Employees not speaking up in a work meeting because they don’t want to seem unsupportive of their team’s efforts.Their illusion of invulnerability and moral righteousness led them to disregard intelligence information about weapons of mass destruction. A homogenous (yet experienced) team of American decisionmakers decided to go to war in Iraq.Suffering from the illusion of invulnerability and based on faulty assumptions the Kennedy administration launched an unsuccessful attack against Cuba. Space shuttle engineers knew about the shuttle’s faulty parts but they did not block the launch because of public pressure. In 1986, miscalculations regarding the launch of the Challenger shuttle claimed the lives of 7 people. government’s feelings of invincibility, underestimating the opponent’s abilities, and ignoring opposing viewpoints. The escalation of the Vietnam War in the 1960s resulted from the U.S.They ignored external information that the Japanese were planning an attack, thinking they would never dare to fight the American “superpower”. American officials did not anticipate or adequately prepare for the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941.The existence of “mindguards” blocking alternative information and options which leads to belief perseverance,ġ0 Groupthink Examples Real-world examples.Stereotyping group adversaries or outsiders,.An unquestioned belief in the group’s integrity,.The rationalization of collective decisions.The illusion that a group is invulnerable, fully competent, and coherent.Key Characteristics of GroupthinkĪccording to Janis, the key characteristics of groupthink are: It marks “a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from ingroup pressures” (Janis, 1972, p.
The group doesn’t fully analyse possible alternatives, gather external information, or seek external advice to make an informed decision. 9)Įssentially, a lack of conflict or opposing viewpoints leads to poor decisions. “…the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.” (1972, p. It emerged from his effort to understand why knowledgeable political groups often made disastrous decisions (especially in foreign policy). However, American psychologist Irving Janis introduced the comprehensive theory of groupthink in 1972. The term “groupthink” was coined in 1952 by William Whyte to describe the perils of “rationalized conformity”.
References Groupthink Definition and Theoretical Origins
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