Slav Defence
THINK TANK VICE CHAIRMAN: ANALYST
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Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of their opponents (the "outgroup").
Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.
Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.
Most of the initial research on groupthink was conducted by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University. Janis published an influential book in 1972, which was revised in 1982.Later studies have evaluated and reformulated his groupthink model
Symptoms
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink.
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
1)Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2)Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Type II: Closed-mindedness
1)Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
2)Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
--Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
--Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
--Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"
--Mind guards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking
>Incomplete survey of alternatives
>Incomplete survey of objectives
>Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
>Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
>Poor information search
>Selection bias in collecting information
>Failure to work out contingency plans.
Causes
Janis prescribed three antecedent conditions to groupthink.
1-High group cohesiveness
2-deindividuation: group cohesiveness becomes more important than individual freedom of expression
3-Structural faults:
>insulation of the group
>lack of impartial leadership
>lack of norms requiring methodological procedures
homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology
--Situational context:
>highly stressful external threats
>recent failures
>excessive difficulties on the decision-making task
>moral dilemmas
>Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most important antecedent to producing groupthink and always present when groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides to all group norms; whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent and alternative strategies to problem solving, it is likely that groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the other antecedents is present, situational context being slightly more likely than structural faults to produce groupthink.
Prevention
As observed by Aldag & Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to consistently uphold the following principles:
The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision quality
Group problem solving is considered a rational process.
Benefits of group problem solving:
variety of perspectives
>more information about possible alternatives
>better decision reliability
>dampening of biases
>social presence effects
--Groupthink prevents these benefits due to structural faults and provocative situational context
--Groupthink prevention methods will produce better decisions
--An illusion of well-being is presumed to be inherently dysfunctional.
--Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies.
--It has been thought that groups with the strong ability to work together will be able to solve dilemmas in a quicker and more efficient fashion than an individual.
--Groups have a greater amount of resources which lead them to be able to store and retrieve information more readily and come up with more alternatives solutions to a problem. There was a recognized downside to group problem solving in that it takes groups more time to come to a decision and requires that people make compromises with each other. However, it was not until the research of Janis appeared that anyone really considered that a highly cohesive group could impair the group's ability to generate quality decisions. Tightly-knit groups may appear to make decisions better because they can come to a consensus quickly and at a low energy cost; however, over time this process of decision making may decrease the members' ability to think critically. It is, therefore, considered by many to be important to combat the effects of groupthink.
According to Janis, decision making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised ways of preventing groupthin
Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical evaluator". This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.
Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
Leaders should absent themselves from many of the group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the outcome.
The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same problem.
All effective alternatives should be examined.
Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil's advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.
By following these guidelines, groupthink can be avoided. After the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, President John F. Kennedy sought to avoid groupthink during the Cuban Missile Crisis using "vigilant appraisal."148-153 During meetings, he invited outside experts to share their viewpoints, and allowed group members to question them carefully. He also encouraged group members to discuss possible solutions with trusted members within their separate departments, and he even divided the group up into various sub-groups, to partially break the group cohesion. Kennedy was deliberately absent from the meetings, so as to avoid pressing his own opinion.
Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of their opponents (the "outgroup").
Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.
Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.
Most of the initial research on groupthink was conducted by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University. Janis published an influential book in 1972, which was revised in 1982.Later studies have evaluated and reformulated his groupthink model
Symptoms
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink.
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
1)Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2)Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Type II: Closed-mindedness
1)Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
2)Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
--Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
--Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
--Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"
--Mind guards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking
>Incomplete survey of alternatives
>Incomplete survey of objectives
>Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
>Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
>Poor information search
>Selection bias in collecting information
>Failure to work out contingency plans.
Causes
Janis prescribed three antecedent conditions to groupthink.
1-High group cohesiveness
2-deindividuation: group cohesiveness becomes more important than individual freedom of expression
3-Structural faults:
>insulation of the group
>lack of impartial leadership
>lack of norms requiring methodological procedures
homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology
--Situational context:
>highly stressful external threats
>recent failures
>excessive difficulties on the decision-making task
>moral dilemmas
>Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most important antecedent to producing groupthink and always present when groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides to all group norms; whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent and alternative strategies to problem solving, it is likely that groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the other antecedents is present, situational context being slightly more likely than structural faults to produce groupthink.
Prevention
As observed by Aldag & Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to consistently uphold the following principles:
The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision quality
Group problem solving is considered a rational process.
Benefits of group problem solving:
variety of perspectives
>more information about possible alternatives
>better decision reliability
>dampening of biases
>social presence effects
--Groupthink prevents these benefits due to structural faults and provocative situational context
--Groupthink prevention methods will produce better decisions
--An illusion of well-being is presumed to be inherently dysfunctional.
--Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies.
--It has been thought that groups with the strong ability to work together will be able to solve dilemmas in a quicker and more efficient fashion than an individual.
--Groups have a greater amount of resources which lead them to be able to store and retrieve information more readily and come up with more alternatives solutions to a problem. There was a recognized downside to group problem solving in that it takes groups more time to come to a decision and requires that people make compromises with each other. However, it was not until the research of Janis appeared that anyone really considered that a highly cohesive group could impair the group's ability to generate quality decisions. Tightly-knit groups may appear to make decisions better because they can come to a consensus quickly and at a low energy cost; however, over time this process of decision making may decrease the members' ability to think critically. It is, therefore, considered by many to be important to combat the effects of groupthink.
According to Janis, decision making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised ways of preventing groupthin
Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical evaluator". This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.
Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
Leaders should absent themselves from many of the group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the outcome.
The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same problem.
All effective alternatives should be examined.
Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil's advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.
By following these guidelines, groupthink can be avoided. After the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, President John F. Kennedy sought to avoid groupthink during the Cuban Missile Crisis using "vigilant appraisal."148-153 During meetings, he invited outside experts to share their viewpoints, and allowed group members to question them carefully. He also encouraged group members to discuss possible solutions with trusted members within their separate departments, and he even divided the group up into various sub-groups, to partially break the group cohesion. Kennedy was deliberately absent from the meetings, so as to avoid pressing his own opinion.
