I Think, You Think,
We All Think Groupthink

by Mary W. Matthews

Groupthink. It sounds like something out of 1984, doesn’t it? In Victims of Groupthink, psychologist Irving Janis defined it as “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”

Janis identified eight symptoms of Groupthink:

• The illusion that the group is invulnerable. This leads group members to ignore obvious dangers, take unwarrantable risks, and be overly optimistic.
• Collective rationalization, explaining away or discrediting any evidence that contradicts the group’s beliefs.
• The belief that the group is morally righteous, which leads to the group’s ignoring the moral and ethical consequences of its actions.
• Negative stereotyping of outsiders, whether barbarians, Democrats, black, white, or the the only subgroup of the top two percent categorically unwelcome in Mensa: green people with yellow stripes.”
• Pressure for conformity, in which dissenters against the group’s stereotypes, illusions, or commitments are seen as disloyal and can even become discredited and ostracized.
• Self-censorship, in which individual members withhold their doubts, dissenting views, and counterarguments.
• The illusion of unanimity, in which lack of active objection is equated with consent.
• “Mindguards,” self-appointed Groupthinkers who protect their leaders from doubt, dissension, and adverse information, thus protecting the group’s complacency.

Examples of Groupthink abound throughout history. Nazi Germany is of course among the most obvious, as are the witchhunts of the Middle Ages. But modern examples abound too. Think of the Roman Catholic Magisterium, insisting in July 2003 that its priesthood must be exclusively male, single, and chaste no matter what. Think of the certainty of al Qaida, the I.R.A., and other terrorist groups that the best way to please their gods of “peace” is to murder and destroy. Think of Jerry Falwell’s claim that 9/11 was the fault of feminists, gays, abortionists, and the ACLU.

Think of the Felon in Chief's MAGAts, whose ideal world involves caged children, crops rotting in the fields, trade wars with the rest of the world, humiliated libtards, and neofascism....

Think of Republicans' 45-year devotion to the idea that tax cuts are the only perfect panacea. Reagan/Bush I tripled the national debt. Clinton lowered it. Bush II doubled it again. Obama lowered it. Trump added $4 trillion to the national debt, Biden lowered it, and the Felon in Chief is currently promising to add another $4 trillion in 2025, to be offset by cuts to Social Security — which is YOUR money, not his — Medicare, Medicaid, FEMA, NOAA, SNAP, and every other program that serves the 99 percent.

“Oh, well,” you say. “My friends and I are too intelligent to fall for groupthink.” Symptom one: the illusion of invulnerability.

“If we invade the Bay of Pigs, we will overthrow Castro and bring glory to JFK. Nothing could possibly go wrong.”

“Open-goods trains with lattice sides in the Chunnel?
What could possibly go wrong?”

The active members of a group begin to take for granted that because their initial motivation was laudable (at least in their own eyes), all subsequent judgments and actions are too — that it is impossible for them to take action detrimental to the group as a whole. They begin talking only to each other, forgetting the old adage, “Cultivate your enemies. They are the only ones who will tell you the truth.” They quell dissent; dissenters fall silent; and their group presumes that silence is agreement. And the next thing you know, another obtuse and destructive decision has been made by groupthink.

“We’re highly intelligent scientists, not soldiers. Let’s negotiate with that giant carrot-thing that looks like James Arness. An advanced alien lifeform is bound to be peaceful.”

Groupthink will never go away; it is inherent in humanity’s gregarious nature. So what can we do when we see it happening?

• We need to understand the causes and consequences of groupthink. You can’t fix a problem you don’t know you have.
• When a group needs to make a decision, its leaders should keep to themselves all preferences and expectations.
• Leaders should be open to criticism and should give high priority to the airing of all doubts and objections.
• Several strong members of the group should be assigned the role of devil’s advocate and made responsible for the group’s consideration of all alternatives, however unpopular.
• The group should spend a great deal of time surveying all warning signals, especially those from similar organizations.
• When a decision is important, several independent subgroups should be formed to work on the same issue, and outside experts should be included in decision-making.
• After the group has reached a preliminary consensus, all remaining doubts should be expressed and the matter reconsidered.

“Of course we should proceed with the Edsel — everyone will love it!”