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https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/weekinreview/at-ground-zero-vision-by-committee.html At Ground Zero, Visionby Committee By Benedict Carey · July 3, 2005 · THE design plans for ground zero haveundergone as many facelifts, identity crisesand reinventions as an aging Hollywood star.
The plan unveiled last week, of a Washington Monument-likeFreedom Tower built on a pedestal of concrete in Lower Manhattan, was thelatest of several visions for the site and its memorial, differing sharply fromthe distinctive twisting wedge design proposed for the Freedom Tower in 2003.
In the time it has taken to get even this far, a war hasstarted, a presidential election has passed, a colossal football-Olympicsstadium project was designed, debated and voted down, and both the Mets andYankees unveiled plans for new stadiums.
And there is no guarantee that the ground zero designprocess is over; the group overseeing the plans, which includes Mayor MichaelBloomberg, Gov. George Pataki and the developer Larry Silverstein, amongothers, may yet stir more controversy and change course again.
Nor is everyone happy with the design they settled on. Somecritics call it a patch job, or worse. NicolaiOuroussoff, the architecture critic of The New York Times, wrote this withering assessment: "It is exactly the kind ofnightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happenhere: an impregnable tower braced against theoutside world."
All of which raises a question: Was all the back and forthand the character of the final design simply a matter of New York politics asusual? The product of a clash of powerful personalities? Or is something moreuniversal also at play: how small groups make decisions, particularly underpressure?
The pressure was certainly there. The planners have thealmost impossible task of creating a vision that somehow expresses confidence,renewal, mourning and memorialization, said Dr. Richard Moreland, a professorof psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. And, he added, "they'redoing so in an atmosphere in which a whole lot of people in the communitybelieve they have just as much expertise as anyone on the committee to makedecisions."
Still, small committees making large decisions are subjectto several dynamics, some obvious and some less so, that interfere with cleardecision making, experts say.
大概是说小community（或者就是一个小group）跟做决定的关系。作者是批判的态度。第一段引用了一个人的View 第一段引用了另一个做的Simulation。 总之两者都是批判的态度。主要弊端有几个，第一段说了同一个community的人可能share same knowledge，这个knowledge还不一定对，有时候只有一个人了解真实的事件情况跟信息，但这种时候大家都不太会听或者采纳这个人的说的东西。大家都觉得自己有权利讨论就代表自己是能提供价值的。（这块有考题）
When making important determinations, small groups in factoften do not take into account the most relevant expertise in the room,researchers have found. In a series of studies, the psychologist Dr. Garold Stasser at Miami Universityof Ohio has found that most smallgroups tend to make decisions based on information all members share about a topic, andto overlook important facts that one or several people may know but the othersdo not.
If only one member of a board of directors knows that acandidate under consideration for the job of chief executive officer hascheated on his taxes, for example, or if just one member of a design committeetruly understands the rollover risks of thetruck being designed, this information is often taken lightly or ignored in theflow of debate and conversation within the group, social psychologists say.
"And once certain ideas or plans become salient or popular, the group becomes overly focusedon them," said Dr. Scott Tindale, a psychologist at Loyola University inChicago.
For example, some critics of the new Freedom Tower havedescribed the massive concrete base as an extreme concessionto security -- an overreaction to the police department's concerns aboutthe building's safety. Whether true or not, the propensityof small committees to drift toward extreme decisions is also well documentedin specific circumstances. When all members of a group agree on a certainissues, whether it's reforming the I.R.S. or designing a faster minivan,individual members tend to one-up each otherand the choices become by degrees more and more extreme.
"The idea is that your opinion functions in part toreflect well on you, to make you look good," said Dr. Moreland. "Ifit's a group of conservatives talking about the Supreme Court, and one personcomes up with a very conservative opinion," through social pressure othersmove more in that direction.
第二段说有时候group make baddecisions. Something about them not willing to change because they want to saveface or avoid criticism.（注意这块说的是group，不是个人。有个细节题的选项说individual avoid criticism 我觉得是不对的） 有个人做了一个simulation，弄了一个小group出来，给每个人派上职务，来决定要不要在一块被一名有钱的resident donate的land上建park. 最后就发现他们是决定建，虽然这块land is contaminated. 然后还发现越跟组里关系密切的人，越会帮助推成这件事，因为loyalty
Particularly when there is a great deal of pressure -- asthere surely is with the ground zero design -- groups act very much like individuals understress, only more so, psychologists say. They procrastinate,calling for further information. And they become committed to bad decisions, to save face or to protect themselves against criticism.
In a recent simulation, Dr. BethDietz-Uhler, a psychologist at Miami University of Ohio, analyzed thebehavior of small groups of three or more people acting as city councilmembers, creating a park on land donated by a wealthy resident. As the simulation unfolded,information was provided that showed the land was contaminated, yet the acting councilmembers, especially those who felt strongly bonded to the group, often stuckwith their decision to build a park out of loyalty to the team.
Remarkably, small committees can and sometimes do make boldand creative choices. In the early 1980's, officials were sharply criticizedwhen they unveiled plans for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Theproposed design by Maya Lin, a young architecture student at Yale, envisioned asunken wedge of polished stone etched with thenames of the fallen soldiers. It stirred confusion and outrage among somecommentators and politicians, but Ms. Lin's design was ultimately approved, andhas become one of the most profoundly moving memorials in the country.
Still, many people who have spent their careers asparticipants in high-stake committees say it may be the influence -- or uniqueperception -- of one single forceful member that in the end makes thedifference. As Ralph Cordiner, the former chairman of General Electric, oncesaid: "If you can name for me one great discovery or decision that wasmade by committee, I will find you the one man in that committee who had thelonely insight -- while he was shaving or on his way to work, or maybe whilethe rest of the committee was chattering away -- the lonely insight that solvedthe problem and was the basis for the decision."
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发表于 2019-8-29 12:22:24
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