Groupthink

Definition

Groupthink refers to decision-making groups' extreme concurrence seeking (conformity) that is hypothesized to result in highly defective judgments and outcomes. According to Irving Janis, the inventor of the groupthink concept, decision-making groups are most likely to experience groupthink when they operate under the following conditions: maintain high cohesion, insulate themselves from experts, perform limited search and appraisal of information, operate under directive leadership, and experience conditions of high stress with low self-esteem and little hope of finding a better solution to a pressing problem than that favored by the leader or influential members.

When present, these antecedent conditions are hypothesized to foster the extreme consensus-seeking characteristic of groupthink. This in turn is predicted to lead to two categories of undesirable decision-making processes. The first category, traditionally labeled symptoms of groupthink, includes illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, stereotypes of outgroups, self-censorship, mindguards, and belief in the inherent morality of the group. The second category, typically identified as symptoms of defective decision making, involves the incomplete survey of alternatives and objectives, poor information search, failure to appraise the risks of the preferred solution, and selective information processing. Not surprisingly, extremely defective decision-making performance by the group is predicted.

History and Social Significance

Irving Janis proposed the term groupthink to describe group decision fiascos that occurred in such cases as the appeasement of Nazi Germany by Great Britain at the beginning of World War II; the failure of the U.S. military to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which served to bring the United States into World War II; then President of the United States Harry Truman's decision to escalate the war in North Korea, which resulted in Communist China's entry into the war and a subsequent military stalemate; then President of the United States John Kennedy's decision to send Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro by invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, resulting in the death of 68 exiles and the capture of an additional 1,209; and then President of the United States Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, counter to the warnings of intelligence experts. Janis developed his list of antecedents and consequences of groupthink by comparing the social processes that occurred in these decisions with the successful group decisions in the cases of the development of the Marshall Plan for distributing U.S. aid in Europe after World War II and the use of threats and rewards by the Kennedy administration to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba in what has become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The concept of groupthink became a hit with the general public. Just 3 years after the term was introduced, it appeared in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which defined groupthink as “conformity to group values and ethics.” Thus, in the popular imagination, groupthink has come to mean any conformity within a group setting. (Of course, Janis's original formulation involves much more than just conformity or going along with the group.) The concept of groupthink was also a hit within the academic literature, frequently appearing in textbooks in social psychology and organizational management.

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