Groupthink

Groupthink

By

Paul ‘t Hart

Draft entry for K.M. Dowding (ed), Sage Encyclopedia of Power, London: Sage

2008

This Orwellian-sounding term was adopted in 1971 by Yale psychologist Irving L.

Janis to refer to a pathological form of group decision making which he alleged was a

root cause behind several fiascoes in U.S. foreign policy. Groupthink has since been

invoked as an explanation of all sorts of governmental, corporate, journalistic and

professional mishaps and disasters. On the strength of a highly evocative key concept

and a series of compellingly written case studies offering a persuasive interpretation

of a string of traumatic policy disasters deeply carved into the public imagination,

Janis’s 1972 book Victims of Groupthink went on to become one of the most

influential psychological contributions to the study of decision making politics,

management and the professions ever. Janis challenged the then dominant view in

theoretical and applied social psychology that group cohesion always results in better

performance. He maintained that under certain conditions and when a group engages

in stressful decisional tasks, strong group cohesion can in fact contribute to defective

decision making which, in turn, may lead to a policy disaster. He defined groupthink

as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a

cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their

motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. He also stated that

groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral

judgment that results from in-group pressures.

Janis identified eight main symptoms of the groupthink `syndrome:’ an illusion of

invulnerability among group members; the use of rationalizations to discount

warnings and other negative feedback; a shared belief in the inherent morality of the

group; stereotyped views of members of opposing groups;...