Janis describes the idea of groupthink being “the mode of thinking that persons engage in concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action” (Janis 361). This was one of the main ideas brought up in George Orwell’s novel 1984 and affects many decisions in politics such as the Bay of Pigs, the Korean War stalemate, and the Vietnam War escalation. Outside of politics I believe that groupthink can be commonly found in courtrooms, especially when the jury is coming up with the verdict for the defendant. In Leadership 102, we also learned about groupthink and how humans do not like disagreeing with others and when we are in a group we tend to escalate and focus on more radical ideas.
Janis talks about this throughout the article. Groupthink involves suppressing any criticism you may have for your colleagues in order to avoid social punishment. A person may keep their thoughts to themselves by convincing themselves that it is not relevant to the topic at hand. The more cohesive the group is, the stronger the impulse is to avoid creating disunity. I thought it was very interesting that many people believe working together is actually more beneficial than individually because you can have many great ideas come together. However, Janis points out that group thinking contradicts this. When relating this back to the jury example, it makes me wonder if this is the best way to go about making court decisions. Juries are used in order to make sure that the decision is not made based off of a prejudiced judge. Yet, if groupthink affects juries and causes them to reach a more extreme verdict is this the most beneficial way to solve a trial?
I agree that juries are a good example of groupthink. Since jury members are already carefully selected to make sure they don’t have any biases that would affect their evaluation of the case, this makes me wonder if there is really any way to overcome groupthink in situations like this.
I still feel like working together rather than individually create more ideas, but it is important to create a group dynamic that allows new ideas to surface. I wonder if groups that disagree are ultimately more productive because they discuss a wider variety of ideas or if people in groups that are not cohesive would also be afraid to share ideas because they might not be well received.
I think it’s interesting how you brought up juries because after thinking about it, there are probably a ton of verdicts that could’ve been de-escalated or not as extreme; however, due to groupthink, the jury members might’ve thought that escalation of the verdict was the only was to be cohesive or gain approval from their peers.