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‘Groupthink’ by Lips

20th June 2013

Human and Mass Communications

DCMDPD136A

Odyuo Chum Ren

Kenneth Low Wei Jun

Victoria Loh

Benedict Lim

Haikal Hussin

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Table of contents

1.Introduction

2. Definition

3. The Irving Janis theory

4. Symptoms of groupthink

5. Causes

6. Past cases and its better

alternatives

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7. Advantages and disadvantages of

groupthink

8. Solution

9. Conclusion

Introduction

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that can occur

in groups of people. In terms of evaluating information,

the group quickly responds to the problems with matching

solution with the group’s consensus. Groupthink often occurs

when their respected leader is present, persuading group

members to follow his decisions.

The leader often practice authoritarian management as it

leaves group members no room to question or give sensible

arguments.

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Groupthink is defined by the studies of research by

psychologists Irving Janis, from Yale University.

Definition

The techniques within groups leading to group polarization

can sometimes have very destructive consequences.

This is especially the case when groups succumb to what

Janis termed groupthink. According to Janis, groupthink

is “the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that

suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives in cohesive

decision-making groups”. Groupthink is the tendency of the

group to produce to the desire of the group’s agreement

or unanimity at the cost of considering the consequences

of action. Empowered by groupthink’s attributes, members

tend to discount consequences that might lead to

disastrous outcome. Groups affected by groupthink also

ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that

dehumanize other groups.

The Irving Janis theory

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Irving Lester Janis (26 May 1918 - 15 November 1990) was

a research psychologist at Yale University and a professor

at University of California most famous for his theory of

groupthink, which described the systematic errors made by

groups when making collective decisions. Janis mentioned

that groupthink occurs when a group makes faulty decisions

because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental

efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.

Symptoms of Groupthink

Janis has documented eight symptoms of groupthink:

1. Illusion of invulnerability

Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking

extreme risks.

2. Collective rationalization

Members discounts warnings and do not reconsider

their assumptions.

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3. Belief in inherent morality

Members believe in the rightness of their cause and

therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences

of their decisions.

4. Stereotyped views of out-groups

Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses

to conflict seem unnecessary.

5. Direct pressure on dissenters

Members are under pressure not to express

arguments against any of the group’s views.

6. Self-censorship

Doubts and deviations from the perceived group

consensus are not expressed.

7. Illusion of unanimity

The majority view and judgments are assumed to be

unanimous.

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8. Self-appointed ‘mind guards’

Members protect the group and the leader from

information that is problematic or contradictory to the

group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

When the above symptoms exist in a group that

is trying to make a decision, chances are that

groupthink will happen, although it is not necessarily

so. Groupthink occurs when groups are highly unified

and when they are under substantial pressure to make

a quality decision. When pressures for unanimity

seem overwhelming, members are less motivated

to realistically appraise the alternative courses of

action available to them. These group pressures

lead to inattentiveness and irrational thinking since

groups experiencing groupthink fail to consider all

alternatives. Decisions made through groupthink have

low probability of achieving successful outcomes.

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Causes

What causes groupthink? According to Janis, five features

are present when groupthink occurs:

1. The group is very cohesive.

2. The group considers only a few options.

3. The group is insulted from information coming from

outside the group.

4. There is much stress because of great time pressure.

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5. The group is dominated by a very directive leader.

The above five factors can produce an illusion of group

invulnerability, in which the members of the group are

extremely assured of their decision-making ability. Members

often censor their own thoughts and even act as “mind

guards” to prevent others from stating ideas.

Past Cases and its Better Alternatives

We present three controversial cases: Nazi Germany, the

attack on Pearl Harbor and the Jonestown massacre. All

of them have made headlines across all four corners of the

world. They have the similar symptoms of groupthink, and

there should have different outcomes should the parties

involved in them have taken different courses of action.

1. Nazi Germany and Groupthink

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Third Reich is common names for Germany during the

period from 1933 to 1945, when Adolf Hitler controlled its

government.

Racism, especially anti-Semitism, was a central feature

of the regime. The implementation of the regime's racial

policies culminated in the mass murder of Jews and many

other minorities in the Holocaust. Even education focused

on racial biology, which is the use of scientific techniques

and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism,

racial inferiority, or racial superiority.

Everyone who was fit enough had to join the war as

Hitler ordered that anyone who was not prepared to fight

should be court-martialled. In the end, Germany was

stricken by a series of unprecedented waves of suicides

during the final days of the Nazi regime as a result of the

loss of the war and the anticipated Allied occupation of Nazi

Germany.

The regime promoted the concept of a national

German ethnic community. The goal was to build a classless

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society based on racial purity and the perceived need to

prepare for warfare and conquests. Newspapers were

controlled by the state, with the Reich Press Chamber

shutting down or buying newspapers and publishing houses.

The Propaganda Ministry purchased the two largest

film companies, and their productions generally had a

political subtext and followed party lines regarding themes

and content.

Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who

questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"

and any party deemed undesirable were persecuted or

murdered, and opposition to Hitler's rule was ruthlessly

suppressed. In addition to that, members of the liberal,

socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned,

or forced into exile.

Alternative Outcomes

The people of Germany also had a rough life after the First

World War, Germany had a huge debt and the economy was

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in a sorry state. The people needed a strong figure to lead

them, to bring Germany back to its knees and into another

golden age.

Hitler should have been more rational and realistic

during the Second World War. He was very stubborn and he

insisted on carrying out his plans for world domination

despite sound advice from his advisers and generals and he

failed to evaluate the true strength of his enemies. He

dismissed them as being 'cowardly' when they opposed his

objectives.

Hitler was over-confident about himself and the true

capabilities of his army as well. He thought could actually

conquer Russia, which was around three or four times

bigger than Nazi Germany and had army that could easily

destroy his.

2. The Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is a

prime example of groupthink. A number of factors such as

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shared illusions and rationalizations contributed to the lack

of precaution taken by Naval officers based in Hawaii. The

United States had intercepted Japanese messages and they

discovered that Japan was arming itself for an offensive

attack somewhere in the Pacific. Washington took action by

warning officers stationed at Pearl Harbor, but their warning

was not taken seriously.

Pearl Harbour demonstrates two symptoms of

groupthink: illusions of invulnerability creating excessive

optimism and encouraging risk taking, and rationalizing

warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.

Americans ignored the fact that Japan had a tendency to

launch brutal attacks before declaring war. In fact, the US

government underestimated the Japanese' intentions and

continued sending scrap iron, oil, and other raw materials to

Japan well into 1940. Nine years before the bombing of

Pearl Harbor, Admiral Frank Schofield anticipated a possible

attack on Hawaii from the Pacific. The military confirmed his

theory that aircrafts attacking from the Pacific would be

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undetected and would wreak havoc on the harbor. Despite

these results, the military refused to re-examine their

defences.


If only the Naval officers based in Hawaii would have taken

Washington warning seriously about the Japanese plan for

an offensive attack, precautions would have been taken.

These precautions would have saved countless lives. The

Naval officers' over-confidence is also a major cause to their

downfall. They were positive that the Japanese would not

launch an attack on them because it will lead to war, which

the US would surely win. Again, the Naval officers shouldn't

have underestimated the enemy. They believed that their

defenses were impenetrable and that their entire navy fleets

could withstand any torpedo bombs launched by the enemy.

3. The Jonestown Massacre

Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and

a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny. The Temple encouraged

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some of its members to move to Jonestown, which was

formally named the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project".

On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones led his

congregation, Peoples Temple, in a mass murder-suicide in

Jonestown, Guyana. A 44-minute cassette tape (the “death

tape”) recorded at least part of a meeting Jones called under

the pavilion in the early evening. Before the meeting, aides

prepared a large metal tub with poisoned Flavor Aid – a non-

carbonated soft drink beverage. A total of 909 Temple

members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent

cyanide poisoning, in an event termed "revolutionary

suicide" by Jones and some members on an audio tape of

the event and in prior discussions.

Many of the members of Peoples Temple were so

desperate for acceptance and fearful of being alienated for

questioning the Temple's methods that they ceased to

speak out against Jones' harsh, manipulative practices. For

some members who attempted to escape, drugs were

administered in an "extended care unit.

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If only the members of the Peoples Temple would have

perceive the hidden intentions with more logical sense and

question the authority prior to the incident, Jim Jones would

have no room for persuasions and have to go through public

justification and be reasonable with the people. Therefore

these obscurities of instructions would be viewed in a more

sensible way and the massacre could be prevented.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Groupthink

Advantages

In groupthink, the group will exert strong efforts to finish

a specific task, as there is a unified vision in the group.

This could also come from the group's unified vision and

mindset, which also causes decision-making very quick

and rapid. Team commitment and loyalty and support &

encouragement between members can be easily achieved

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as well.

In the professional context, it can get the same job

done in a more efficient manner. At the same time,

individuals in a group are less likely to go against the grain

in order to keep the group dynamic somewhat stable and

conflict-free.

Disadvantages

Group cohesiveness becomes more important than

individual freedom of expression. As a result, there is a

selection bias when collecting information or opinions as

the members may keep quiet about personal opinion in

fear of getting ostracized by the group. When the members

of the group attempt to fit in to the group and conform the

group's norm can cause lowered creativity and lack of

innovation as the individual members lose the ability to think

for themselves and rely on the group to make decisions.

The group might also neglect contingency plans in the

event of the failure of a plan. The group may tend to

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disregard other alternatives or reevaluate previously rejected

alternatives as well. Sometimes, conflict is necessary in

order to produce positive change and groupthink hampers

that by emphasizing on maintaining the norms of the group.

Solutions

As with the saying 'prevention is better cure', so the list of

solutions (provided below) should be applied before the

formation of the group and throughout the group's activities

as well.

The list below shows the steps to take in

preventing 'groupthink'

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1. Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical

evaluator". This allows each member to freely air objections

and doubts.

2. Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning

a task to a group.

3. Leaders should absent themselves from many of

the group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the

outcome.

4. The organization should set up several independent

groups, working on the same problem.

5. All effective alternatives should be examined.

6. Each member should discuss the group's ideas with

trusted people outside of the group.

7. The group should invite outside experts into meetings.

Group members should be allowed to discuss with and

question the outside experts.

8. At least one group member should be assigned the role

of the Devil's advocate. This should be a different person for

each meeting.

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After the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, President John

Kennedy sought to avoid groupthink during the Cuban

Missile Crisis using "vigilant appraisal. 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. With that, President Kennedy had

avoided other devastating outcomes by avoiding groupthink

when he was dealing with the crisis.

Conclusion

There are several recent developments, such as the

researching of new theories and models have helped

Groupthink continue to be a prolific topic in psychology

research. More than twenty major studies focusing on some

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aspect or application of groupthink have been published

since the beginning of 2010. One of the more popular

current research trends includes comparing the prevalence

of groupthink in a diverse corporate environment to that of

a less diverse firm. Another ongoing study by Duval frames

groupthink in the context of a small group social network.

Citations

• Timeline: The Life and Death of Jim Jones. PBS.org.

Accessed April 9, 2007.

• King, Peter. "How Jones used drugs." San Francisco

Examiner . 28 December 1978. Archived.

•"Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project." Alternative

Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San

Diego State University.

• Hall, John R. (1987). Gone from the Promised Land:

Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Brunswick,

New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. p. 282. ISBN 0-

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88738-124-3.

• Autopsy Report for Carolyn Moore Layton

• http://comm202blog.blogspot.sg/2008/04/group-think-

has-its-advantages-and.html

• http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-

disadvantages-group-cohesiveness-productivity-

25046.html

• Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink: a Psychological

Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-14002-1.

• Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological Studies

of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin.ISBN 0-395-31704-5.

• Brooke, Jennifer. "Diversity and corporate performance:

a review of the literature". Retrieved April 27, 2011.

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