What appears to happen in groups is that the discussion leads to a significant shift in the positions of members toward a more extreme position in the direction in which they were already leaning before the discussion; so conservative types become more cautious and the more aggressive types take on more risk.
This idea seems to relate quite well with the basic principles of groupthink, which is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.
Groupshift can be seen to be evident within groupthink as a sub-set of typical thinking patterns that occur in group situations and can be observed in society in situations such as student bodies, government, sporting teams and juries.
There were inconsistencies with early studies however, which led some researchers to introduce the term stingy shift, which was basically the same as a risky shift in that the group would tend to agree on the decision, however in this case, the decision was to be more conservative, or stingy (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008).
[3] Scientific research also suggests that males are greater risk-takers than females (Wilde 1994) a trait that likely has both physiological and social roots.