Groupthink

The rather Orwellian-sounding word groupthink is one of those pieces of social-scientific terminology that has entered popular usage, where it is now used rather loosely and colloquially to refer to defective or dysfunctional group decision making in general; the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in 2004, for instance, that there was evidence of groupthink in the mistaken assessment that there were weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq prior to the 2003 American invasion. The chairs of that committee were using the term to refer to a kind of generalized or collective misperception. In the study of public policy, foreign policy analysis, psychology, and management, however, groupthink has a rather more precise usage. It was originated by the late social psychologist Irving Janis in his book Victims of Groupthink, first published in 1972 and later reissued in a revised form 10 years later as simply Groupthink. Although Janis himself did apply his theory to domestic cases such as the Watergate scandal—and the theory has also been used to explain management fiascoes such as the 1986 decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger—within political science it has exerted [Page 1058]its greatest impact on the study of foreign policy decision making. The theory has been heavily criticized in recent years for reasons that are detailed below, but Janis's basic assumption that individual behavior can be altered by group pressure is supported by a substantial body of empirical research.

Janis defined the groupthink phenomenon as a process through which a group reaches a hasty or premature consensus and then becomes closed to outside ideas or alternative thoughts within. The effort to achieve unanimity and agreement overrides the desire to consider a full range of policy alternatives. High group cohesion or excessive camaraderie lies at the heart of the groupthink phenomenon and may develop where the members think too much alike or have developed powerful links of friendship or collegiality that inhibit the challenging of assumptions. While Janis did not feel that groupthink was inevitable in such a situation, he maintained that this kind of group can fall victim to groupthink where members of the group come to prize “concurrence seeking” (unanimity or agreement) over the comprehensive, rational consideration of all available courses of action. Janis illustrates his theory with a range of examples in which he claims that groupthink played a central role in the decision making, including the 1941 decision by U.S. admirals at Pearl Harbor to ignore reports that the naval base was about to be attacked by Japan, the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the 1965 escalation of the Vietnam War. He contrasts this with what he calls vigilant appraisal—in which decision makers do rigorously and thoroughly consider all possible options—and holds up the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 as a notable instance of a case in which this kind of superior process occurred.

According to Janis, groupthink has a number of antecedent conditions in addition to high group cohesiveness. For instance, it is encouraged where the group is insulated from outside advice, where an aggressive or opinionated leader prevents meaningful debate, where norms requiring the use of methodical procedures are absent, where most members of the group come from a similar social and educational background and/or think alike, where the group is confronting high levels of stress, and where its members are experiencing temporarily low levels of self-esteem. Janis also identifies a number of symptoms that can be used to diagnose the presence of groupthink. These include the presence of an illusion of invulnerability among the group; collective rationalization about the risks of a chosen option; a belief in the inherent morality of the group, in which members come to believe in the exclusive moral rightness of their cause; the appearance of stereotyped views of outgroups or “the enemy”; the exertion of direct pressure on those who dissent from the majority opinion; self-censorship, where doubters fail to express their true feelings; the false perception of unanimity, where in fact some members may harbor personal doubts about the policy option chosen; and finally, the emergence of self-appointed “mind guards,” where members of the group take it on themselves to protect the group and its leader from dissenting views (guarding minds much as a bodyguard guards us physically).

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