Several catastrophic events in history have been attributed to the phenomenon of groupthink. First identified by Irving Janis, groupthink occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (1972, p. 9). Specific conditions such as a highly cohesive group, leader preference for a certain decision, and insulation of the group from qualified outside opinions are precursors to factors known as symptoms of groupthink. These symptoms include “illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, belief in inherent morality, stereotyped views of out-groups, direct pressure on dissenters, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity and self-appointed …show more content…
Because of the record of successful space flights, there was a feeling of being invulnerable, a willingness to take risks ignoring warnings of the MTI engineers. During the review, the group rationalized MTI’s evidence that the joint would fail at lower temperatures claiming that the data was inconclusive. In fact, Alan J. McDonald, a top MTI manager, tried to stop the launch saying, “he would not want to have to defend the decision to launch” (Moorhead, et al., 1991, p. 543). However, three senior officials, believing they were inherently moral, chose to ignore his warning. Additional groupthink symptoms including pressure on dissent, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity, and mind guarding were evident. NASA officials pressured MTI to amend their recommendation from delaying to execution of the launch. Because the meeting was held via teleconferencing, silence from NASA may have been interpreted as agreement or unanimity. Another critical fact is that top management from the Marshall space withheld technical data concerning a re-design of the rocket casings at the meeting. Therefore, a disastrous decision to go ahead with the Challenger launch resulted in its explosion shortly after take-off and the loss of seven
When the Challenger shuttle was set to launch NASA was feeling political pressure to gain congressional support for the space program, to help gain this support the shuttle crew had a high school teacher on board, Christa McAuliffe, and millions of people were excited and tuned into watch. NASA officials were hoping that this new endeavor would help generate funding since the U.S. budget deficit was soaring and they were afraid that their budget could be cut. Technical failure was the reason the shuttle exploding after take-off but this was not the only reason. With pressure mounting, decisions made by NASA and Morton Thiokol Corporation, the contractor who manufactured the piece with the technical failure, put political agendas in front of the technical decisions, which resulted in the tragedy (Bolman & Deal, 2008).
Numerous cases in history show that identification with a particular group can lead to dreadful outcomes. Together, with historical evidence, classic psychological studies tell a very powerful story. Decent people can take on oppressive roles and succumb to oppressive leaders. However, people often resist tyranny, and their resistance tends to be most effective when it is collective.
Everyday a war is being waged, not in foreign countries- but in small neighborhoods and capital cities all over the world. A timeless battle to retain individual thought and action in an increasingly conformist society. The concept of a unanimous group-thinking society can be witnessed throughout history in the form of political controversies to pop culture and trends, to subtle influences in everyday life. The short narrative “Shooting an Elephant” written by George Orwell is a perfect example of group-thinking that implicates that to be accepted into these societal groups, one must do what is right by them, and not by the individual. Throughout the narrative, the author is influenced by increasing pressures from the crowd to shoot the elephant although it goes against his own personal convictions. The author desires to be accepted into the native's lives; no longer a social outcast. However, with this desire comes the knowledge that the group may or may not be correct in their brutal quest for blood.
The topic of this paper is Irving Janis’s concept of groupthink. There has been an increase in the utilization of groups or teams of people who come together in the decision-making process. There are many benefits to group decision-making with each member brings their own perspectives, beliefs, and ideas to the table. However, there are also negative dynamics such as groupthink that can hinder this process. Groupthink can lead to members believing that their opinions don’t hold as much weight as their peers, a group becoming overconfident in their knowledge of what is right, and the minimization of threats. Lack of thorough analysis of all available options or opportunities can have costly and long reaching negative consequences. Proactive
Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink: a Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-14002-1.
The Challenger disaster of 1986 was a shock felt around the country. During liftoff, the shuttle exploded, creating a fireball in the sky. The seven astronauts on board were killed and the shuttle was obliterated. Immediately after the catastrophe, blame was spread to various people who were in charge of creating the shuttle and the parts of the shuttle itself. The Presidential Commission was decisive in blaming the disaster on a faulty O-ring, used to connect the pieces of the craft. On the other hand, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, in The Golem at Large, believe that blame cannot be isolated to any person or reason of failure. The authors prove that there are too many factors to decide concretely as to why the Challenger exploded. Collins and Pinch do believe that it was the organizational culture of NASA and Morton Thiokol that allowed the disaster. While NASA and Thiokol were deciding whether to launch, there was not a concrete reason to postpone the mission.
Groupthink was coined by Janis and is defined as “a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group”(Cherry). So people will essentially forgo their beliefs to conform to the group to obtain harmony or if they don’t agree with a group idea they will simply keep quiet about it rather than challenge ideas. Janis classified eight different “symptoms” of groupthink. They are Illusions of invulnerability, which leads the members of the group to take part in risk-taking and become overly optimistic. Unquestioned beliefs, leads the members to ignore the possible aftermath that their decisions can make. Rationalizing, hinders members from recognizing warning signs and from reexamining their own beliefs. Stereotyping, leads the members of the group to criticize or write off any other group who may have differing opinions. Self-censorship, makes group members who may have differing opinions not disclose them to the group. "Mindguards",certain members of the group who are self-appointed censors that withhold information they find may disrupt group consensus. Illusions of unanimity, leads the members of the group to think that everyone believes the same things. Direct pressure, this is put on members to conform when they do end up expressing their own opinions or the rest of the group feels as if they are having differing opinions. Janis’s work was influential because it helped us examine the
In 1972, Irving Janis presented a set of hypothesis that he extracted from observing small groups performing problem solving tasks; he collectively referred to these hypotheses as groupthink¹. He defined groupthink as “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action²” A successful group brings varied ideas, collective knowledge, and focus on the task at hand. The importance of groups is to accomplish tasks that individuals can not do on their own. The Bay of Pigs, Watergate, and the Challenger disaster are all forms of failure within a group. Specifically, you can see the effect of groupthink of Americans before September 11, 2001. The thought of harm to the United States was unfathomable, but only after the attacks did they realize they were not invincible. When a solid, highly cohesive group is only concerned with maintaining agreement, they fail to see their alternatives and any other available options. When a group experiences groupthink, they may feel uninterested about a task, don't feel like they will be successful, and the group members do not challenge ideas. Stress is also a factor in the failure of groupthink. An effective group needs to have clear goals, trust, accountability, support, and training. Some indicators that groupthink may be happening are; making unethical decisions, they think they are never wrong, close-minded about situations, and ignore important information. Many things can be done to prevent groupthink from happening. One way is to make each person in the group a “critical evaluator”. The leader must ...
Groups were assigned by professor and consisted of diverse students with various backgrounds. Our first task was writing group contract which involved participation of all group members and required closer contact among students. Tuckman’s Group Development Stages model can be used to show how our group worked together, as our ‘4U’ team had gone through each stage. Example of the forming stage was the first meeting when all group members tried to be polite and asked questions, such as ‘what is major?’, ‘what is your GPA?’, we tried to be kind to each other and be cautious to avoid misunderstandings in the beginning of our work. However, everything changed when we received the task to write contract and our group entered second stage of the Tuckman’s model. We experimented and tried to analyze who is doing better at brainstorming, writing, proofreading, and managing tasks. Therefore, some secondary tension occurred as all group members argued about topic, goals and norms we should establish. Our group consisted of four members which made it difficult to pass to third stage of Tuckman’s model. There was a conflict about topic; we had two ideas involving water quality problem and meal-plan issue. Both topics were interesting and challenging, there was an equal distribution of voices among these topics and group members openly disagreed, competed for a status and tried to persuade that their ideas are more important. There was not norming stage as separate, as conflicts occurred all the time, statuses of group members were also constantly changing. Group norms were continually adjusted and changing from the forming to performing stage. For instance, one of the explicit norms was that everyone should be prepared to the meeting (establi...
Andrew Carnegie said, “Teamwork is the ability to work together towards a common vision. It is the fuel that allows common people to obtain uncommon result.” Working with this definition, teamwork is the ability to agree together. Working together is a decision of making oneself available for a common vision. The results of a team will transcend the outcome of an individual.
Many people believe they are their own person and are free to make their own choices; however, few explore just how much a group can influence their behavior. This realm of influential group power has been analyzed by several psychologist to see how far people will bend to stay within a group mentality. Psychologists Asch, Zimbardo, McEwan, and Lessing defined a group mind as a mass of people who ignore their own morals and conscious to act as one whole entity because of obedience and pressure. As a result, this creates the potential for the group to become a destructively dangerous force.
In the years of the Vietnam War, we can find a good example of what groupthink can do to a force as powerful as the United States. President Johnson drug the troops to such fate and struggle thinking that the United States would determine the course of events in Vietnam. The U.S. declared war to Vietnam under the excuse of defending their ally, South Vietnam, and to prevent further aggression. The Congress agreed and voted in favor of military action against North Vietnam because “the overall effect was to demonstrate before the world the unity of the American people in resisting Communist aggression” (Bacevich, 2014).
After completing the group task of preparing a presentation on, transferring individual facilitation skills into a group work setting I will critically reflect upon my own participation. I will evaluate my self-awareness while working in the group, as well as those around me. The way that I personally dealt with any issues that arose within the group and how that affected the group dynamics. I will also briefly discuss the roles in which each member of the group took and how role allocation affected, the group dynamics and the working relationships. Finally I will evaluate my work having discussed it with my fellow group members.
The idiom "Birds of a feather flock together" according to, A Dictionary of American Idioms states "People who are alike often become friends or are together; if you are often with certain people, you may be their friends or like them" (Makkai, Boatner, Gates, 1995). This paper will focus on the social influence of groups, the dynamics in regard to, formation of groups, concept of in-group, out-group homogeneity, and illusory correlation. The in-group discussed here is the Germans and the out-group, the Jews. This ethnocentric view of "us" the good ones and "them" the bad. How conformity, obedience, and compliance to authority within a group specifically during WW II parallels Stanley Milgram’s obedience study. Irving Janis’ term groupthink allowed Hitler’s "leadership style, group cohesion and crisis combine to suppress dissent within his in-groups to such a degree that group members end up supporting polices (norms) that are extraordinarily ill considered " (Baron, Kerr, & Miller, 1992). This thinking allowed the dehumanizing norm that continued the genocide by Hitler’s subordinates. They obeyed authority even though cognitive dissonance existed. Demonstrating how people can act like sheep in subordinate roles. The use of propaganda by Hitler enhanced Germany’s ethnocentric beliefs.
Groups influence our everyday lives in ways that we don’t even realize. Most of what is learned from groups are societal norms that are being reinforced on a micro level in everyday life. Group influence on individuals is a clear tangible proof of societal norms by institutions. The groups we become a part of therefore can have a greater influence on our individual actions then we are aware of. As an individual we like to believe we have agency over our actions and what we decide but a lot of our own actions is more a part of a group mentality. Also, individual’s go along with a group’s influence so they feel better about themselves because then they won’t be ostracized. This paper will analyze different aspects of individual behavior and