Group Minds

Sometimes the two can go hand in hand being contributing factors of each other. Especially during adolescent years where peers encourage their friends to attend to behavior that is not part of their normal lifestyle. For instance, trying drugs for the first time, engaging in risky sexual behavior, and even encounters with alcohol. Even though these situations can end up being much more dangerous than intended, often times people do not back down because of what their peers may think of them. Friends follow along not knowing if they are even capable of a task because they feel they have a point to prove. Not to mention, there is pressures to be a part of groups like cliques and gangs, just as the local gangs in one’s urban community. According to Hallie Bourne, peer pressure is something that increases with age and begins to decline when an adolescence becomes independent from their family or guardian (Bourne, 2015). Similar to when Maria, decided to live a life of her own in New York for her and her unborn baby and become independent of her family back in Columbia where nothing was going

Gender discrimination can be directed towards someone women, men, homosexuals, or drag queens alike. In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel,” the men of the citadel are naughtily taught to discriminate against women and homosexuals. The men see women as unequal subjects and believe that they should never be granted the opportunity to attend The Citadel. Similarly, homosexuality is looked upon as being abnormal and wrong and anyone who is homosexual is not considered a “real man.” Likewise, in Beth Loffreda’s “Losing Matt Shepard,” the gay men and women are fiercely ostracized. Group mentality plays a huge role in the reason why different groups of people are discriminated against. Large groups have the ability

On October 15, 1962, the United States viewed reconnaissance photographs of Cuba and discovered Soviet missiles which were under construction. The next day President John F. Kennedy was informed of the discovery and the President formed a group of twelve advisors to plan and handle the crisis. The advisors met for seven days to plan a strategy on how to handle the crisis and on October 22, 1962, President Kennedy revealed the crisis to the American public and of his decision to surround and blockade Cuba. President Kennedy also made the announcement that the Soviets would need to remove their missiles from Cuba and any missiles fired from Cuba would be considered a direct threat to and attack on the United States.

Doris Lessing presents a discussion in “Group Minds” “regarding the context of obedience in group settings by shedding light on its most fundamental flaw, the “western image”. The western image is one of individualism, we are social creatures by nature.” “By socializing in groups we diminish the space for our individual growth by abiding by the ideologies of one group.” Lessing was a daughter of farmers born in Persia, present day Iran in the year 1919. Lessing’s educational journey started at a Roman Catholic convent and followed up in a southern girl’s high school in southern Rhodesia present day Zimbabwe. From the year of 1959, up until today Lessing has been described as the best female novelists of the postwar era. Writing over twenty works of fiction. Obedience to authority plays a huge role on the human psych for example, Phillip Zimbardo’s “Stanford prison experiment” consisting of two control groups, one of complete authority, and one that was completely powerless. The evidence shows a lack of individualism due to obedience to authority explained further by Shirley Jackson who demonstrates in “The Lottery” the effect of social groups, and how that affects the conscious mind and decisions. Diffusion of responsibility is seen in both articles, proving that even when our personal morals are challenged, we’ll submit to peer pressure.

People tend to watch media that best suit one’s beliefs. These people are looking for validation in the things one watches in order to feel better about oneself, in order to feel one’s ideas are right. Although, other people might watch what validates one’s beliefs simply because it is easier to not have to think and form new opinions. Some people might consider it too much work to look at both sides of a story and develop a new thought on the subject. Especially when one can come home after a long day at work, turning on the tv, and flipping to a news channel that presents the news with some sort of bias that supports one’s point of view. This might form some sort of groupthink in which many like minded people view and confront, certain aspects

To add on to what Rachel said, groupthink can also occur if the leader is well respected or persuasive. It does have it pros and cons. If used properly the group can come to a solution with everyone contributing. It gives everyone of a sense if worth because they contributed. A con can be peer pressure as when everyone agrees on one solution. This leads mental inefficiency and decrease in moral judgement. As some patients may just go with everyone says in order to avoid conflict. If you want to avoid groupthink then you can have an outsider come in and question the views of the members or or assign the role of critical evaluator to each member of the group.

Peer pressure is a term we all have heard of growing up. Not only have we heard of peer pressure, but we have all experienced peer pressure at some point in our lives. It could have been as little as a friend saying to take that one kids crayon from him to being pressured to sign a multibillion dollar contract that can change the face of the planet. No matter the act, one loses control over their own choices due to the influences of their peers. This is not only seen in the real world, but also in all types of literature. In “Shooting an Elephant”, George Orwell presents the idea that peer pressure is a powerful force that takes away one’s freedom of choice with the use of internal conflicts and connections to the real world.

“However, the same peer pressure can have quite negative repercussions as the child grows older and there are more serious issues in hand.”(parg2)When kids get older peer pressure gets worse in many ways.Kids will go to parties on a test day or do

Peer pressure can take place whenever people gather together and spend frequent time together. Most people are subject to its effects and often experience it because, of shared experiences or they share the same perspective on life. This becomes dangerous when a group has enough influence to dictate an individual’s way of thinking or behavior. When an individual is desperate to find a place to belong, they will follow the crowd even if they know that they are participating in something immoral; this is demonstrated in “We Real Cool.”

The APA (2010) ethical principle of nonmaleficence, otherwise known as “do no harm,” plays a vital role in guiding effective treatment and services for those in need. The principle of nonmaleficence also protects research participants from psychological and emotional harm by having the prospective study go through the Institutional Review Board (IRB) (APA, 2010, Standard 8.01). The IRB ensures that participants receive informed consent (APA, 2010, Standard 8.02) and, if there was minor deception, debriefing after the study (APA, 2010, Standard 8.08). Unfortunately, the role of the psychologists in the Abu Ghraib interrogation, the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and claims of Little Albert as neurologically disabled did not follow the

“The Rise of the New Groupthink” mainly offers the benefits of solitude and its impact on creativity. The need to allow people to have the ability to switch off their interaction with coworkers and teammates is also discussed. Susan Cain determines that privacy and association are both important to the modern workplace.

The Unites States is a country that that has faced continuous struggles between racial disparities throughout its history of existence. Group consciousness is a term used to describe the way a person identifies themselves within a group who shares similar political ideas and interests. The group an individual belongs to must be conscious and aware of their social standing in society and must participate in united action in order to better themselves as a whole and make sure that their values and political beliefs are acknowledged. According to Arthur Miller, group consciousness is made up of four elements. The first two are identification within the in-group and favoritism towards it. The third and fourth elements are having discontent

The A Team presented numerous arguments that revolved around symptoms equaling a direct correlation to groupthink. This viewpoint alone is false. If one or two symptoms of groupthink are present within a group, we can’t come to the conclusion of groupthink being present. The A Team assumed correlation implies causation, which is a fallacy. As our text for this semester explicitly states “…the presence of cohesion is not enough. Rather three sets of antecedent conditions all of which are important to learning groups must accompany cohesion.”(Myers & Anderson, p.120) In other words cohesion alone will never be the sole cause of groupthink occurring in a

Humans have evolved to be social creatures and individuals tend to work within a group, but does the majority opinion of the group influence how individuals of the group think? We are investigating the phenomenon and process of groupthink. We performed the experiment by placing young boys on an island with no adults. We used children instead of adults since they are pure and mostly innocent from darkness and society.