Unanimity as a rule for group consensus: a review of the theoretical and experimental literature on the use of unanimity in group decision making

This literature review examines the use of unanimity as a rule for reaching group concensus in decision making The review contains a brief overview of group decision making and of the processes involved in reaching unanimous decision rule on various group processes and the positive and negative aspects of using this method to reach decisions. From the experimental literature, it appears that unanimous decision vile increases group cohesiveness and commitment to the decision, but at a loss of decision quality: Therefore, the group priorities should be taken into account when considering unanimity as a decision rule.