’t entirely composed of friend
groups). As a group, they can decide: you have an alternate final 3 points (10-15% of the total
quiz points possible). They can choose to stick with what they have or take the alternate quiz.
The only hitch–They don’t get to see the new questions beforehand. I usually don’t add many
other requirements, but choose instead to give students a few minutes to make their decision.
We do NOT debrief it at the time of the quiz.
When I unpack this theory (usually/hopefully, the very next class period), students have
now read the material and can anticipate the discussion. It usually serves as a classic
example as some groups explored all their options (i.e. did they all have to make the same
Two words of caution: we have found it works best (or at least serves the best
pedagogical function) if you stick to your guns and actually score the different choices.
Students seem to learn best with real consequences. Second, as much as possible, try to
keep the questions across the two versions fairly compatible. Hence, redoing it as a group
doesn’t necessarily give you easier or harder questions, just different ones.
Making a decision as a class
Another way to make this theory practical through application is by make a decision as
a class. My class often meets right before lunchtime so I put it to the class to decide: would
you like to leave class early today and get a jump on the lunch line? After that, I step back and
let them have at it. Usually, a student is co-leading the discussion for the day and they serve as
de facto facilitator to the process that unfolds. You would be surprised: even though we have
already covered the basics of theory, students rarely go through each step methodically. Even
Did you discuss what the problem or situation was?
Did you discuss what goals you might have had?
Did you decide how you were going to decide (consensus, majority, strongest voices)?
Did you generate options?
What are the pros of those options? How about the cons?
It’s pretty sobering to see groups—even armed with the theory—only accomplish one or two of
the tasks. They go right to a class vote with little or no deliberation. They assume if you
disagree, you’ll say something (tacit agreement through silence). They focus on what they are
trying to decide and not on how they’ll make that decision. If you do this activity prior to a
When Andrew teaches the theory, he has the class work through a major problem on
his campus: parking. If that’s not a problem on your campus, he’s envious, but would
encourage you to pick another topic that is. He then has students break up into groups and
analyze the problem: “what do we really mean when we say that TCU has a parking problem?”
After students have talked for a bit, he brings the class back together and has them report
what they’ve discussed. They typically think of several dimensions of the problem, such as (a)
not enough parking space, (b) the walk from the available spaces to buildings is too far, (c)
some parking regulations are unclear, and so forth. Often students will start to jump ahead
positive and negative characteristics would be the final step. If the chosen issue is one your
students care about, it can make for a lively and practical discussion.
The functional perspective meets Candyland
On several occasions, students have commented that Figure 17-2 reminds them of the
children’s board game “Candyland” or “Chutes and Ladders.” I exploit the connection by
bringing in the board from the game and ask students to compare the familiar game with the
theory. While there might be a most expedient way of getting to the end, in both cases, there
Media and feature film illustrations
For a practical illustration of the functional perspective, you might show the two-minute
clip from Apollo 13 that begins when Ed Harris picks up chalk (1:28:30). Staying with the
Another excellent example come from Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In
his speech to S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America/Steven Rodgers goes through all four of the
requisite functions of decision making though he does it as a solo effort. You might use it to
preface a discussion of the importance of the group in a group decision-making theory such as
this one. Other films that also work well to illustrate the theory include Ocean’s 11, The
Goonies, and School of Rock.
If you or your students are familiar with The Office, you will likely see many connections
to scenes that illustrate functional and comically dysfunctional forms of group decision
making. In the 3rd season (episode 10/11, “A Benihana Christmas”), the dysfunctional
communication within the party planning committee, helmed by Angela who refuses to identify
alternatives, leads to a split in the groups. Pam and Karen later counteract this communication
and bring Angela back in when they see how this turn of events has upset her. In similar
Further Resources
Theoretical considerations
Dennis S. Gouran, “Has Communication Research Made a Difference? A Response to the
442.
Lise VanderVoort, “Functional and Causal Explanations in Group Communication Research,”
Communication Theory, Vol. 12, 2002, pp. 469-486.
Gwen M. Wittenbaum, Andrea B. Hollingshead, Paul B. Paulus, Randy Y. Hirokawa, Deborah G.
Ancona, Randall S. Peterson, Karen A. Jehn, and Kay Yoon, “The Functional Perspective
as a Lens for Understanding Groups,” Small Group Research, Vol. 35, 2004, pp. 17-43.
Applied contexts
Peter DeScioli and Robert Kurzban, “The Company You Keep: Friendship Decisions from a
Functional Perspective,” in Social Judgment and Decision Making, Joachim I. Krueger
(ed.), Psychology Press, New York, 2012, pp. 209-225.
Jennifer N. Ervin, Joseph A. Bonito, and Joann Keyton, “Convergence of Intrapersonal and
Interpersonal Processes Across Group Meetings,” Communication Monographs, Vol. 84,
2017, pp. 200-220.
Habermas and discourse ethics
Issue 4).