This week’s article talks about groupthink. Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of people who believe similar things put not offending anyone over actually making good decisions. According to the article, groupthink results in invulnerability, rationale, morality, stereotypes, pressure, self-censorship, unanimity, and mind guards. In my AP psych class in high school, we talked about groupthink in a different way. We talked about groupthink being when a group of like-minded individuals comes together and their ideas become more extreme due to the constant confirmation of their ideas. In both definitions, it results in bad decision making which I think is the most significant outcome of groupthink. It leads top people making quick decisions that they didn’t think all the way through or just didn’t give enough time to see every angle or possibility. In the Bay of Pigs example, JFK underestimated almost everything about Casto and the Cuban military. Though the article states that some of that was due to bad intel, Kennedy could have put more time and energy into thinking about his decision as opposed to just sending in the military. I don’t know, it just seems that having a group with differing opinions that can work together and compromise leades to better decision making than having a homogeneous group making all the decisions without thinking about all the possible consequences.
Group Think
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Rationalizing group decisions can often lead the group to make risky decisions. They will analyze the risks and consequences, but won’t acknowledge key details and will continue to persuade others as to why the decision can’t go wrong.
In my AP Psych class in highschool we also only talked about groupthink in terms of people with the same opinion coming together and making that opinion stronger. It was interesting to read a different situation of groupthink.
I agree with both definitions it ends in bad decision making. It makes people frantic and make a decision without thinking it all the way through.
I think what you’re talking about here is echochambers vs groupthink. I am absolutely positive they’re related. But while echochambers generate more extreme behavior, Janis’ description of groupthink just seems to make people more ignorant of external factors and critical thinking, which I would think would lead to echochamber-logic, but I’m not sure since groupthink abides by the group’s morales and echochambers usually revolve around one common interest rather than a political, social, geographical, or economic base.