Use the ethical dilemma “What Would You Do?” (p. 190) from the textbook (Adams, et al. 2021) and answer questions 1–3.
Reference
Adams, K. L., Galanes, G. J., & Hoelscher, C. S. (2021). Communicating in groups: Applications and skills (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
You and your group have been working on your panel presentation about the death penalty for several weeks, with one week to go before you are responsible for conducting the panel discussion in your class. This project represents a major portion of your grade in the small group class, and you are required to conclude your presentation by taking a position—your group must come out either in favor of or against the death penalty. After hashing this out for weeks, you have sorted through all your evidence and have almost reached consensus that you will come out in favor of the death penalty. This week, while doing library research for another class, you happen upon a new study, based on systematic examination of states with the death penalty, that strongly suggests the death penalty does not deter crime. The study seems well done; you don’t think you can dismiss it as a piece of biased or poorly done research. But you know if you present it to your group, you’ll push your emerging consensus further away, and you hate to do that! You are so close now to agreement, and you know this study will set you back. What do you do?
For what reasons would you present the article to your group?
For what reasons would you withhold the article?
What would you actually do?