Groupthink

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity-particularly diversity of viewpoints-for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of nonliberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

Britain's exit from the European Union on the 31st of January 2020 was the culmination of what was arguably the second major failure of statecraft by the British political class this century, following the UK's participation in the 2003 Iraq invasion. Drawing on elite theory as well as research into group behaviour, identity diversity and cognitive diversity, and decision-making and organisational performance, the article examines key stages of the Brexit process. The article argues that failures at each stage are attributable to a degree of 'groupthink' and 'group polarisation' linked to the relatively homogenous nature of the British political class and the structural attributes of British government. It goes on to advocate greater diversity in political recruitment and fundamental reform of modes and structures of British government.

The terminology around blockchain technology is notoriously confusing, with disputes over whether a blockchain is the same as a distributed ledger, or whether an appcoin is the same as a protocol token. In this article, I examine the difficulties the rapidly shifting, contested vocabulary poses for regulators seeking to understand, govern, and potentially use blockchain technology, and offer suggestions for how to fight through the haze of unclear language.

In Part I, I provide examples of the fluctuating, contested language in the blockchain technology space, and describe the forces at play in shaping the language. In Part II, I lay out the problems the language raises for regulators, including challenges in identifying the facts about the technology, distinguishing among the many variations of the technology, and communicating clearly about the technology, as well as increasing the chances of regulatory capture, inconsistent regulation across jurisdictions and subject domains, and " perverse innovation. "

In Part III, I closely analyze the use of the term " immutable " in blockchain discourse, to illuminate the confusion a single term can cause for regulators (and the public at large). I argue that the widespread use of the term " immutable " as a defining feature of blockchain technology is misleading, given that (i) real world events have demonstrated that the unchangeable nature of a blockchain record is always limited by the decisions of its human governors to change it, and (ii) the source of a blockchain record's " immutability " is disputed, meaning that it is unclear whether any particular variation of the technology may be fairly described as creating an " immutable " record. This is problematic as regulators have already begun to craft legislation describing the records created by blockchain technology as immutable, and are making decisions to use the technology in large part because of its " immutability. "

In Part IV, I suggest ways regulators can become better educated about blockchain technology, as is essential for them to responsibly govern or use the technology. I also recommend that regulators take a highly critical approach that (i) seeks to separate hype from reality; (ii) is sensitive to how incentives may shape the way blockchain technology is portrayed by industry and those sponsored by industry, and how misleading terminology appears in publications of the highest prestige levels; (iii) includes diverse perspectives from proponents and critics of the technology, multiple disciplines, and from across the gender, race, geographic, and economic development spectrums; (iv) takes nothing, including descriptions of the technology itself, at face value, but deeply interrogates and scrutinizes the technology and its stated capabilities; and (v) asks regulators to think for themselves about the technology and its benefits rather than succumbing to herd behavior.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of groupthink in temporary organizations. Only anecdotally has the literature touched upon how the temporary organization's structure may foster groupthink. Studies of faulty group processes are imperative since temporary organizations are becoming more common. Design/methodology/approach -Following the design used by several authors who analyzed the Everest events, this paper is an historic in-depth case study based on accounts of several survivors. Findings -Three out of four features of groupthink are found and analyzing the Everest events there are several symptoms to groupthink that may be present in any temporary organization.

This paper introduces a model for evidence denial that explains this behavior as a manifestation of rationality, and it is based on the contention that social values (measurable as utilities) often underwrite these sorts of responses. Moreover, it contends that the value associated with group membership in particular can override epistemic reason when the expected utility of a belief or belief system is great. It is also true, however, that it appears to be the case that it is still possible for such unreasonable believers to reverse this sort of dogmatism and to change their beliefs in a way that is epistemically rational. The conjecture made here is that we should expect this to happen only when the expected utility of the beliefs in question dips below a threshold where the utility value of continued dogmatism and the associated group membership is no longer sufficient to motivate defusing the counterevidence that tells against such epistemically irrational beliefs.

“Are You a Werewolf?” (AYAW?) is a deception based party game that forces a group of villagers to pick out a pair of werewolves from the group and eliminate them before the werewolves destroy the village. Andrew Plotkin created this game as a derivative of Dmitry Davidoff’s “Mafia” and is a favorite of gamers as a representation of a “social game” (Chittaranjan & Hung, 2010). The game is often played late at night with many of the popular gaming conventions in the United States (Origins, GenCon, San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con, etc.) as a way for gamers to socialize, to “decompress” from the convention experience, and as a means to participate in the act of gaming in a more “adult” manner (language, alcohol consumption, and other adult behaviors that normally frown upon at a family-friendly event).

Along the same style of game, “The Resistance” was inspired by AYAW? with only 5 to 10 players needed to make the game work, as opposed to the 15 to 21 players needed for AYAW? This change in the player structure allows for, according to the manufacturer of the game, “increase the resources for informed decisions, intensify player interaction, and eliminate player elimination.” Both “The Resistance” & AYAW? fit the classic definition of a social deception game (SDG)

One of the strengths of SDG is the primary interactions are communication-based. It is not a traditional role playing game (RPG) that uses dice rolls and generated player stats as the primary mode of interaction, nor is it a traditional card/board game where the main mode of interactions being the elements present on a tabletop. Bluffing and perception are the tools that players use within a typical game of AYAW? It is these two elements that make a great platform to teach about small group communication, specifically the power roles within small groups and the structures within a small group (Verderber, Verderber, & Sellnow, 2013).

Many of the academic studies of SDGs either relates to the mathematical probabilities connected to the various structural co-constructions based on role configurations and village engagements (Midgal, 2010) or as a proxy for analysis of deception (Chittaranjan & Hung, 2010). As communication scholars, it is important to look at the communication interactions themselves, rather than a proxied representation of social interactions present in the previous research.

The focus of this case study is to show how SDGs were used to teach aspects of small group communication (specifically the developments of roles with small groups & power structures that emerge with small group structures (Harris & Sherblom, 2011)) to multiple groups of students taking the basic communication course at a large university in the United States. The framework of the case study will begin with an explanation of the game. The next element will be a brief discussion of the previous literature related to SDGs are the ludological aspects of small group communication. This will be followed be a description of the lesson plan/course objectives that were used to frame the class time. An analysis of the reflective assignments will help describe the benefits of approaching small group communication with a ludological technique. There will also be artifacts from interviews with other werewolf players from popular gaming conventions to show how the students’ impressions of the game match “the reality” of playing the game with others (as opposed to playing the game in the academic realm). Finally, there will be a discussion of the effectiveness of SDGs within the college communication curriculum. 

Two of the major themes that were present in the reflective analyses conducted by the students were the understanding of “task-based” communication patterns and the impact of power roles and leadership within SGC. Artifacts will be presented in this case study to provide context behind these two themes.

The impact of coordination, ingroup attraction, collectivism and individualism on group performance was investigated in educational settings. Fourteen groups of British students (N=52) undertook a group task whose marks contributed to their final degree results. Each group had a team captain who kept a group log. Regression analysis found that coordination and individualism were significant predictors of group performance, accounting for 25.7% of the variance. The results imply that individualism in student task groups should involve task-division, giving individual members unique responsibilities, that coordination should be monitored through group logs and that group leaders should have a facilitative role.

In 1933, the same year the Nazi regime ascended to power, Stanley Milgram was born into a working class Jewish family in the Bronx in New York City. During his formative years, Milgram was perturbed by the Holocaust. Later he became a social psychologist and obtained a tenure track position at Yale University. During the many Nazi war crime trials, “ordinary” Germans in the docks—like Adolf Eichmann in Israel—typically explained that in participating in the Holocaust they were just following higher orders. This led Milgram to wonder what would happen if he ran a social psychology experiment where ordinary (American) people were ordered to inflict harm on another person. Would they also do as they were told? He designed a basic procedure that tested this question and soon afterwards had his students run the first pilot.
The result from the first trial stunned Milgram—most subjects indeed obeyed
orders to inflict what appeared to be intense shocks on an innocent person. Milgram immediately sensed he had captured essential elements of the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Thereafter he applied for funding to run an official research program so that he could better understand so-called obedience to authority. Milgram’s intentions were not entirely honorable—running such an innovative research program could greatly boost his then precarious career prospects and financial security. Pre-tenure, Milgram told Jerome Bruner, a professor from Milgram’s graduate program at Harvard University, “My hope is that the obedience experiments will take their
place along with . . .” contributions by the biggest names in social psychology: “Sherif, Lewin and Asch” (as cited in Perry, 2012, p. 57). Whatever drove Milgram on, he anticipated enormous benefits for both scientific knowledge and himself. So what exactly did he find? What follows is a basic overview of his two baseline procedures and the counterintuitive results they produced.

In this paper I argue that there are cases in which a speaker S’s observation of the fact that her assertion that p is accepted by another person enhances the strength of S’s own epistemic position with respect to p, as compared to S’s strength of epistemic position with respect to p prior to having made the assertion.  I conclude by noting that the sorts of consideration that underwrite this (happy) possibility may go some distance towards explaining several (unhappy) aspects of our group life as epistemic subjects – in particular, groupthink and group polarization.

What makes a consensus among scientists credible and convincing? This paper introduces the notion of a "hard-won" consensus and uses examples from recent debates over climate change science to show that this heuristic standard for evaluating the quality of a consensus is widely shared. The extent to which a consensus is "hard won" can be understood to depend on the personal qualities of the participating experts; the article demonstrates the continuing utility of the norms of modern science introduced by Robert K. Merton by showing that individuals on both sides of the climate science debate rely intuitively on Mertonian ideas-interpreted in terms of characterto frame their arguments.

The effectiveness of distributed ISD teams is often inhibited by tensions between contextual (macro) and localised (micro) factors. In light of these challenges, literature suggests that cohesion is a key determinant of team performance; however, competing literature asserts that conflict is essential for exploiting diverse knowledge. This suggests a paradoxical need for both cohesion and conflict. However, extant ISD literature has yet to explore how the interplay of macro- and micro-level factors affect cohesion and conflict in distributed settings. To address this gap, we present and utilise a theoretical framework to analyse ethnographic data from a distributed ISD project called ‘Athena’. The findings point to a ‘double edged sword’ of cohesion and suggest that moderate levels of task-based conflict are essential for addressing diversity in distributed teams. Additionally, excessive levels of cohesion can contribute to social conflict between subgroups when task conflict is constrained.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of groupthink in temporary organizations. Only anecdotally has the literature touched upon how the temporary organization's structure may foster groupthink. Studies of faulty group processes are imperative since temporary organizations are becoming more common. Design/methodology/approach -Following the design used by several authors who analyzed the Everest events, this paper is an historic in-depth case study based on accounts of several survivors. Findings -Three out of four features of groupthink are found and analyzing the Everest events there are several symptoms to groupthink that may be present in any temporary organization.

Devletin ve özellikle de dış politika yapımının bir kapalı kutu olmaktan gittikçe uzaklaşması karar alma süreçlerine yönelik ilgi ve gözlemlerin artmasına yol açmıştır. Bekleneceği üzere, olağan durumlar için yapılandırılmış bu süreçlerin karşılaşılan kriz ve savaş gibi durumlardaki işleyişi ise ayrı bir önem ifade etmektedir. Bu çalışma, İsrail’in kendine has yapısal özelliklerinin etkisiyle şekillenmiş karar alma mekanizmasının 1973 yılındaki Ekim (Yom Kippur) Savaşı sırasındaki işleyişini ele almaktadır. Bu konu üzerine yapılmış çalışmaların ve yayınlanmış anı niteliğindeki eserlerin bağlamsal analizi yoluyla bu dönemde alınan kararlarda önemli rol oynayan etmenler, çalışmanın merkezinde bulunacaktır. Temelde, öncelikle askeri hareketliliğine dair istihbaratın ve Sovyet personelinin bölgeden tahliyesinin verdiği sinyallerin göz ardı edilmesi ve sonrasında önleyici herhangi bir hamlede bulunulmaması biçiminde ortaya çıkan üç kritik karara odaklanılarak, bu kararların alınışında etkili olan faktörler incelenecek ve bu şekilde karar grubu üyelerinin geçmişte edindikleri tecrübelerin ve grup düşüncesi (grupthink) kavramının söz konusu bu kararların ortaya çıkışındaki etkisi aydınlatılacaktır.

The term ‘group­think’, coined by Irving L. Janis in 1972 is a phe­nomenon that is one of the worst factors dis­tort­ing de­cisions. Group­think evolves under pe­cu­liar ante­cedent con­di­tions (or pre-re­quis­ites) and shows spe­cific symp­toms when in ac­tion. In this art­icle, these con­di­tions and symp­toms are re­viewed, ex­amples are given from global his­tory to demon­strate its ad­verse im­pacts and the man­age­ment of the phe­nomenon is il­lus­trated by pos­it­ive ex­amples. Then an at­tempt is made at prov­ing that the rise and fall of for­eign cur­rency lend­ing, per­haps the largest eco­nomic dis­aster in post-com­mun­ist Hun­gary, can be traced back to the phe­nomenon called group­think.

The concept of groupthink has dominated much of group research in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). However, groupthink’s success and proliferation in academic and popular circles has led to some general misinterpretations of the concept itself. While Janis’ groupthink concept has received a wide amount of attention throughout the years, it has also been subject to various strands of criticism. In fact, groupthink’s broad popularity has not been based on the success of research findings. Also, groupthink challenges much of the research of social psychology undertaken in recent decades which reveals that particular group dynamics can actually contribute to more efficient decision-making. In this paper we seek to demystify the groupthink phenomenon and present an alternative assessment of group dynamics in foreign policy decision-making. We argue in favour of adopting a social cognition approach which can advance our understanding of how decision-making groups define the particular challenges that they face in the international political environment. More precisely, we present a conceptual framework based on social sharing mechanisms for comprehending how groups develop the problem representations that inform their foreign policy decisions. Ultimately, we seek to highlight the positive contributions of group dynamics in effective decision-making.