Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research © 2011 American Psychological Association

2011, Vol. 63, No. 1, 50 – 65 1065-9293/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0023052

DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE

David N. Berg
Yale School of Medicine
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Dissent is an essential process in human groups and organizations, though one having
received little attention in the social psychological and organizational literature. This
paper proposes an intergroup perspective on dissent. Dissent is defined as the assertion
by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial,
bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher
power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational
environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it. Three case
examples are presented to illustrate this perspective. The paper concludes with a set of
principles for consulting to organization members on effectively expressing and working
with dissent.

Keywords: dissent, intergroup relations, group dynamics, conformity

In 1968, helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson flew into the thick of what he thought was a fierce
battle in South Vietnam and discovered instead, that a massacre was going on— of women,
children and elderly men at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Horrified, he landed his helicopter between
the soldiers and the civilians, ordered his crew to fire on any American who continued shooting,
called for backup and rescued victims, digging through corpses to rescue one child. An instant
hero? He was made a pariah. For years when he walked into officers clubs they emptied out. He
got threatening phone messages. Dead animals were left on his porch. When he was called to give
closed congressional testimony, a senior lawmaker said that if anyone deserved to be court-
martialed, it was him.
USA Today editorial (January 13, 2006)

I have been impressed by the way the Army’s professional journals allow some of our
brightest and most innovative officers to critique—sometimes bluntly—the way the service does
business, to include judgments about senior leadership. I encourage you to take on the mantle of
fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent when the situation calls for it. And, agree with articles or not,
senior officers should embrace such dissent as healthy dialogue and protect and advance those
considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle.
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, in a speech at West Point on April 21, 2008

The two quotations above illustrate an important and but often ignored reality about organiza-
tional life. Dissent plays a crucial role in the vitality of all human groups. These quotations are
drawn concerning the United States military precisely because the military is a seemingly unlikely
place to discover this reality. Many of us have come to believe that the military, perhaps more than
any other organization, would be endangered by active dissent, that its mission would be under-

David N. Berg, Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David N. Berg, PhD, 146 McKinley Avenue,
New Haven, CT 06515. E-mail:[email protected]

50
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 51

mined by any tolerance for, no less acceptance of dissent. Yet even here we find actions and words
testifying to the need for dissent.
Separated by almost 40 years, the My Lai massacre and the speech by Secretary Gates at West
Point share a deep connection. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military took a long
hard look at itself, an examination that included, ironically, an assessment of its ability to be
self-critical. Without a mechanism for critically reviewing military missions, the army risked losing
its ability to improve its effectiveness. Almost as important, without a capacity to be openly
self-critical (of failed strategies and tactics) the army made it more likely that soldiers would enact
their dissent in ways that undermined their fighting units (e.g., AWOL, discipline breaches,
“fragging”). This examination led directly to changes inside the military (e.g., After Action
Reviews) and, indirectly, to Secretary Gates’ speech in 2006.
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The United States military is hardly alone in its struggle to bring dissent into its ranks.
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Organizations of all types, public, private and not-for-profit train and socialize their members to
“align” themselves with the goals and objectives, programs and practices of the institution.
Subordinates and bosses are rarely educated in the tricky business of expressing and handling
dissent. They are much more likely to be schooled in discipline, loyalty and dependability. In some
organizations, members learn how to handle the talented but rebellious individual, but managing
dissent in relationships is hard to learn when it is infrequently observed.
This paper will provide an intergroup view of dissent, distinct from the emphasis on individual
and intragroup perspectives most often found in social and organizational psychology. The first
section defines dissent in intergroup terms and describes the experience of risk it entails. The second
section gives three examples of dissent in different social systems and examines them from an
intergroup perspective. The final section, offers a set of principles for managing the expression and
productive use of dissent aimed at those working in and with organizations.

Dissent: An Intergroup Perspective

In the early days of the field, social psychologists studied conformity and deviance (Asch, 1951;
Schachter, 1951; Milgram, 1963, 1974; Jackson, 1966; Janis, 1982). The early “conformity”
experiments demonstrated the power of groups to influence individual perception and judgment
(Asch, 1951). Schachter’s (1951) work on deviance focused on the ways groups attempt to make the
individual comply with the group norms or, failing this, the ways they marginalize the deviant so
as to preserve these norms. Later work on norms in groups examined the ways in which groups
doled out positive and negative reinforcement to channel behavior into acceptable ranges (Jackson,
1966).
Milgram’s now famous studies of obedience (Milgram, 1963, 1974) were a landmark effort to
understand why individuals went along with authority when asked to produce pain and discomfort
in other human beings. Working in the decades following the Second World War, Milgram was
interested in obedience because the memory of how destructive apparently blind obedience could be
was fresh in everyone’s minds. A decade later, Janis’s (1982) work on “groupthink” analyzed
political decision making at high levels in the United States government to identify the mechanisms
groups used to restrict “critical thinking” and enforce consensus. His work focused on the problems
members of highly cohesive groups faced when “strivings for unanimity overrode their motivation
to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”
One striking feature of this work was the relative inattention to dissent. Social psychologists
were interested in the group’s influence on the individual and, in some cases, the individual’s role
in creating and maintaining group norms. They were not, however, particularly interested in the
complexity of authority relations and especially in actions in groups and organizations aimed at
changing the nature of these authority relations (Argyris, 1968). Even Milgram (1974), who did
investigate the circumstances under which individuals would stop following directions from an
authority figure (e.g., when someone else in their group stopped), did not explore if and when
individuals tried to alter the behavior of the authority figure. He was interested in the dynamics of
 52 BERG

obedience and disobedience, not in the conditions in which group members challenged authority in
order to effect change.
In organizational psychology this relative disinterest in dissent is also apparent. Most textbooks
on groups and organizations devote significant attention to research on conformity, norms and
obedience but little to a discussion of dissent in groups. Behavior in Organizations (Porter, Lawler,
& Hackman, 1975), an organizational textbook published in the same era, has much to say about
conformity and norms, but nothing about dissent. Thirty years later, Reframing Organizations
(Bolman & Deal, 2008) revealed a similar disinterest. It included no discussion of dissent.
I believe there is much to be gained from paying attention to the process of dissent in
organizations because dissent in groups and social systems is a normal, nonpathological process that
along with conformity contributes to the healthy functioning of these organizations (Deutsch, 1973;
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Coser, 1956). Conformity and dissent are complementary processes in social systems. Conformity
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allows for the development of reliable, consistent behavior, the necessary foundation for roles and
coordination among roles. Dissent can provide the corrective feedback that allows a group or
organization to adapt and innovate. Specifically, dissent is an explicit or implicit critique of how
those in authority have been exercising that authority.
Human beings are social animals by nature and upbringing. We learn about the world around
us from direct experience and from knowledge passed on to us from the groups to which we belong.
The language, meaning systems and historical lenses of these groups, mediate even our direct
experience (Geertz, 1973). Each of us belongs to many groups, some we are born into (sex,
nationality, race, ethnicity, family) others we choose at some stage of our lives (religion, organi-
zation, vocation) (Alderfer, 1987). If we view the individual as both a unique personality and a
representative of multiple groups (Rice, 1969; Alderfer & Smith, 1982; Berg, 2005) then our view
of dissent changes from an exclusively individual expression of opposition to one that includes a
component of intergroup communication. In the terms used above, while dissent can be an
intragroup protest by one or more individuals about the group’s behavior or norms (Asch, 1952), it
can also be viewed as a critique of one group (those with primary authority) by another (those
without primary authority).
For purposes of this examination of dissent, I am most concerned with groups and organizations
that tend toward being what Alderfer (2010) calls overbounded, social systems with a single defining
goal, detailed roles and most important, a dominant and well defined hierarchy. These systems are
often ethnocentric (Sumner, 1906; Le Vine & Campbell, 1972) regarding people and information
within the group favorably and denigrating the people and information outside the group (usually in
other groups). Top groups are especially susceptible to developing ethnocentric views because their
journey to the top of the organization convinces them that they know more than those below them.
Many have inhabited roles and groups below them in the organization at a different point in time.
Moreover, their responsibilities in the organization provide them with access to a range of
information that both expands their perspective and complicates their analyses.
The result is what Smith (1982) calls “structural encasements” and Oshry (2007) refers to as
“blind reflex.” The boundaries around a top group can become so restrictive that important
information about individuals and about the top group as a whole does not get in. This group (similar
to other groups but possessing greater formal authority and responsibility) develops a view of the
organization (and the world outside) that is somewhat different from the experiences of other groups
in its organization, and (also like other ethnocentric groups) has the belief that its view is more
accurate than the views of others. Put in other words, the natural evolution of all groups in
overbounded organizations is to develop a world-view constrained by the restrictions (on people and
information) of its boundaries without adequate awareness of its own limitations in this regard.
When a group, especially one with power and authority, comes to believe that its perspective on
the world is the only valid or right one, its relationships with other groups change. Something has
been lost. The groups with less formal power and authority can lose confidence that the top group
is aware of its “groupness,” aware that its view of reality is circumscribed by its boundaries. Here
arises the foundation of dissent.
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 53

Dissent is the assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe
that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. Dissenters believe that the
isolation of the upper group represents either a threat to the core mission of the organization or a
threat to the well-being of the dissenting group. Dissent is not primarily a substantive disagreement
about tactics or approaches. It is a protest against the upper group’s isolation from the experience
of the other groups in its environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it.
Put in slightly different words, dissent says, “You, the responsible authority, have cut yourself off
from other groups and have come to the belief that your group views, constrained and limited by
your experience, background, roles and goals, are universal views, accurate and right. We have
come to demonstrate that your views are limited by expressing ours which we hold to be just as
accurate and right as yours.” If the dissenting group were aware of and could speak about the effects
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of its own “groupness” it might add, “We too are unaware of the ways in which our substantive
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views are constrained by our experience, background, roles and goals. But we see your limitations
more clearly.”
Dissent can be the antidote to the natural tendency for groups to see only one view of the social,
political, and economic world around them. It is one of the few “corrective” mechanisms to a
process of ethnocentric estrangement, the separation that grows between groups as each begins to
believe in the universality of its experience. This estrangement imperils the ability of groups to work
together, to create or produce together, and to exist in proximity to each other. Dissent can provide
an opportunity to recognize and respond to this estrangement. It is also important to note that this
conceptualization of dissent does not imply that the dissenting group is always “right” or accurate.
This remains to be determined. Rather, an intergroup perspective views the occurrence of dissent as
a piece of data about the state of the relationship between two groups with different authority and
power. And the expression of dissent provides an opportunity to test the validity of beliefs,
assumptions, and theories that might lead the top group in counterproductive directions.
But dissent carries with it significant risk. The critique of authority is a dangerous activity
especially in overbounded organizations because the legitimate right to exercise power is vested in
those with formal authority. At a minimum, dissent puts one’s relationship with those in authority
at risk. It can also put at risk one’s future, one’s career, one’s livelihood, and in extreme cases, one’s
family. When any person or group expresses criticism of those who have authority the degree of risk
they face is what distinguishes dissent from milder substantive, specific, content-related disagree-
ment. Dissent challenges the fundamental legitimacy of an upper group’s authority; disagreement
expresses a difference with an upper group while accepting the premises on which its authority rests.
Returning to the speech on dissent that opened this paper, one could interpret the content of the
speech as a tacit acknowledgment by Secretary Gates that even after the lessons of Vietnam and the
implementation of recommended changes in military planning and review, dissent is still risky in
the military. Why else would the Secretary of Defense include a pointed directive to the cadets’
superiors to “protect and advance” those who choose to play a dissenting role in the military? Kaplan
(2006) reported that one year before the Gates speech, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling published
a widely read article in the Armed Forces Journal that was critical of the U.S. general officer corps.
What was Yingling’s reward for his dissenting views? His Iraq based battalion was assigned to
prison-guard detail and Yingling himself was tasked with rehabilitating Iraqi detainees. As Kaplan
wrote, “it’s hardly the center of things and it’s the very opposite of a career enhancer” (p. 2).

Case Examples

Although the language of conformity and dissent may conjure up images of nation-states and
demagoguery, the expression of dissent is natural and necessary, especially in organizations that are
becoming overbounded. We will examine three very different kinds of groups, a family, a health
care team and combat units in the United States military. Though concretely different, these three
cases have in common a tendency toward being overbounded and the presence of significant dissent.
 54 BERG

Family

The Olam family has a longstanding practice of sitting down to dinner together at 6 p.m. each
evening. Ever since the two children in the family were able to sit at the table, the parents felt it was
important for the family to convene at the dinner hour to share a meal. Both parents went to
considerable lengths to make this possible by arranging their work schedules to allow them to be
home, and, for one of them, to be home in time to prepare the meal. The two children are now
teenagers in high school and being on time for dinner has become a problem.
Robert, the first-born, is a serious student and a responsible young man. He is almost always on
time for dinner and when he isn’t, his explanation elicits empathy from his parents and easy
forgiveness. Robert has talked to his parents about the dinner hour rule and the challenges it poses
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for him, especially in his senior year in high school. The conversation has sometimes been intense,
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though respectful, but the outcome is always the same. Robert’s parents reiterate their view of the
importance of the family dinner, including its role in providing time for the family to remain
“connected.” The conversation ends with talk about continuing this family tradition and Robert
vows to continue to do his best to be home on time.
His sister Beth, a sophomore, is often late for dinner. It is not unusual for her to be half an hour
late or to miss most of dinner altogether. This is very upsetting to her parents, but when they express
their displeasure to Beth the confrontation escalates quickly. She screams that they do not under-
stand the hardship this “dinner thing” imposes on her and her relationships with others. In the worst
moments of these confrontations, Beth’s parents tell her that they don’t care what other people think
and do or what impact this family commitment has on others. Eating dinner together during the week
is for their family. And it is important. When Beth’s parents try to discipline her for her tardiness,
the tension mounts and the effect is minimal. Beth continues to come late.
This familiar family drama can be understood in many ways. Many readers with children will
recognize the “first child, second child” explanation for these events. This view holds that first
children are more attuned to their parents’ expectations and aspirations, tethered more closely to
parental wishes and values during adolescence and more likely to be the “good” child. The second
child in this picture is more rebellious, testing the limits her older sibling seems willing to accept.
This “theory” can be relatively simple (e.g., second children are rebellious), more complex (e.g.,
because of their position in the family, second children are more free to express the individuation
that all children feel during adolescence) or quite sophisticated (e.g., the rebellious child is acting
on behalf of the other children in the family, gets more than her fair share of parental sanctions
thereby sparing her siblings and making it easier for both their older and younger siblings to navigate
the constraints of the family and the liberating desires of adolescence).
An intergroup perspective on Beth’s dissent adds another layer to our understanding of what is
happening in this family. Beth is certainly expressing her wish to be freed from the constraints of
six o’clock family dinner. This particular norm has become a burden to her. She wants out. When
her parents refuse she starts to “act out,” expressing her dissent by absenting herself from dinner
with an apparent willingness to suffer the disciplinary consequences. If we treat Beth as a
representative of the adolescent group (and accept the fact that this is a familiar family event or that
Robert encourages his sister in her dissent) we seek to understand what message she is sending to
the parental group? Is it simply that she wants to abolish the family dinner? Or is she trying to
convey that her parents have lost any insight into the realities that adolescents face or any empathy
for those realities, preferring the realities of the parental group and allowing those realities alone to
guide their use of authority in a family that includes adolescents and parents? This second
interpretation acknowledges that both groups are encased in a worldview born of their place in that
world. But the power difference between the two groups means that while the children might wish
to construct family rules that serve an adolescent view of the world, they do not have the power and
authority to do so. The parents have the power (and, some might argue, the responsibility) to
construct family rules that serve their possibly more mature parental worldview. This power together
with their worldview and their inevitable separation from the adolescent perspective (including their
own from years past) provides the impetus for the dissent.
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 55

Health Care Team

A third year surgical resident told of the time she was doing hospital rounds and came to see an
80-year-old man with severe dementia suffering from a gangrenous leg and who had recently
experienced a stroke that had rendered him unable to communicate (Berman, 2010). The blood flow
to his leg was so poor that there was no detectable pulse up to his groin. He was in and out of
consciousness. The resident had discussed the patient’s situation with his son, the man’s surrogate
decision maker. The only surgical option was a major intervention and would leave the man
bed-bound for the rest of his life. The son had decided that his father would not want to live under
these physical and mental conditions. The resident left “orders” to provide comfort care only for the
patient.
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While “rounding” with her team (consisting of a junior resident, an intern, and a medical
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student), the resident described the course of the disease, the discussions with the patient’s family,
and the course of treatment. In this case, no extraordinary measures would be taken and the team
would work hard to make the patient as comfortable and pain free as possible. Before they left the
patient’s room, the resident removed the oxygen feed from the patient’s nose and turned off the vital
signs monitor.
A few moments later as the team passed in the hallway to another room, the resident noticed that
the oxygen had been replaced. She stepped into the room, assuming there had been a misunder-
standing of the physician orders written on the chart, and once again removed the oxygen and turned
off the monitor in accordance with the family’s wishes and her instructions. As she was leaving the
patient’s room she saw a nurse slip out. It was then that the doctor realized there had been no
misunderstanding; the nurse was disobeying her orders. When she found the nurse later that
morning, he had assembled a group of nurses to support his position, yet it was clear to the resident
that the nurse was petrified of the looming confrontation.
When the resident observed that the nurse’s behavior made clear that he was not in support of
the doctor’s orders and asked his thoughts, he replied “If you want to kill this patient that’s fine, but
I’m not going to help you!” Later the resident began to reflect on the situation. The unit on which
this occurred was a “step down” unit known for its heroic efforts on behalf of patients. In the world-
view of this unit, the nurses were the patients’ staunch advocates for any and all measures to
promote patient health. The nurse did not understand the new treatment plan for this patient (he had
not talked with the family or been included in the discussions about the patient’s care) and even if
he had, there is reason to believe, given the intense norms on the unit, that he would not have agreed
with it. He saw the health care world differently from his position in it. Similarly, the resident was
looking at this patient through the lens of her knowledge of the medical options, her conversation
with the patient’s legal health care surrogate and her role as the senior medical person on this case.
Faced with the legitimate authority of the resident, filled with the professional responsibility of
nurses on the unit, and believing that the doctor had set her mind on the wrong course of action that
she believed to be right because of her professional group membership, the nurse felt he had no
choice but to enact his dissent. Upon reflection, the resident was glad the nurse had expressed his
concerns, even to the point of disobedience. She realized that in a hospital, where the doctor’s orders
are rarely questioned, even when flawed, it was important for her to hear from the nurses.
Furthermore, she might not have heard the power and intensity of their views in a conversation
involving words alone. The dissent did not change her views of what to do for this patient in this
situation, but it did alert her to the fact that the relationship between the three groups, doctors,
nurses, and the family on this step down unit had broken down. Each group had lost an under-
standing of the other’s view of the work at hand and replaced it with the certainty of its own.
In this case, as in many cases in organizations, the possible intergroup issues at play are highly
complex. The fact that the nurse was a man and the resident doctor was a woman probably
contributed to each believing that the other group did not understand its perspective. I am not certain
what role gender played in this event; the possibilities are instructive.
The individual who expresses dissenting views on behalf of a group can often be someone who,
by virtue of his historical relationship to his own group, feels acutely the need to prove himself by
 56 BERG

upholding one of the cardinal norms of the group. A male in a female and lower status profession
(i.e., nursing) might therefore be more susceptible to expressing the intensely heroic norms of the
unit in the face of apparent physician disregard. Similarly, women in medicine, a higher status,
comparatively gender integrated profession, face stereotypes. It is possible that this surgeon’s
“failure” to involve the nurses in the treatment plan, in spite of her personal belief in the value of
their contribution may have been influenced by a belief that consulting nurses is not what the
surgeon group does.

My Lai

The quotation at the start of this article refers to a massacre by American forces in Vietnam in March
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of 1968. The Vietnam War was a complicated military and political war. On March 16, 1968, Lt.
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William Calley, saying he believed he was carrying out a superior’s orders to “kill the enemy,”
presided over and participated in the murder of over 300 civilians in the village of My Lai.
This event in itself is a remarkable example of the power of group norms, especially norms
developed in times of intense conflict with other groups. It is also remarkable that few in Lt. Calley’s
unit disobeyed his orders to kill civilians (or what he might have called “nonmilitary combatants”)
and those who did disobey were unable or unwilling to stop the killing. Of the 105 soldiers under
his direct command, only a handful disobeyed. This is all the more noteworthy in light of the
subsequent report that many of his men believed Lt. Calley was not a competent officer and had
considered “fragging” him before the events of March 16.
Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson was flying a support helicopter on the day of the My Lai
massacre. He was not under Lt. Calley’s direct command though he was junior to Calley in the
military hierarchy. Upon seeing the massacre unfold on the ground beneath him, Thompson landed
his helicopter between the American troops and the Vietnamese civilians and demanded to know
what was going on. When no answer justified the killing of women and children, Thompson ordered
his men to collect survivors from a ditch in which dozens had been killed and flew them out of the
hamlet to safety. Thompson returned a second time to rescue a small child. When his mission was
over, he reported what he had seen and done to his superiors.
Ronald Ridenhour was in the same locale as Hugh Thompson at the end of 1967 and the
beginning of 1968. He was not at My Lai on the day of the massacre, but he was familiar with
the village from having flown helicopter reconnaissance in the area. In the weeks following the
massacre, Ridenhour began hearing stories about the massacre at My Lai from soldiers who had
trained with him in Hawaii. At first he was horrified by what the men who had served under Lt.
Calley at My Lai on the day of the massacre were telling him. He had no doubt they were telling
the truth to a fellow draftee and army grunt. While in Vietnam he resolved to do what he could to
prompt an investigation into the massacre. When he was discharged he gathered as many of the
“facts” as he could. Nearly everyone to whom he spoke, military personnel as well as family and
friends, told him not to pursue his efforts to bring the massacre to light.
The official version of that day had already been written into the Army’s account of the war, that
128 Vietcong had been killed at My Lai with only one American wounded. Ridenhour knew this was
a lie. Only one draft age Vietnamese man had been seen that day, running (with a weapon) away
from the village as the helicopters began to arrive. No weapons had been seen or discovered in the
village. In the face of official lies and countless first hand accounts of a massacre at My Lai, Ronald
Ridenhour wrote to then President Nixon and 30 Congressman to request an investigation. Morris
Udall, a Congressman from Arizona, took up the cause.
William Calley was the only man convicted of wrongdoing by a military court, and he testified
that he was merely following orders. Calley spent one weekend in the stockade and three years under
house arrest before being pardoned in 1974. Some have argued that Calley was made a scapegoat
for the atrocities at My Lai. There were, after all, others higher in the chain of command who were
present that day either on the ground or in the air. William Calley was put in command when many
around him believed he was unfit to wield authority in the military. But the Army was under intense
pressure to find bodies to fight, bodies to command, and bodies to count.
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 57

One of the back-stories to the dissent by Thompson and Ridenhour involves the behavior of the
Pentagon leadership in the months prior to the My Lai massacre. The war in Vietnam was not going
well from the perspective of the military and civilian leadership. In an effort to convince the public
that this messy war, in which “winning” was hard to define, when hilltops were taken one day and
then abandoned weeks later, was indeed being handled successfully, the Pentagon began to measure
military success by the number of enemy combatants killed. The metric to assess the war became
these body counts. Every combat unit was responsible for reporting the number of enemy combat-
ants killed during an operation. It was often impossible to verify the “combat status” of a dead body,
but the pressure to produce tangible evidence of military success was clear and strong.
It was apparent to Ridenhour (Linder, 1999) in his initial tour on the reconnaissance
helicopter that something was awry. “Now we would pop up over a tree line or a hedge row and
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there’d be two or three guys standing out in the rice field with guns. We’d engage them and
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usually we’d kill one or two of them, but they were well trained and they’d all run in different
directions. Usually some would get away and some wouldn’t, but in that entire 4-month time
we only killed 36 people, I believe, in that neighborhood. We replaced a unit in that same area
which was doing exactly the same thing, and had only been there for eight months before we
arrived, and they killed over seven hundred people in eight months. What that said to me, since
we were out doing the same thing, exactly the same thing in exactly the same area, is that they
were killing—they were just out there killing a lot of people, folks. They were being a lot less
discriminating than we were about who we were engaging. We were looking for people with
guns, which is what we were supposed to be doing” (p. 1). This occurred before the My Lai
events and suggests that the context in which the massacre occurred included significant
pressure from above simply to increase body counts.
There are a number of important implications of the My Lai experience for the discussion of
dissent. First, it is clear that this individual act of dissent was not simply an individual act.
Thompson’s crew, as a group, followed his directive to obstruct the local commanding officer’s
orders to kill the hamlet’s civilians. More important, the process of dissent involved Ridenhour, and
a significant number of other soldiers who had been on the ground during the operation, testifying
to what they had seen and heard. In the face of persistent pressure not to bring forward a picture of
events at My Lai that contradicted the Army’s official history, one man alone might not have
succeeded. (In fact, Hugh Thompson wrote up what he saw at My Lai and submitted his account
through channels, but he was not the instigator of the letter to Congress that initiated the subsequent
investigation.) This suggests that the dissent was an intergroup communication from the military
rank and file to the higher-ranking command structure.
Second, the dissent concerning My Lai in the field and later in the form of Ridenhour’s personal
investigation together with the letter to Congress appears to be an outgrowth of a long simmering
tension between combat soldiers in Vietnam and those in the field who represented the command
structure in Washington. The men in Calley’s unit were wondering about his selection to officer rank
by the Army brass before the My Lai incident. Ridenhour began to wonder what was happening on
the ground in Vietnam when it became clear to him and his helicopter crew that noncombatants were
being killed despite formal orders to the contrary.
There was no doubt that political leaders in Washington were frustrated with the way the
Vietnam War was unfolding. Defining success in terms of dead bodies was a measure of last
resort, especially when it was clear on the ground long before it was acceptable in Washington
that the Vietnam War could not be won with any conventional military strategy available to
the United States Army. What was known by those lower ranking men fighting the war “in the
trenches” could not be “heard” by those higher-ranking officials in charge of the war in the
Pentagon. These higher-ranking officials included the Secretary of Defense and the President of
the United States.
Finally, despite the impression that the dissent was expressed by those outside Lt. Calley’s
unit (Thompson, Ridenhour), the testimonials that Ridenhour collected and the testimony that
was compelled in Lt. Calley’s court martial came from the same men who had carried out the
orders to kill civilians. In the language of group and intergroup relations, the conformity and
 58 BERG

the dissent came from within the unit. Both processes were present in the unit, often in the same
individuals, as they struggled both to follow orders and to protest the decision-making that led
to those orders. Only after the massacre did the dissenting voices, except for Hugh Thompson’s,
find expression.

Learning to Work With Dissent

The relative lack of attention to dissent in textbooks devoted to organizational behavior is matched
by the relative lack of attention to helping organization members learn about dissent. Yet dissent,
as the three cases show, can be an important corrective process in groups and organizations. The
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ability of a group or organization both to express and to work with dissent can affect its capacity to
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adapt and change. Without a productive way of managing dissent, groups and organizations increase
their risk that any goals they set, any strategies they adopt, or any decisions they make will be
constructed from a partial understanding of the issues they face. As discussed earlier, dissent is a
protest against the authority group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its
environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it. This isolation and its
consequences argue for the importance of equipping organizational members, both those at the top
and those below, with a set of principles for working with dissent.

The Group Membership Principle

The Group Membership Principle is defined as follows: Group memberships affect all of us. No one
is exempt. We can come to understand what those effects are, on ourselves and to a lesser extent on
others, and this can help us make choices about how to act in groups and organizations, how to
collect and evaluate information, how to make decisions and how to take action.
An understanding of dissent starts with intergroup relations. As discussed previously, the groups
to which we belong powerfully influence our experiences, how we interpret them, and what actions
we take as a result. The newspapers we read, the opinions we pay attention to, the counsel we most
often seek as well as the way we feel about what we see and hear are mediated through our group
memberships. And yet this observation about human behavior, cognition and affect is rarely
integrated into how we take up our roles in groups and organizations. Once inside these roles we
may very well acknowledge that others are influenced by their group affiliations, but act as if we are
not.
This principle is more difficult to live by than is apparent, for it suggests that continuous inquiry
into the divergence of various group-based worldviews is better preparation for acting in this world
than is a static confidence in our broader view. Indeed, one might argue that confidence in one’s
broad or universal understanding is an effect of group membership. One implication of this principle
is that it is important to seek out the limitations of our group-based awareness. We must solicit from
those who belong to different groups, their views on the issues facing the social system we both
inhabit. We may not “know” these other groups or not have easy access to them (nor they to us) but
creating settings in which groups, both organizational and identity, can learn about each other’s
experiences is crucial. This is not an easy task, but it is possible (Alderfer, Tucker, Alderfer, &
Tucker, 1988).

The Hierarchy Principle

The Hierarchy Principle is defined as follows: Top groups in organizations are likely to be encased
in their views of the world by the withholding of negative feedback from groups below that feel
vulnerable to the displeasure of these more powerful groups.
The particular challenges of relationships between groups with differential power and authority
are well known (Oshry, 2007; Smith, 1982). Yet knowledge does not often translate into effective
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 59

ways of handling these challenges. Ineffective methods often include efforts to stifle and coopt (as
opposed to listen to and consider) dissent. Although all groups develop a view of the world that is
circumscribed by the role and function of the group accompanied by a lack of awareness of these
limitations, groups with organizational authority, that is, those at the top of organizational hierar-
chies, often have significantly greater power to act on these limited world views in ways that affect
the whole organization. These limitations are compounded by the ways information is filtered as it
goes up any hierarchy (Vogel, 1967; Roberts & O’Reilly, 1974). Information that has not been well
received in the past tends, over time, to lead members of lower power groups to remove similar types
of information from subsequent communications up the organization. The special encasement of
groups at the top is often perceived as a more serious threat to the organization’s well being than
similar encasements of other groups.
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Most members of top groups in organizations understand this principle but do not know what
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to do about it. In their frustration, they will walk into a lower group and ask for feedback, or
“buttonhole” a member of a lower group to ask how things are going. This is not an effective means
of getting critical feedback (though it can look and even feel good) because in both cases the
question is asked across an intergroup boundary and is subject to all the filters and cognitive
interpretations that characterize any cross-group communication, especially communication across
hierarchical groups. Other times, top group members may hope that one or two “trusted” members
of a lower power group will compensate for the effects of hierarchy. This is unlikely (even while
the idea is comforting). In hierarchical intergroup relations, the structural power differences between
groups usually trump the personal relations between individuals. When it does not, we may call it
betrayal or dissent (depending upon which group we are in).
The implication of this principle is that when a top group seeks information from a lower power
group it must first convene the group (or a substantial number of representatives from this group),
providing it with safe and anonymous space in which to consider and respond to a request for
information. Soliciting information, especially negative or critical information from individuals is
unlikely to produce much insight.

The Complementarity Principle

The Complementarity Principle is defined as follows: Differentiation or specialization among

groups means that these groups need each other to piece together an accurate understanding of
their shared circumstance. The different views of specialized groups (by function, role, authority,
purpose) are complementary. Dissent can be an effort by one group to alert one or more groups to
the loss of the awareness of this fundamental complementarity.
As we have discussed, all groups have a limited or imperfect view of the world in which they
exist. The imperfections arise from the “specialization” that attends the creation of boundaries
around any group (Oshry, 2007). If you are trained as an engineer you spend your time learning
about engineering and not marketing. If you have spent your life in marketing, you probably know
little about engineering. The longer you have been out of the infantry (in general command, e.g.) the
less likely you are to be able to execute an infantry maneuver, a maneuver that uses entirely different
equipment than it did 20 years ago. Similarly, the infantry grunt would be in no position to handle
the strategy and politics of general command.
The fact that all groups have a limited view of their world is accompanied by the observation
that in most cases these limitations are complementary, and each contributes something to a deeper
and more developed understanding of the task, the situation at hand. The reason most manufacturing
organizations have both engineering and marketing departments is because they would not survive
without both. An approach to a military campaign that relied solely on command information or
solely on reports from the field would be severely endangered. The specialization that creates groups
with different tasks simultaneously attests to the complementarity among them and requires a
coordinating function to realize that complementarity.
When groups share the same context the specialization that evolves (explicitly or implicitly)
both estranges these groups from each other and allows them to be more effective than any one of
 60 BERG

them could be alone if they can coordinate their complementarity. Without specialization, the depth
or expertise of any group is constrained, but the specialization inevitably limits the groups’
perspectives. As a result, without some awareness and coordination of their complementary
contributions, their shared effectiveness is endangered. Oshry (2007) calls this the process of
differentiating and dedifferentiating, specializing and then integrating. The problem is that one of the
consequences of intergroup estrangement is the belief that other groups have little to offer that would
enhance one’s own group’s perspective.
The implication of this principle is that one important act of routine maintenance for all groups
is a mapping of the areas in which they depend on the efforts, perspectives or expertise of other
groups (Johnson, 1996). This mapping requires periodic assessments of one’s own group’s strengths
and weaknesses along with a parallel assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the other groups
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in its organizational environment. This process often requires consultative help since the ethnocen-
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tric estrangement may make it hard for groups to see their own weaknesses and other groups’
strengths.

The Focal Dissenter Principle

The Focal Dissenter Principle is defined as follows: Dissent is almost always an intergroup event
with the dissenter implicitly or explicitly representing a group (or subgroup) in his or her actions
or words. The more visible the group behind the focal dissenter can be, the more likely the substance
of the dissent will be taken seriously by the authority group and the less likely the focal dissenter
will end up a scapegoat.
The image of the lone dissenter, though the stuff of legends, is rarely an accurate picture of the
development of dissent. This paper has treated dissent as primarily an intergroup event, a commu-
nication from one group to another in which individuals play roles in both the sending and receiving
of this communication. The focal dissenter, for example, undoubtedly “volunteers” for the role
because of a predisposition (e.g., against authoritarian processes or for participatory ones), but he or
she also acts with the support of others (Wells, 1985). In the three examples described above such
support was present. The sister who comes late to dinner enacts her brother’s wish for more
flexibility as well as her own. The other nurses on the unit flank the nurse who reattaches the oxygen
mask when the senior resident comes to inquire about why her orders were not followed. His
helicopter crew backs Hugh Thompson at the moment of his verbal and physical dissent, but his
dissent is also supported by Ridenhour’s actions later in the year and by the testimony of other
soldiers during the courts martial.
The reason why dissent appears to be a consequence of individual action is because dissent is
risky. If a vulnerable group can enlist one of its members to express collective distress about its
relationship with a more powerful group, the rest of the group is protected against possible
retaliation. In most cases the dissenting group is trying to express a broadly shared protest
while simultaneously isolating the protest in one person as a way of protecting the group. Involving
more individuals in the group’s dissent increases the power of the dissent and provides some
protection for the group’s spokesperson, and may put more individuals at risk.
The selection of a focal dissenter is not always explicit. Sometimes it is the residue of many
conversations and activities over a long period of time after which it seems right for a particular
individual to take the lead. Other times individuals feel that they have no choice but to express their
dissent. They are impelled to act. The question here is what (or who) impels them? From an
intergroup perspective the answer is a meaningful group in their lives. For some of these individuals
the meaningful group is the one around them—their siblings, professional group, fellow employees,
or crewmembers. For others, the meaningful group may be one that is carried with them, in the mind,
with deep historical roots. “It was the moral thing to do” is a familiar description of the motivation
behind dissenters. Morality is something we learn, from our families and cultural groups. What
compels us to act morally is our fidelity to a set of group norms. When each of us acts as an
individual we are also acting as a representative of the groups that taught us moral guidelines shared
by the members of these groups.
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 61

The implication of this principle is to always look at the groups to which a dissenting individual
belongs as a potential explanation for the source of the dissent. It may not always be clear to what
groups the individual belongs or which of those the individual is representing (Berg, 2005) but
without considering which group is behind the individual it is impossible to convene that group (cf.
The Hierarchy Principle) to solicit information from it. The Focal Dissenter Principle asserts that
there is always a group behind the individual dissenter. When managing dissent we must seek to
identify that group.

The Engagement Principle

The Engagement Principle is defined as follows: Dissenters struggle with the paradoxical need to
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stay engaged with an authority with which it experiences a loss of connection. Dissent is a
communication between two groups about what one group believes is happening to the relationship
between them. It is not an act or set of acts intended to destroy that relationship.
The most effective way to stay engaged with a flawed authority group is to work at recognizing
one’s own limitations as a group. This self-critique creates a collective empathy (or in the boundary
terms used earlier, an openness in the other group’s perspective) that allows the dissenters to see
aspects of themselves in the authority group and to identify with them. While it is possible to
conceptualize destroying a relationship as a form of dissent, this view requires that an “audience”
watching both groups (dissenters and authority) is engaged enough in the dissent and meaningful
enough to the authority group such that the audience reaction to the termination of the relationship
will have an impact on the authority (Hirschman, 1970). (The so-called Saturday Night Massacre in
which Elliot Richardson resigned as Attorney General rather than carry out President Nixon’s order
to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox is an example of when the destruction of a relationship
functions as dissent.) More common is the form of dissent in which the dissenters’ engagement with
the authority is crucial to the potential success of the dissent (“you need to change your relationship
to us”). The temptation to withdraw while expressing dissent can be very strong; giving in to this
temptation marks the end of the dissent.
For those who are in the group that is the object of dissent the goal is to recognize, respond to,
and revisit the dissent in ways that increase the authority group’s learning about itself. Since dissent
is a communication from the dissenters to the authority group that the latter has begun acting as if
it has a complete and correct understanding of the organizational world both groups inhabit, the
statement to the authority group is to seek ways of discovering its own blind spots and to create
relationships with groups whose perspectives will reduce the severity of its own limitations. The last
three principles apply specifically to authority groups seeking to work with dissent and to stay
engaged with the dissenters.

The Recognition Principle

The Recognition Principle is defined as follows: Since dissent is often expressed through a focal
individual it is easily misdiagnosed as a personal issue or interpersonal grievance. There are
instances of individual behavior in organized settings in which the person is acting solely on his or
her own, but these are rare. Persistent dissent is a product of a group sentiment. Even when the
support for the focal individual is not public, it exists, for if it did not, the lower power group itself
would ultimately suppress or overtly disassociate itself from the focal individual.
The implication of this principle is that authority groups must learn to recognize the group level
dissent in the actions of an individual rather than assume, in a way that serves the authority group’s
sense of its own “complete” understanding, that a sentiment expressed by an individual is merely
that individual’s sentiment. In the United States especially, this recognition problem can be acute.
We tend to explain most organizational events by reference to individual characteristics (i.e.,
personality) or interpersonal differences (e.g., personality conflicts). In so doing we make it more
difficult to recognize the intergroup dimensions of dissent (Wells, 1985).
 62 BERG

When faced with a dissenting individual, the diagnostic questions that can aid in recognizing the
collective phenomenon that is often the essence of dissent is: What does the group with which this
individual identifies gain from this person’s behavior? Why has he or she been “put up” to this
activity? What might be disturbing the group that it is afraid to convey but that needs expression?
Merely asking these questions and struggling to formulate possible (and meaningful) answers can
shift the focus from the individual to the broader system.

The Response Principle

The Response Principle is defined as follows: The response by authority groups to dissent needs
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to involve opening the group’s boundary if the group is to have a chance of taking in the
communication about the dissenting group’s perspective. It is quite natural for all groups, but
especially groups with significant power and authority, to close down their boundaries in
response to dissent from outside. Especially if a group believes its views to be accurate, right
and well informed, dissent from other groups can be experienced as potentially dangerous or
corrupting since it follows logically that outside perspectives will be inaccurate, wrong and
poorly informed. Yet it is precisely this belief that the dissenting group is challenging.
The challenge of opening up a group’s boundary in the face of dissent cannot be overstated.
It is arguably the most difficult aspect of responding to dissent even though decisions about how
to treat the dissenters may stir more intense emotions. One of the most robust findings in the
field of intergroup relations is the closing down of boundaries around groups that are in conflict
with each other (Coser, 1956; Le Vine and Campbell, 1972). Dissent is a strong statement of
conflicting views between groups. We should expect both groups to close down their boundaries
in the face of what they expect will be toxic emanations (words and actions) from the other
group. This reaction merely intensifies the conflict, as each group feels increasingly estranged
and unheard.
Opening up an authority group’s boundaries starts with taking the dissenting group
seriously. The first response to dissent is often dismissive, especially if there is a focal
individual (a daughter, a male nurse, a helicopter pilot). The characteristics of the focal
individual that make him or her unrepresentative are emphasized and the possibility that the
dissent is widely shared ridiculed. Counterintuitively, taking the dissenter seriously involves
examining the meaning and merit of the dissent within the authority group. This can be done
by asking some in the authority group to make a serious case for the dissenters or by asking
members of the authority group to use examples from their own experience that support one or
more aspects of the dissent. Simply asking for these activities (in intergroup terms, asking the
group to find and explore inside themselves that which has been historically noticed or kept
outside the group) is not enough to ensure that they are undertaken in a meaningful way, but
asking is the first step. The higher the person in authority who asks, the more likely the activity
will be done seriously.
It is also possible for an authority group to open up other boundaries in an effort to improve
its ability to understand the dissenters’ message. In the face of dissent, many authority groups
reduce their communication to other groups or restrict their communication to formulaic
responses. This is especially true with regard to any public communication where an audience
is involved. Some organizations and governments, however, realize that this results in less
understanding of the basis of the dissent and so will open up “back channels” that enable more
“frank exchanges of views.” It is possible to create mechanisms for frank exchanges when
dissent occurs (e.g., ad hoc task forces, joint committees) and many organizations do. When the
groups involved authorize these mechanisms they can create deeper understanding of the
problems in the relationship between the groups. Too often, however, these mechanisms are
used to defuse or coopt the dissent rather than to understand and to engage it.
 DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE 63

The Revisiting Principle

The Revisiting Principle is defined as follows: Revisiting dissent after the initial shock of protest
involves a commitment to further data collection. Since dissent is a communication that the authority
group has become ethnocentrically estranged from the lower power group, the consequences of that
estrangement may not be readily apparent. Dissent conveys the message that while the authority
group believes itself to be perfect in its understanding of the organizational world around it, the
specific nature of its imperfect understanding remains to be discovered.
Ultimately the purpose of dissent is to reform the authority group’s understanding of itself, a
reformation that includes an assessment and incorporation of the group’s limitations as well as its
assets. (The dissenting group may also need some reforming of its self-understanding, but this paper
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has focused on dissent upward.) For most groups, this assessment has both an internal and an
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external component. The internal component, accessing the self-critical assessments of the top group
made by lower groups, can be a challenge because one of the consequences of ethnocentrism in
groups is a suppression of internal criticism (Le Vine and Campbell, 1972). The first step in
collecting data is systematically to conduct the authority group’s own self-evaluation. The external
component recognizes that any internal assessment, however rigorous, must be incomplete. Other
groups’ perceptions of the limitations and incompleteness of the authority group are also important
and comprise the second step in the data collection process (Blake, Shepard, & Mouton, 1964). Both
steps may require a careful and rather extensive commitment to a process that guarantees confi-
dentiality, uses professional consultants from outside the organization operating within a developed
code of professional ethics, and unfolds transparently within the constraints of individual anonym-
ity.

Concluding Thoughts

Dissent can be understood as an expression of the ethnocentric estrangement between an authority

subgroup and other subgroups within an organization. The vitality, adaptability, and in some cases
survival, of a group can depend upon reducing this estrangement. Sunstein (2003, p. 217) quotes
John Stuart Mill: “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the
human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still
more than those who hold it. If they are right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging
error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and
livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” Dissenters are not always or
completely on the side of “good.” Neither, of course, are those to whom the dissent is aimed. Both
groups have partial understandings of their shared world, either group may be wrong, misinformed,
corrupt. But acknowledging and responding to dissent has the potential to bring what is partial,
wrong, misinformed or corrupt to light, no matter in which group. Just as important, acknowledging
and responding to dissent has the potential for diminishing the ethnocentric estrangement that may
be at the core of the dissenting process.
Unfortunately, although dissent may be a crucially important part of group life, it is not an easy
part. Those in positions of authority often do not know what to do with dissent. They are often
surprised by it. Even when they hire, select, work with people who are different from them, they do
not expect expression of disagreement or the expression of frustration over a broken or damaged
hierarchical relationship. When dissent is encountered it often is experienced as a betrayal for even
when the role of dissent is understood intellectually, there may also exist a wish that it did not have
to exist (dissent may make those in positions of authority appear weak or ineffective to other
members of the organization). As a result, dealing with dissent is painful, an observation which
suggests that members of top groups must develop the capacity to tolerate discomfort if they are to
be effective.
Those in positions of being dissenters likewise do not always know what to do with dissent.
What is effective dissent? What is responsible dissent? Are we prepared to live with the conse-
 64 BERG

quences of dissent? Is there a difference between disagreeing on an issue and dissenting in a

relationship? I believe we in the behavioral sciences need to devote more energy to developing the
capacity for effective dissent and effective responses to dissent. If we do not focus our attention on
the dynamics of dissent, we run the risk of evolving into a society that will not have the means for
reforming its authority relations without massive bloodshed and destruction. We can smell such an
evolutionary trend in the wind. We have been through it in the past.

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Received November 14, 2010

Revision received January 21, 2011
Accepted January 25, 2011 䡲
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as possible. For example, “social psychology” is not sufficient—you would need to
specify “social cognition” or “attitude change” as well.

• Reviewing a manuscript takes time (1– 4 hours per manuscript reviewed). If you are
selected to review a manuscript, be prepared to invest the necessary time to evaluate the
manuscript thoroughly.