{"id":1167,"date":"2019-10-15T14:03:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T18:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2019-10-15T14:03:27","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T18:03:27","slug":"blog-post-8-groupthink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2019\/10\/15\/blog-post-8-groupthink\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 8: Groupthink"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had heard of the term \u201cgroupthink\u201d in my past psychology classes at UR and in high school, but after reading Irving Janis\u2019s analysis of the term, it is evident to me how pertinent of a term it is with regard to different leadership methods. Janis\u2019s 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 \u201cas 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,\u201d (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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cgreater 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\u2019s members,\u201d (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 \u201csymptoms\u201d of invulnerability, rationale, morality, stereotypes, pressure, self-censorship, unanimity, and mindguards, groupthink is a very reasonable affliction to be worried about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anna Marston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had heard of the term \u201cgroupthink\u201d in my past psychology classes at UR and in high school, but after reading Irving Janis\u2019s analysis of…<\/p>\n

Continue readingBlog Post 8: Groupthink<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}