User:Zilong Wang/Groupthink

Groupthink

Causes

=== Janis prescribed three antecedent conditions to groupthink.

• High group cohesiveness. Janis emphasized that cohesiveness is the main factor that leads to groupthink. Groups that lack cohesiveness can of course make bad decisions, but they do not experience groupthink. In a cohesive group, members avoid speaking out against decisions, avoid arguing with others, and work towards maintaining friendly relationships in the group. If cohesiveness gets to such a high level where there are no longer disagreements between members, then the group is ripe for groupthink.
  • deindividuation: group cohesiveness becomes more important than individual freedom of expression
• Structural faults. Cohesion is necessary for groupthink, but it becomes even more likely when the group is organized in ways that disrupt the communication of information, and when the group engages in carelessness while making decisions.
  • insulation of the group: can promote the development of unique, inaccurate perspectives on issues the group is dealing with, and can then lead to faulty solutions to the problem.
  • lack of impartial leadership: leaders can completely control the group discussion, by planning what will be discussed, only allowing certain questions to be asked, and asking for opinions of only certain people in the group. Closed style leadership is when leaders announce their opinions on the issue before the group discusses the issue together. Open style leadership is when leaders withhold their opinion until a later time in the discussion. Groups with a closed style leader have been found to be more biased in their judgments, especially when members had a high degree for certainty.
  • lack of norms requiring methodological procedures
  • homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology
• Situational context:
  • highly stressful external threats: High stake decisions can create tension and anxiety, and group members then may cope with the decisional stress in irrational ways. Group members may rationalize their decision by exaggerating the positive consequences and minimizing the possible negative consequences. In attempt to minimize the stressful situation, the group will make a quick decision with little to no discussion or disagreement about the decision. Studies have shown that groups under high stress are more likely to make errors, lose focus of the ultimate goal, and use procedures that members know have not been effective in the past.
  • recent failures: can lead to low self-esteem, resulting in agreement with the group for fear of being seen as wrong
  • excessive difficulties in decision-making tasks
  • time pressures: group members are more concerned with efficiency and quick results, instead of quality and accuracy. Additionally, time pressures can lead to group members overlooking important information regarding the issue of discussion.
  • moral dilemmas Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most important antecedent to producing groupthink and always present when groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides to all group norms; whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent and alternative strategies to problem solving, it is likely that groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the other antecedents is present, situational context being slightly more likely than structural faults to produce groupthink. Copied from [Groupthink] ===

• Illusions of unanimity

Members perceive falsely that everyone agrees with the group's decision; silence is seen as consent. Janis promoted that the unity of group members was more illusion. In most cases, members may disagree with the organizations' decision, however, they go along with the group for many reasons, such as maintaiing their group status, avoiding conflict with upper class managers or workmates. They think that suggesting opinions which are contrary to others may lead to a consequence that they get isolated by the group.

Case studies

Politics and military

Groupthink can have a strong hold on political decisions and military operations, which may result in enormous wastage of human and material resources. Highly qualified and experienced politicians and military commanders sometimes make very poor decisions when in a suboptimal group setting. Scholars such as Janis and Raven attribute political and military fiascoes, such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal, to the effect of groupthink. More recently, Dina Badie argued that groupthink was largely responsible for the shift in the U.S. administration's view on Saddam Hussein that eventually led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. After the September 11 attacks, "stress, promotional leadership, and intergroup conflict" were all factors that gave rise to the occurrence of groupthink. Political case studies of groupthink serve to illustrate the impact that the occurrence of groupthink can have in today's political scene.

Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis

The United States Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 was the primary case study that Janis used to formulate his theory of groupthink. The invasion plan was initiated by the Eisenhower administration, but when the Kennedy administration took over, it "uncritically accepted" the plan of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When some people, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Senator J. William Fulbright, attempted to present their objections to the plan, the Kennedy team as a whole ignored these objections and kept believing in the morality of their plan. Eventually Schlesinger minimized his own doubts, performing self-censorship. The Kennedy team stereotyped Fidel Castro and the Cubans by failing to question the CIA about its many false assumptions, including the ineffectiveness of Castro's air force, the weakness of Castro's army, and the inability of Castro to quell internal uprisings.

Janis argued the fiasco that ensued could have been prevented if the Kennedy administration had followed the methods to preventing groupthink adopted during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place just one year later in October 1962. In the latter crisis, essentially the same political leaders were involved in decision-making, but this time they learned from their previous mistake of seriously under-rating their opponents.

Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, is a prime example of groupthink. A number of factors such as shared illusions and rationalizations contributed to the lack of precaution taken by U.S. Navy officers based in Hawaii. The United States had intercepted Japanese messages and they discovered that Japan was arming itself for an offensive attack somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Washington took action by warning officers stationed at Pearl Harbor, but their warning was not taken seriously. They assumed that the Empire of Japan was taking measures in the event that their embassies and consulates in enemy territories were usurped.

The U.S. Navy and Army in Pearl Harbor also shared rationalizations about why an attack was unlikely. Some of them included:

• "The Japanese would never dare attempt a full-scale surprise assault against Hawaii because they would realize that it would precipitate an all-out war, which the United States would surely win."
• "The Pacific Fleet concentrated at Pearl Harbor was a major deterrent against air or naval attack."
• "Even if the Japanese were foolhardy to send their carriers to attack us [the United States], we could certainly detect and destroy them in plenty of time."
• "No warships anchored in the shallow water of Pearl Harbor could ever be sunk by torpedo bombs launched from enemy aircraft."

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

On January 28, 1986, the US launched the Space Shuttle Challenger. This was to be monumental for NASA, as a high school teacher was among the crew and was to be the first American civilian in space. NASA's engineering and launch teams rely on group work, and in order to launch the shuttle the team members must affirm each system is functioning nominally. The Thiokol engineers who designed and built the Challenger's rocket boosters warned that the temperature for the day of the launch could result in total failure of the vehicles and deaths of the crew. The launch resulted in disaster and grounded space shuttle flights for nearly three years.

The Challenger case was subject to a more quantitatively oriented test of Janis's groupthink model performed by Esser and Lindoerfer, who found clear signs of positive antecedents to groupthink in the critical decisions concerning the launch of the shuttle. The day of the launch was rushed for publicity reasons. NASA wanted to captivate and hold the attention of America. Having civilian teacher Christa McAuliffe on board to broadcast a live lesson, and the possible mention by president Ronald Reagan in the State of the Union address, were opportunities NASA deemed critical to increasing interest in its potential civilian space flight program. The schedule NASA set out to meet was, however, self-imposed. It seemed incredible to many that an organization with a perceived history of successful management would have locked itself into a schedule it had no chance of meeting.

2016 United States presidential election

In the weeks and months preceding the 2016 United States presidential election, there was near-unanimity among news media outlets and polling organizations that Hillary Clinton's election was extremely likely. For example, on November 7, the day before the election, The New York Times opined that Clinton then had "a consistent and clear advantage in states worth at least 270 electoral votes." The Times estimated the probability of a Clinton win at 84%. Also on November 7, Reuters estimated the probability of Clinton defeating Donald Trump in the election at 90%, and The Huffington Post put Clinton's odds of winning at 98.2% based on "9.8 million simulations".

The contradiction between the election results and the pre-election estimates, both from news media outlets and from pollsters, may have been due to two factors: news and polling professionals could not imagine a candidate as unconventional as Trump becoming president, and Trump supporters may have been undersampled by surveys, they or may have lied to or misled pollsters out of fear of social ostracism.

Corporate world

In the corporate world, ineffective and suboptimal group decision-making can negatively affect the health of a company and cause a considerable amount of monetary loss.

Swissair

Aaron Hermann and Hussain Rammal illustrate the detrimental role of groupthink in the collapse of Swissair, a Swiss airline company that was thought to be so financially stable that it earned the title the "Flying Bank". The authors argue that, among other factors, Swissair carried two symptoms of groupthink: the belief that the group is invulnerable and the belief in the morality of the group. In addition, before the fiasco, the size of the company board was reduced, subsequently eliminating industrial expertise. This may have further increased the likelihood of groupthink. With the board members lacking expertise in the field and having somewhat similar background, norms, and values, the pressure to conform may have become more prominent. This phenomenon is called group homogeneity, which is an antecedent to groupthink. Together, these conditions may have contributed to the poor decision-making process that eventually led to Swissair's collapse.

Marks & Spencer and British Airways

Another example of groupthink from the corporate world is illustrated in the United Kingdom-based companies Marks & Spencer and British Airways. The negative impact of groupthink took place during the 1990s as both companies released globalization expansion strategies. Researcher Jack Eaton's content analysis of media press releases revealed that all eight symptoms of groupthink were present during this period. The most predominant symptom of groupthink was the illusion of invulnerability as both companies underestimated potential failure due to years of profitability and success during challenging markets. Up until the consequence of groupthink erupted they were considered blue chips and darlings of the London Stock Exchange. During 1998–1999 the price of Marks & Spencer shares fell from 590 to less than 300 and that of British Airways from 740 to 300. Both companies had already featured prominently in the UK press and media for more positive reasons to do with national pride in their undoubted sector-wide performance.

Sports

Recent literature of groupthink attempts to study the application of this concept beyond the framework of business and politics. One particularly relevant and popular arena in which groupthink is rarely studied is sports. The lack of literature in this area prompted Charles Koerber and Christopher Neck to begin a case-study investigation that examined the effect of groupthink on the decision of the Major League Umpires Association (MLUA) to stage a mass resignation in 1999. The decision was a failed attempt to gain a stronger negotiating stance against Major League Baseball. Koerber and Neck suggest that three groupthink symptoms can be found in the decision-making process of the MLUA. First, the umpires overestimated the power that they had over the baseball league and the strength of their group's resolve. The union also exhibited some degree of closed-mindedness with the notion that MLB is the enemy. Lastly, there was the presence of self-censorship; some umpires who disagreed with the decision to resign failed to voice their dissent. These factors, along with other decision-making defects, led to a decision that was suboptimal and ineffective. Copied from [Groupthink]===

Kodak Camera

Kodak used to be the most famous camera manufacturer in the world. Its huge market share and advanced technology at that time made the company's leaders think they are indestructible. However, when digital camera technology was developted, Kodak's leaders succumbed to the symptoms of groupthink; they refused to use digital camera technology, believed that their film technology is unparalleled. This decision was one of the main reasons that eventually led to the collapse of their business.