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Abstract There are two aims to this paper; to report in brief preliminary form a number of studies on group risk‐taking that have been carried out in Bristol in the past two years, and to relate these studies to an explanation of group risk‐taking phenomena primarily in terms of group polarization. The paper has five sections. The first section supplies some background material regarding basic phenomena and previous attempts at explanations. The second section relates to initial individual decisions and the third section to decisions following group discussion and consensus. In the fourth section a tentative explanation of group risk‐taking effects is proposed in terms of group polarization processes, together with something like an overall value for risk. Group polarization itself is discussed in terms of normative and informational aspects of social influence. The final section deals with two implications of the proposed explanation, one relating to the role of individual familiarization and the other to the generality of group polarization processes.
Colin Fraser (Fri,) studied this question.