Communications Theory: Group Thinking

Groupthink is the communications theory that addresses, “ defective decision making on the part of a cohesive decision-making group in which loyalty to real or perceived group norms take precedence over independent, critical judgment” (Redd & Mintz, 2013). The main idea behind the theory of groupthink is that when participants in a group discussion do not want to disrupt the group, they will in turn reframe from suggesting other solutions to a problem. By not contributing other suggestions, better solutions may be overlooked and this leads to poor decision making in general. In order for the best possible solution to be found, participants in the group need to feel like they can ask questions and discuss their own personal opinions and beliefs.

According to Irving Janis, “Groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures”(Mathern, 2013). Groupthink and the affect it has on groups have been studied for many decades. Research has been conducted to find out exactly how prevalent groupthink is in today’s society. Group dynamics have especially been studied in relation to groupthink. It has been hypothesized that, “all members should have an equal influential role within the group” (Mathern, 2013). Mathern (2103) also states that this theory is not always true because people with stronger social skills will feel like they have more of the authority to speak up. Mathern (2013) then goes on to discuss how this then leads to the symptoms of groupthink since the people with weaker social skills do not always want to disrupt the harmony of the group.

The symptoms of groupthink have been studied extensively. As mentioned earlier there are six main symptoms...

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... susceptibility to groupthink. This can be measured by taking a group of people and testing them in different environments to see if their susceptibility to groupthink changes. Since you will be using the same group and just placing them in different environments to solve a problem, their personalities are the same and we can measure if they change from environment to environment. Different examples of environment would be an office setting, a classroom setting, a restaurant setting, etc. This will allow me to see if the third variable does actually affect personality and one’s susceptibility to groupthink. By running experiments and measuring my three variables and the effects they have on one another I will be able to see if one’s personality and the environment they are placed in has an affect on one’s susceptibility to the communication theory groupthink.