I had heard of the term “groupthink” in my past psychology classes at UR and in high school, but after reading Irving Janis’s analysis of the term, it is evident to me how pertinent of a term it is with regard to different leadership methods. Janis’s definition of groupthink in regard to norms reminds me of the experiment we performed in my Leadership 102 class; we had to attempt to balance a tennis ball on a small metal ring attached to strings from one destination to another. My group was relatively comfortable with one another and a lot of group members were prior friends with one another. As Janis notes that there is evidence that “as the members of a group feel more accepted by the others, which is a measure of increased group cohesiveness, they display less overt conformity to group norms,” (Janis 362). Because we felt comfortable expressing how we felt and arguing with one another, there was relatively little conformity to group norms. For example, if one team member was suggesting to pull the strings extra tightly to the point that the tennis ball fell off, other members would feel comfortable enough speaking out against that idea rather than conforming to the suggestion as a group.
However, the idea of groupthink is was not present in this activity, although my first thought was that it did. Groupthink conformity argues that it involves the “greater the inner compulsion on the part of each member to avoid creating disunity, which inclines him to believe in the soundness of whatever proposals are promoted by the leader or by a majority of the group’s members,” (363). A groupthink situation would occur when the followers go along with whichever suggestion the leader makes and does not criticize it. For example, if a group leader in our tennis ball activity suggested we pull the strings tighter, and no one opposed the idea despite the logic that this would result in failure, that would demonstrate groupthink. When groups show “symptoms” of invulnerability, rationale, morality, stereotypes, pressure, self-censorship, unanimity, and mindguards, groupthink is a very reasonable affliction to be worried about.
Anna Marston
I think that the experiment that you did in 102 is really interesting and demonstrates the factors of groupthink very well, despite it not being present in the activity. Those symptoms, for the most part, have a connotation with respect to leadership as being weak which I think is one reason a strong leader has the potential to be so influential in groups with those symptoms.
That experiment sounds really interesting, and I agree that the more comfortable individuals in a group feel with the other members of the group, the easier it is for one person to go against the others. I think most of us feel pretty comfortable voicing an opinion that is different from that of our family or friends, but not everyone feels comfortable saying something in class that goes against what others have said.