Paradox Of Groupthink

These consequences can lead to monumental fiascoes. One such fiasco took place in the mining town of Pitcher, Oklahoma in 1950. A mining engineer warned the miners that their town could cave in at any moment from excessive excavating. He suggested immediate evacuation of the town. The leading citizens of the town held a meeting and mocked the engineers’ warning. A few days later, the disaster hit, taking the lives of those who refused to leave. They followed the poor decision made by the leading citizens of the town. All seven symptoms were present in the 1950 mining disaster. A second example of groupthink would be the events surrounding the space shuttle Challenger, the product of flawed decisions. The evidence was inadvisable to launch the space shuttle at the earliest opportunity. NASA’s perspective was that is was undesirable to delay the launch because of the impact it would have on political and public support for the program. Authorities dismissed potentially lethal hazards as only acceptable risks because of NASA’s engineer’s pressure to launch. The decision to launch the shuttle amounted to a much greater loss than the loss of political and public support. A third example of groupthink involves the group around Admiral HE Kimmel, which failed to prepare for the possibility of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor despite repeated warnings. Informed by his intelligence chief that radio contact with Japanese aircraft carriers

Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran developed the Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making theory to “offer practical advice on how participants can act to ensure better group decisions” (Hirokawa, 1999, p. 170). They believe that as long as the members in a group care about the issue and are reasonably intelligent, the group interaction will have a positive effect on the final decision. In order for a group to reach a high-quality solution, Hirokawa and Gouran believe the group 's decision-making process needs to fulfill four task requirements they refer to as requisite functions of effective decision making. "Three core assumptions define the functional perspective: (1) groups are goal oriented; (2) group performance varies in quality and quantity, and can be evaluated; and (3) internal and external factors influence group performance via the interaction process.” (Wittenbaum, 2004 p. 19).

There are many factors altering group behavior and effectiveness, such as decision- making, cohesion and communication (Crocker, 2016). The later has also shown a positive relationship with group task cohesion (Smith et al., 2013), and methods of enhancing intrateam

In 2011 head coach Joe Paterno of Pennsylvania State University was fired after a scandal involving Jerry Sandusky brought to light allegations of child sexual abuse that had been in the shadows for as many as 30 plus years without any discipline. After Sandusky was found guilty and sentenced to 30-60 years, some question whether this incident could have been prevented and why it was kept secret for so many years. The Sandusky scandal is a good example of a concept called Groupthink proposed by Irvan Janis (1982) “that describes a dysfunctional group process that can occur when group members focus on being cohesive, do not express disagreement or think critically, and as a result, make bad decisions”. In my paper I will highlight the concepts

The Crucible by Arthur Miller, explains the marvels of witchcraft and the world of “magic”, which unravels a set of confusing disasters in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. While confronted between a choice of life and death, situations hastily get out of hand, and soon become uncontrollable. These events are based on true happenings that led to the writing of this play, which contains the themes mass hysteria, groupthink, and abuse of power. The vast world of witchcraft may not have seemed too intimidating, but it is proven that it’s more dangerous than one can truly imagine.

This case, as well as the previous two, are prime examples of how detrimental groupthink can have on the effect of your career or the lives of several others. It may not always be easy to recognize the dangers or altercations groupthink may have, which is why you should always appoint ‘mind guards’ to contradict the decisions made within a group setting. It is always beneficial to seek an outside source for their opinion, as it may be just the idea that the group has

Stephen King was quoted as saying, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” A plane crash is bad enough; throw into the mix that the plane crash landed in a vast desert far away from anyone and anything. The team showed great cohesiveness in its ability to get through the groupthink and group shift behaviors. In this paper, groupthink and group shift behaviors will be discussed. This paper will cover points to show how through both behaviors the group will remain cohesive and put aside any individual needs and focus more on the needs of the group. Even though the situation will be tough, the team will plan, find harmony and put their brains together to find ways to survive.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Challenger Disaster, and the U.S. failure to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor – all notable examples of how groupthink tends to plague groups with high cohesiveness (What is Groupthink, n.d.). Oxford Dictionaries defines groupthink as “the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” (Groupthink, n.d.). With this in mind, it is no surprise that groupthink is going to be a major problem in an organization, such as the military, that values uniformity and a strict chain of command. There is a lot of research on groupthink and evidence of groupthink is apparent in nearly every social group, no matter the size. So, how does a junior officer in the military go about minimizing groupthink among his subordinates and peers without affecting values such as uniformity and chain of command? In order to minimize groupthink, you must minimize the symptoms by encouraging honesty, accountability, and differing opinions. This paper will demonstrate how a junior officer can combat groupthink within the decision making process, standard operating procedures, and the culture of the command.

3. Group think is a concept that involves individuals abandoning their critical senses and agreeing to group process even when they know it will have disastrous consequences. (Challenger disaster, Enron, Iraq war, etc.). Your will encounter these pressures in your work life and need to be prepared. Have you ever done something in a group that you would not have done if you were alone? What happened? How did you feel? What have you learned from this chapter that might help you avoid this behavior in the future, and avoid group think?

From my experience, one situation I can think of where the “groupthink” phenomenon could be applied happened when I used to be a scribe/scribe trainer. Our leads had just hired a new group of scribes and prior to starting on the floor the trainees needed to complete a classroom training course covering medical terminology, understanding of the EMR template and then pass an examination. After that then they were able to start training shifts on the floor with an experienced scribe “shadowing” them. The first time scribing on the floor can be really daunting because some providers work very fast and they can be very particular (quality/length of HPI, what& where to document certain findings) which as a newbie you wouldn’t know unless you worked

An example of groupthink can be the terrorist attack of 911. Although it was a very tragic situation, Obama Bin Laden and his group planned it out. They came together and made a decision on something that they wanted to do. Osama Bin Laden was looked at as a idol by his people and he had several people that was high ranking in his culture to help him out. Their acts were evil and cowardly, but the power of groupthink was able to persuade people to carry out the attack. Groupthink exist in society everyday, the power of group thin is very strong. The more people that are contributing to a cause usually mean the better chance the goal will be completed. Groupthink is when people think and act alike in a particular group (Baumeister & Bushman, 2013, p. 524-525). Another example

The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack

The difference between groupthink and the Abilene Paradox can be seen as a one or all type of influence. The Abilene Paradox is where one might not agree with the group but will go along anyway, whereas in groupthink everyone will agree with the group (Carson, 2006, p. 2). The trouble that they both share is that of critical thinking, or just not asking questions. The fear or hope is that it is the best thing for all, and people will just go along with the program due to influence or not wanting to douse the groups enthusiasm.

Groupthink theory often occurs without the group’s realization. Irving Janis formed 8 different symptoms that indicate groupthink. The first of these symptoms is illusions of vulnerability. This occurs when members of the group are overly optimistic and believe that nothing negative will arise from their decision. Janis describes it as taking great risks and acquiring the attitude of “everything is going to be OK, because we are a special group”. Secondly we have belief in inherent morality. This symptom is characterized as the groups thought that they could do no wrong. They believe that they have high morality, that they are right in all situations and they ignore the ethical consequences that could arise because of their decisions. As the third

Members of the organization privately, as individuals, understand the problem or the situation that the organization faces and as individuals again decide about the appropriate solution for the problem. But when the time comes to take a decision as a group, individuals fail to communicate their thoughts to the other members of the organization, because they mistakenly think that their own choices are against group believes. Therefore they are driven to make collective decisions which are totally different from what they really wanted to do and the consequences of their actions are to sharpen problems of the organization instead of solving them and also to create anger and dissatisfaction among the members of the group, which commit subgroups and blame the others for the downstream of the organization. All of the above seem to be absurd as members of the group having fully aware of what they are doing, are taking actions which are damned to fail. However there are more deep psychological reasons for these reactions which are analysed