Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Groupthink

Etymology: ¹group + -think (as in doublethink): a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics

Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group or individual makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (p. 9). 

In Europe this phenomenon is mainly called conformism.  (See famous Asch conformity experiments, were people frequently followed the majority judgment, even when the majority was wrong.). 

Groupthink is the phenomenon which occurs when group members become so focused on achieving concurrence that the search for consensus overrides any realistic assessment of deviant or unpopular views. It represents a deterioration in an individual's mental efficiency and reality testing as a result of group pressures.

Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions.  A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when the group is insulated from outside opinions. Highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink

• Janis, Irving L.  (1972).  Victims of Groupthink.  New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Janis, Irving L.  (1982).  Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.  Second Edition.  New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Groupthink

Explanation of Theory: The result when group cohesion leads all members of the group to abandon realistic evaluation of the situation and follow the corporate group ideal.

Theorists:  
Irving Janis
Date:
1972
Primary Article:
Janis, I. L, (1972).  Victims of Groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy  decisions and fiascoes (2nd edition). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

Individual Interpretations:
Groupthink is a theory that was developed in hindsight.  All of the examples given in the original theory were offered post hoc which is problematic.  Since its inception it has been revisted and studies have raised viable questions about the validity of the assumptions made in groupthink.

Metatheoretical Assumptions:
Being a Scientific theory the following metatheoretical assumption should be advanced.

Ontological Assumptions:
Scientific research suggest that human nature is deterministic.  Humans do 
not have control what they do.

Epistemological Assumptions:
Scientific research suggests that there is one truth, or big T truth.

Axiological Assumptions:
Research should not be value laden.  Research offers objective results.

Critique:
Being a Scientific theory it should be critiqued using Chaffee & Berger's criteria.

Explanatory Power - Groupthink offers a concrete definition of what will happen when groups become cohesive.
Predictive Power -Groupthink offers a explanation that if a group becomes cohesive the group will make bad decisions.
Parsimony -Groupthink is a very simple theory that states a cohesiveness within a group will lead to poor decision making in the group.
Falsifiablity - Groupthink is a little short in this category.  There were no original criteria for groupthink so it is hard to test.  However, some researchers have attempted to develop a scale to test groupthink.
Internal Consistency - Groupthink is argued by many researchers.  Some agree but new research suggests that groupthink should be re-developed because it is not matching the current research on effective decision-making and cohesiveness.
Heuristic Provocativeness - There are several new hypothesis that can be offered about what happens in cohesive groups.  Researchers are working on new ideas as we speak.
Organizing Power - A major drawback on groupthink is there was never a specific set of criteria of what groupthink is so that it could be tested.  There were only symptoms to be interrupted by the researcher looking a group's decision.  

Ideas and Implications:
It is very important to understand groupthink because of the implications of groups in today's society.  We need to know why and how groups make bad decisions and groupthink offers one explanation.  However the theory of groupthink should be carefully examined before it is offered as the sole truth of what happens in groups.

Example:
The Abbaline Paradox  

Relevant Research:
    Hart, P.T. (1998).  Preventing Groupthink Revisited: Evaluating and Reforming Groups in Government. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 73, 306-326.
     Rothwell, J. D.  (1998).  In mixed company:  Small group communication.  Fort Worth, TX:  Harcourt Brace.
     Schafer, M. & Crichlow, S. (1996).  Antecedents of groupthink:  a quantitative 
study.  Journal of Conflict Resolution, 40, 415-435 
     Whyte, G. (1998).  Recasting Janis's Groupthink Model:  The Key Role of Collective Efficacy in Decision Fiascoes.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 73, 185-209

Location in Eight (8) Primary Communication Theory Textbooks:

     Anderson, R., & Ross, V. (1998). Questions of communication: A practical introduction to theory (2nd ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press.  N/A

     Cragan, J. F., & Shields, D.C. (1998). Understanding communication theory: The communicative forces for human action. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. N/A

     Griffin, E. (2000). A first look at communication theory (4th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. N/A

     Griffin, E. (1997). A first look at communication theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. 231-

      Infante, D. A., Rancer, A. S., & Womack, D. F. (1997). Building communication theory (3rd ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. N/A

      Littlejohn, S. W. (1999). Theories of human communication (6th ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. N/A

      West, R., & Turner, L. H. (2000). Introducing communication theory: Analysis and application. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. N/A

       Wood, J. T. (1997). Communication theories in action: An introduction. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. N/A

The Challenger space shuttle explosion. The Bay of Pigs invasion. The Korean War debacle (Janis 1-28). These are examples of situations where group communication failed. Group communication involves a shared identity among three or more people, a considerable amount of interaction among these people, and a high level of interdependence between everyone involved (Trenholm 196-97). It is essential to understand group dynamics for a variety of reasons. Everyone participates in groups throughout the course of a lifetime, and these groups are often very goal-oriented. The business community, non-profit organizations, and town governments all use groups to make decisions. Sometimes a condition known as Groupthink can occur in groups that are extremely task-oriented and goal-driven. Groupthink is as "a mode of thinking people engage in when cohesiveness is high" (Blumberg and Golembiewski 134). Groupthink leads to poor decision making and results in a lack of creativity. Although Groupthink has been studied extensively, many people are unaware of its dynamics and the consequences that they might induce. This paper was designed to raise awareness about Groupthink and to provide some suggestions that can help task-oriented groups avoid this condition. To understand Groupthink it is essential to have a basic familiarity with group communication dynamics. Once this is accomplished some symptoms of Groupthink will be explored and some solutions will be offered.

Lots of work has been done on the subject of Groupthink, but the most authoritative documentation on the subject can be discovered in the works of the founder of the concept, Irving Janis. Janis, in his book Groupthink, defines the terms involved and presents examples. Beyond Groupthink is a text written by Eric Stern et al. that deals with Groupthink in small groups. The authors believe that a certain amount of Groupthink can be beneficial in small groups. Articles involving Groupthink have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal and various other publications.

Goal-oriented groups consist of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, have specific performance goals, share a common working approach, and hold mutual accountability (Wertheim 2). These types of groups are used when there are complex problems to be solved, important situations to work through, or uncertain conditions. Groups function best when there are no immediate time pressures (Wertheim 2). Groups are successful because the group members bring diverse ideas, the collective knowledge of everyone is significant, and groups tend to be focused (Wertheim 2). There are certain situations which call for the use of groups. Groups can be beneficial when communication between departments is necessary in a business setting or when the consent of many people is required (Wertheim 3). Individuals can also benefit from group participation. Many people who work in groups are able to learn new skills, take risks, get feedback, and discover personal strengths and weaknesses (Wertheim 3).

Groups must accomplish tasks that individuals cannot. This is the primary function of groups. Effective groups consist of committed members who are willing to take accountability for the actions of the group (Wertheim 3-4). At Northeastern University an academic program has been developed to facilitate group communication. The University believes that effective groups are characterized by a sense of urgency and direction, a following of a set of rules, understanding of what the problem or issue is that needs to be solved, a shared sense of leadership, an ability to brainstorm, and a cohesive climate (Wertheim 4). Effective groups need to have clear goals, mutual trust among all participants, accountability shared by everyone, external support, and training (Wertheim 4-5).

Irving Janis did lots of work in the area of group communication. He wondered why intelligent groups of people sometimes made decisions that led to disastrous results. Janis focused on the political arena. He studied The Bay of Pigs conflict, The Korean War, Pearl Harbor, The conflict in Vietnam, The Cuban Missile Crisis, makings of The Marshall Plan, and Watergate (Janis 9-13). Janis was puzzled by the inability of very intelligent people to make sound decisions. His answer was a condition he termed Groupthink.

Janis defines Groupthink as a "a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action" (Janis 9). Janis further states that "Groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures" (Janis 9). Groupthink can lead to bad judgments and decisions being made. It serves as a simple way to deal with difficult issues.

The symptoms of Groupthink are clear. The "illusion of invulnerability" happens when a group thinks that they cannot go wrong. Confidence among the members of the group is remarkably high and is reflected in the decisions that they make (Keil 1). A "belief in inherent morality of the group" occurs when the group thinks tremendously of their morality. The group believes that it is doing the right thing in all circumstances. "Collective rationalization" is another symptom of Groupthink. Groups who experience this believe that nothing can be wrong with their plan even if there is significant evidence to prove otherwise (Keil 2). A lack of creativity and a disregard for others' options is a characteristic of groups with "out-group stereotypes." Groups often pay little attention to what outsiders have to say, and this can be detrimental (Keil 2). "Self-censorship" occurs when group members don't share their ideas with the rest of the group because of fear of being rejected (Keil 2). The "illusion of unanimity" explains that silence can often be interpreted as acceptance. All of these are symptoms of Groupthink. If one or more of these are commonplace in a particular group, change must occur.

Janis offers many suggestion to help prevent Groupthink. An easy answer is to put one person in charge of making all decisions and dealing with problems. This is not desirable in most cases, however (Janis 260-61). Groups are often able to accomplish tasks more rapidly and precisely than individuals can (Cartwright and Zander 56-57). The distribution of power in a group usually assures that no single person is able to take control. The plan of one person is more likely to be flawed than the plan of a group. More people inputting their opinion will help the group formulate a creative and complete plan.

One way of preventing Groupthink is to make each member of the group a "critical evaluator" (Janis 262). Group members will attempt to find problems in group solutions by evaluating them individually. The leader must accept criticism if this is to work (Janis 262). But making each member of the group analyze solutions individually is problematic. Group members can spend too much time debating when there is an important deadline. Feelings can be hurt when the ideas of individual group members are criticized. Some group members may not have the skills to think critically about the presented solutions (Janis 262-63).

Leaders who assign tasks to a group must be impartial and must not lead the group to believe that a certain outcome is expected (Janis 263). Group members will not attempt to conform with beliefs of the leadership if they are unsure of what the leader wants. Problems arise because the leader often feels that there is no centralized control within the group.

Many different groups can work on the same problem under separate leaders (Janis 264). Every group would come up with different ideas, and the pressure to conform is not as great. In some instances security can be a problem. Information is more likely to leak out if more people are aware of the information. Problems also arise when a group assumes that another group will examine the pieces to the solution that have been missed. It is much easier to allow someone else to complete the task (Janis 264-65). When only one group is working on a particular problem this doesn't happen.

Groups should divide into two or more subgroups occasionally (Janis 265). Each group should be led by a different chairperson. Both groups can eventually come together and discuss ideas. Groups that do this are less likely to be locked into one solution.

Outside experts can be brought in to observe the group functioning (Janis 266). The experts should have the ability to question the decisions of the group. The experts need to be very qualified and skilled in their ability to sort through and analyze solutions of the group. The experts must also be able to criticize the group in a fashion that will not turn the group away from the expert. Good communication skills are essential. It is important that experts become a part of the group before a general consensus is reached among all group members (Janis 266).

Every group should include a specific member who has the job of playing "devil's advocate." This person should seriously question much of what the group members say. The "devil's advocate" must be willing to vocally share his ideas with the rest of the group (Janis 267). This strategy will force the group to take a second look at every decision that is made. The "devil's advocate" of the group must be taken seriously and be allowed to speak at will if this strategy is to be effective.

Having been a part of many groups myself, I believe that the best way to avoid Groupthink is to have an understanding and awareness of it. Groups that constantly question decisions are likely to never encounter Groupthink. Groups are useful and necessary in many situations. They often solve problems that individuals cannot. Groupthink can limit the value of groups. Groupthink problems can be recognized by identifying a set of characteristics including an illusion of invulnerability, self censorship, and others. Janis recommends many strategies for avoiding Groupthink. Groups can assign the role of critical evaluator to each member, divide into subgroups, invite experts to sit in on meetings, and so on. Groupthink is a problem that can have destructive consequences. If group members are aware of Groupthink and are constantly checking for it the damaging effects of this condition can be avoided.

Back to essays

Notes: Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected. This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books. The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link. Search Amazon by keywords:     Open directory Research Index

Old News ;-)

[Apr 30, 2008] Amazon.com Too Nice for Your Own Good How to Stop Making 9 Self-Sabotaging Mistakes Duke Robinson Books

"Too nice" people serve as a natural feeding ground for corporate sociopaths. 

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-0446673860
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches

Niceness Mistakes-For Good!, June 11, 2003 By Ilaxi S. Patel "Editor, kidsfreesouls.com & A... (India) - See all my reviews

How oft we create a wave to spell trouble with our own perfections being true and honest with good faith and intentions? We take on too much not saying what we want and that's exactly what the book reveals - the niceness mistakes that 'Damage' us! Unconsciously, we have planted strong messages in the back of our minds and with good intentions by our mentors, follow the moral code of conducts in life. Be good, be nice, be cool, share and care, don't be selfish, be reasonable, don't hurt others, help friends, say yes and so on. In real, trying to reach perfection and taking on too much lead us to exhaustion and sooner or later the ship of our life start sinking. The author gives an insight to the nine unconscious mistakes we often make daily and helps us correct them and pulls a person out of frustration and stress.

In not saying what you want and taking on too much, it leads to suppressed anger. Robinson provides healthy tips to express anger to orchestrate a balanced life. Life itself is like riding a bike up and down roads that are bumpy, curvy, hilly while juggling bananas, balloons and bowling balls says Robinson and so this is when you have a fall, life needs balancing back to pedal and steer with too much/too little, too rational/too emotional, to fast/too slow, too cautious/too reckless, too strong/too weak, etc. and remain upright empowering to get what you need and deserve. Irony is, sometimes our niceness betrays us and this book is a key to understanding our mistakes and bring about a 'change' in us. Robinson makes us a nicer person making one realise the mistakes, why we make and how to give up.

In doing so, Robinson guides in:

1. Liberating from the bondage of other's expectations
2. Saying no and saving work overloads
3. Telling what we want and analyze what we receive is worth or not
4. Express anger that heal and maintain relationships too.
5. Face irrationality and criticism
6. Tell truth to friends when they fail us
7. Care for others but do no burden own trying to run their lives.
8. In pain and grief, feel competent enough

A change is always welcome even for the nice to be nicer and avoid the mistakes that we keep making out of the blue. Our good intentions turn out to be damn-in-way for others who often misunderstand or shrug off not appreciating your worth as human being. This book is indeed a gem collection for every person who has learned to live being 'Nice' and remain being so without being emotionally hung up sometimes. Good Pick!

  Former title was better., April 8, 2007

By Geoffrey J. Barnes "CyberBronco" (Miami, FL United States)
    The former title of this book was Good Intentions. From the information I gathered in the first few pages it was first published in 1997. I am not sure if that refers to the first publication under the current title or the previous one. I say that because the text feels more dated than just 10 years old.

I bought this book at Borders. The title caught my eye and a scan of the first few lines of each chapter confirmed I would like this book. As someone who is always accused of being too nice a guy and winding up burned more than once by relationships and employers, I thought I was on to something! Unfortunately I feel burned again by being naive enough to buy this book. There are those reading this that will say I should have done my homework first before making a purchase. Well, I'm sorry but I am not one of those jerks who sits in Barnes and Noble all day, taking up space and breaking in the backs of books I never intend to purchase. I wish those chairs would run a few megawatts of electricity through them every 10 minutes to get those creepy people out of the stores. They never buy anything and they smell bad! When my cell phone rings in the store, they have the nerve to "Shush" me. Hey people! This is a retail establishment! Buy something or move back into the library!

To give an example of what I am referring to in this book go to page 201, Mistake #8: Rescuing Others. The first page gives an example of a guy with a nephew who is having trouble staying in school or keeping a job. This is actually the chapter that made me buy the book. After getting a few pages into the chapter you realize they are only referring to people who try to rescue addicts and nothing else. My nephew is not an addict, but he otherwise fits the description in the example. Too bad this book didn't stick to its original title: Good Intentions. It is a better description of what is being preached here.

Mistake #7 is called Giving Advice. It tells you to never give advice, and lists several reasons why you should not. Ironically advice is what this book is based upon. The author is giving all of us poor "Nice" guys advice.

I believe the author had "good intentions" when he wrote this book. I believe the publisher had a great money making idea when he re-released this book under its new title.

What is Mobbing? Workplace Mobbing in Academe (2004).

[Apr 23, 2008] Games: Sony To Launch PS3 Video Download Service

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 23, @03:39PM
from the competition-is-a-good-thing dept.   An anonymous reader points out a Los Angeles Times report that Sony is planning on making movies and TV shows available for download through the PS3 "as early as this summer." Sony hopes to make use of the roughly 4 million PS3s already sold in the US to compete with similar services such as XBox Live, which began offering video downloads over a year ago.

"One of the service's greatest obstacles may be Sony's own culture. Sony Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Stringer has been battling a corporate silo mentality in which divisions within his company work in isolation, undermining new initiatives. The PlayStation group in Foster City, Calif., has been notoriously aloof. Once, a former executive said, it scuttled plans for a movie subscription service for the PlayStation Portable even though Sony Pictures had supported the initiative. What is more, the company, looking to safeguard its film, television and music holdings, has been an aggressive champion of copyright protection, often, critics suggest, at the cost of technological innovation."

[Apr 23, 2008] Slashdot Microsoft Loses Appeal of Vista-Capable Lawsuit

The Myth of the Rational Voter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Apr 4, 2008] Amazon.com The Myth of the Rational Voter Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies Bryan Caplan Books

Very questionable arguments. Primitive lebertarian persepective and corresponding bias.  See also [PDF] The Myth of the Rational Voter

The Myth of The Rational Economist, November 3, 2007

By	Sanford Thier - See all my reviews

The problem with this book is its basic premise, that our problems are caused by ignorant voters, is simply nonsense. Caplan fails to notice that the policies that this nation is following are not those that the voters want.

If it mattered what the voters thought, Gore would be president, American boys would not be dieing in a pointless war in Iraq, NAFTA would be be canceled, we would get out of the WTO, we would control illegal immigration, our government would protect the interests of American workers instead of the interests of multinational corporations that outsource the best American jobs to slave labor countries, and we would have free quality health care for all Americans. That is what the voters in this country want.

The point is that we are not in trouble because we are following the wishes of irrational voters. We are in trouble because we are ignoring the wishes of the voters and following the policies favored by irrational economists. like him.  

"Don't confuse us with the facts!", June 8, 2007 By Nicole (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews

Many people have noted that democracy seems not to work - policies are implemented that often are not in the best interest of voters, and when voters are surveyed they routinely lack even the most basic civic knowledge. The way people have typically answered this problem is to say that voters are uninformed, and that if they simply had more access to good information, they would use that information to make better choices. But even so, the tiny informed minority will sway elections because the uninformed majority will vote at random.

Here, Caplan directly challenges that view by asserting that voters are not simply ignorant but irrational, and that this is in fact predicted by economic theory. Voting is not like shopping - it is more like making use of a commons, because the costs of a "bad" vote are borne by the public at large, and the chance of an individual casting the deciding vote is tiny. Therefore, people will vote for what makes them feel good without bothering to find out whether it really is good - it simply doesn't matter. Caplan explores four systematic biases voters hold against good economic policy - antimarket bias, antiforeign bias, make-work bias, and pessimistic bias. The fact that systematic bias exists means that the irrational majority does not in fact vote at random, so it's the irrational voters deciding who wins elections rather than the small, informed, rational minority. Voters get what they want, it's just that what they want is actually bad for them - and they don't care!

Caplan makes a persuasive case for viewing the average voter as irrational rather than simply ignorant, though admittedly I am sympathetic to this idea to begin with. I wish he had been able to include more recommendations in his conclusion, but this should be a promising area for further research.

Economists know best?, July 25, 2007

By	J. Gordon "nonfiction enthusiast" (Rye, NY) - See all my reviews

This book is a very interesting read, describing a utility-based model of why voters vote as they do. The author proposes that voters are naturally biased against their own interests. The concept is that the probability of any one voter changing the result of a vote is vanishingly small, and therefore each voter votes for what makes them feel better about themselves, even if the policies go against their own interest and the interests of the economy. For example, voters vote for higher taxes, large inefficient government programs, and protectionist policies.

For example, a voter might vote for a politician who promises to raise the voter's taxes and give their money to the poor. The voter figures that the chances that their individual vote would make the difference between the candidate winning or losing is extremely small; making the cost of the vote effectively zero. However, the psychic benefit of the vote is positive.

Where the author fails is in the chapter where he measures the policy leanings of an artificial "enlightened voter". How he defines an "enlightened voter" is an average voter with the statistical characteristics of one having a graduate degree in Economics. Based on a sophisticated multivariate-regression-based analysis, the author determines that an "enlightened voter" would be predicted to view potential policies more like... an economist! What a surprise!

Caplan asserts that the voting public would support more reasonable policies if they all had graduate degrees in economics. However, there are plenty of Econ PhD's who put too much faith in government policies solving apparent market failures.

The book is well worth reading, and makes many good points regarding the reasons why voters vote for policies that go against their own best interests, and in aggregate against the health of the overall economy. However, it does not make a convincing case that economists should be running the show.

[Apr 4, 2008] Political Attention Deficit Disorder - New Psychiatric Condition Explains Bush - Associated Content

Nice humor or satire, if you wish... I especially like:  "The chief cause of PADD is the desire to avoid the very real pain of cognitive dissonance"

According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance.

"The symptoms of PADD are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election," said Dr. Mable Wank in the report's introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA.

Here are the Council's main findings on PADD:

Nearly 80 percent of adult American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote, read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on current events with friends and family. "The decades-old decline in voter turnout is a direct result of a national epidemic of PADD," said the report.

The chief cause of PADD is the desire to avoid the very real pain of cognitive dissonance, the difference between what Americans want to believe about the greatness of their country and the disturbing reality that their government and country are in terrible shape, which is a constant reminder when there is normal, healthy political attention. Such pain suppression, however, is counterproductive and was found through careful studies at several universities, including the Harvard Medical College, to correlate with depression and anxiety disorders, as well as a heightened level of cynicism and despair. According to the report, many suicides and possibly many criminal acts result from PADD.

[Feb 10, 2008] naked capitalism Breaking the Neoclassical Monopoly in Economics

"For the past 25 years, the so-called 'Washington Consensus' – comprising measures aimed at expanding the role of markets and constraining the role of the state – has dominated economic development policy."

Dear reader, even if your taste runs to the practical rather than the theoretical, I strongly suggest you read this post from Thomas Palley.

Like it or not, most news reporting and just about all policy discussions in the finance/economics realm are filtered through a particular frame of reference, namely, neoclassical economics. Palley points out that the illusion that there are two schools, namely the Chicago "free market" cohort (which has become the "Washington consensus") versus the more interventionist MIT camp, obscures the fact that they are subsets of neoclassical thought and that there are other frameworks that have merit yet have been shunted aside.

Put more simply: it's important to recognize biases, otherwise you have no hope of correcting for them.

From Palley:

For the past 25 years, the so-called “Washington Consensus” – comprising measures aimed at expanding the role of markets and constraining the role of the state – has dominated economic development policy. As John Williamson, who coined the term, put it in 2002, these measures “are motherhood and apple pie, which is why they commanded a consensus.”

Not anymore. Dani Rodrik, a renowned Harvard University economist, is the latest to challenge the intellectual foundations of the Washington Consensus in a powerful new book titled One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth. Rodrik’s thesis is that though there is only one economics, there are many recipes for development success.

Rodrik has rendered a major service by stating so openly the claim of “one economics.” A critic who made the same claim that economics allows only one theoretical approach would be dismissed as paranoid, whereas Rodrik’s standing creates an opportunity for a debate that would not otherwise be possible.

The “many recipes” thesis is that countries develop successfully by following eclectic policies tailored to specific local conditions rather than by following generic best-practice formulas designed by economic theorists. This challenges the Washington Consensus, with its one-size-fits-all formula of privatization, deregulated labor markets, financial liberalization, international economic integration, and macroeconomic stability based on low inflation.

But, while the many recipes thesis has strong appeal and empirical support, and suggests a spirit of theoretical pluralism, the claim of “one economics” is misguided, for it implies that mainstream neoclassical economics is the only true economics.

Part of the difficulty of exposing this narrowness is that there is a family split among neo-classical economists between those who believe that real-world market economies approximate perfect competition and those who don’t. Believers are identified with the “Chicago School,” whose leading exponents include Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Non-believers are identified with the “MIT School” associated with Paul Samuelson. Rodrik is of the MIT School, as are such household names as Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Larry Summers. This split obscures the underlying uniformity of thought.

The Chicago School claims that real-world market economies produce roughly efficient (so-called “Pareto optimal”) outcomes on which public policy cannot improve. Thus, any state intervention in the economy must make someone worse off.

The MIT School, by contrast, argues that real-world economies are afflicted by pervasive market failures, including imperfect competition and monopoly, externalities associated with problems like pollution, and an inability to supply public goods such as street lighting or national defense. Consequently, policy interventions that address market failures – as well as widespread information imperfections and the non-existence of many needed markets – can make everyone better off.

None of this is about fairness, which is a separate issue. Indeed, neither the Chicago School nor the MIT School say that market outcomes are fair, because actual market outcomes depend on the initial distribution of resources. If that distribution was unfair, current and future outcomes will be unfair, too.

However, Chicago economists seem to believe that real-world outcomes are acceptably unfair and, more importantly, that attempts to remedy unfairness are too costly, because tampering with markets causes economic inefficiency. Moreover, they believe that government intervention tends to generate its own costly failures because of bureaucratic incompetence and rent-seeking, whereby private interests try to steer policy to their own advantage.

MIT economists tend to espouse the opposite: fairness is important, the real world is unacceptably unfair, and government failure can be prevented by good institutional design, including democracy.

These differences reflect the intellectual richness of neo-classical economics, but they provide no justification for the claim that there is one economics. On the contrary, heterodox economists like Thorsten Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter long ago raised many of today’s cutting-edge issues in neoclassical economics, including the role of social norms and the relationship between technological innovation and business cycles.

More importantly, heterodox economics includes core theoretical concepts that are fundamentally incompatible with neoclassical economics in either of its two contemporary forms. These concepts result in significantly different explanations of the real world, including income distribution and the determinants of economic activity and growth. Moreover, they often result in different policy prescriptions.

The late Robert Heilbronner – one of Schumpeter’s most renowned students – viewed economics as “worldly philosophy.” Just as philosophers are divided on the nature of truth and understanding, economics is divided on the workings of the real world. Paradigms should co-exist in economics, just as in other social sciences. Yet, in practice, the dominance of the belief in “one economics,” particularly in North America and Europe, has led increasingly to a narrow and exclusionary view of the discipline.

This reality is difficult to convey. One reason is that liberal neo-classical economists like Stiglitz and Krugman share values with heterodox economists, and shared values are easily conflated with shared analysis. Another reason is that heterodox and MIT School economists also often agree on policy, even if their reasoning is different. Finally, most people are incredulous that economists could be so audacious as to enforce one view of economics.

The “many recipes” thesis enriches neo-classical economics’ contribution to the development debate, and many of its policy proposals will find support from heterodox economists. However, it fails to engage the deep intellectual divisions regarding economic development, trade, and globalization, because it refuses to admit the legitimacy of such disagreements.

By repeating the claim of “one economics,” Rodrik inadvertently reveals the censorship embedded in contemporary economics. The great challenge is not to admit that there are many recipes, but rather to create space for other perspectives on economic analysis and policy.

Copyright Thomas I. Palley

Answers.com

Groupthink occurs when the pressure to conform within a group interferes with that group's analysis of a problem and causes poor group decision making. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages that can sometimes be obtained by making a decision as a group—bringing different sources of ideas, knowledge, and experience together to solve a problem. Psychologist Irving Janis defines groupthink as: "a mode of thinking people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. Groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures." It can also refer to the tendency of groups to agree with powerful, intimidating bosses.

The concept of groupthink provides a summary explanation of reasons groups sometimes make poor decisions. Indeed, groups are supposed to be better than individuals at making complex decisions, because, through the membership, a variety of differing perspectives are brought to bear. Group members not only serve to bring new ideas into the discussion but also act as error-correcting mechanisms. Groups also provide social support, which is especially critical for new ideas. But when new perspectives are rejected (as in the "not invented here" syndrome), it is hard to correct errors. And if the social support is geared toward supporting the group's "accepted wisdom," the elements that can make groups better decision makers than individuals become inverted, and instead make them worse. Just as groups can work to promote effective thinking/decision making, the same processes which enhance the group's operation can backfire and lead to disastrous results.

The Enron Cult: 'Groupthink' caused everyone associated with Enron to contribute to its downfall by Roger Brunswick, MD and Gary E. Hayes, PhD Hayes, Brunswick & Partners

(Hayes Brunswick & Partners, LLC )

Ken Lay understandably is among the least admired individuals in America today. Enron Corp.'s former chief executive officer allegedly oversaw one of the biggest accounting scams in corporate history, the full repercussions of which are still unknown as each day seems to bring a new twist to the horrific scandal.

Yet, it would be somewhat comforting if it turns out that Lay conceived and executed the scandal knowing in advance the repercussions of his actions, much like Frank Gruttadauria, the Cleveland stockbroker who allegedly bilked old ladies and other clients out of millions of dollars by doctoring their account statements. Gruttadauria reportedly displayed all the signs of a classic sociopath, including beguiling charm and feigned empathy for his victims. He apparently acted alone and mysteriously disappeared before his scheme was discovered, the telltale signs of a classic scam. How neat and simple it would be to similarly lay Enron's demise at the feet of one person.

But Lay did not act alone -- and that may very well be one of the most disturbing elements of the Enron debacle. He had the enthusiastic support of a venerable cast of characters, including some high-priced lawyers, accountants, investment bankers and management consultants. Did Lay systematically entwine his advisers into a preconceived web of deception? Highly unlikely. Indeed, it's becoming increasingly clear that financial legerdemain was not unique to Enron; several other companies disclosed this week that they are delaying or reconsidering their earnings. In what may be another ominous sign, The Wall Street Journal reported that Moody's Investor Service has quietly sent out letters to more than 4,000 companies the agency rates asking for more information on their "off-balance-sheet financial arrangements."

Given the tragic fallout resulting from Enron's collapse, the cacophony of voices clamoring to bring the scandal's alleged masterminds to justice will no doubt grow louder still in the weeks ahead. But it is naive to think that culpability rests entirely with Lay, his lieutenants, and some wayward lawyers and auditors. The tragedy of Enron is that it was caused by what is known as "groupthink." Truth be told, almost everyone associated with the company contributed in some way to its collapse. The concept of groupthink was identified and coined by Dr. Irving Janis, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley and at Yale University, to explain the faulty decisions that led to some of our nation's biggest tragedies, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. Janis defines groupthink as "a mode of thinking where pressure for unanimity overwhelms the members' motivation to realistically appraise the alternative courses of action. Group pressure leads to carelessness and poor decisions. This eventually results in irrational thinking and action." In the case of the Challenger space shuttle, for example, NASA engineers knew about the dangers of conducting a launch in 36-degree weather but chose to minimize them. The pressures from NASA's top brass not to further delay the historic mission were just too great.

Enron was fertile ground for groupthink to take hold. The company's macho ethos was to feed Wall Street's insatiable appetite for spectacular earnings at all costs. This led to the creation of "killer apps," "new paradigms" and a plethora of esoteric financial instruments that few people even understood. But given Wall Street's unmitigated support for (and vested interest in) the arcane products, it hardly mattered. The regulators nodded. Investors cheered. And the media trumpeted the innovations.

Lay and his management team eventually came to see themselves as true masters of their universe, replete with the inevitable illusion of invulnerability. The company proudly fostered a Darwinian atmosphere, in which employees falling into the lower percentiles of performance were summarily dismissed. In Enron's heyday, it was sheer folly for an employee to question Enron's innovative management practices, and the few that did either voluntarily resigned or were fired. Enron's accountants and lawyers no doubt knew that if they didn't go along and bless the company's activities, management could easily find some other high-priced firms that would. Enron was a cult, and there were no shortage of takers lining up for the company's sucrative Kool-Aid, oblivious that the sweet drink would have a very bitter aftertaste.

Groupthink is an enclosed system of thought, a folie, where those engaged cross the boundary into unreality. Clearly, it leads to defective decision-making, resulting in a low probability of successful outcome. In the end, at Enron, there was a massive failure to examine and appreciate the risks taken, along with a failure of contingency planning. The results speak for themselves. In the wake of Enron, responsible boards of directors should be aggressively investigating whether groupthink is permeating the companies they oversee. A healthy organization fosters a culture whereby employees are both empowered and expected to debate and challenge each other and consider alternative courses of action. A mechanism must be in place where employees can report any perceived irregularities without fear of retribution. It is incumbent on directors to ensure that the information on which they base decisions comes from sources other than the CEO and advisors or consultants that are beholden to the executive. It would be wise to occasionally bring in outside parties to conduct a "reality check."

At the end of the day, Lay was an inspired -- though highly flawed leader -- working in a company that lost its way. The policies and actions that caused Enron's downfall were years in the making. The "horse was out of the barn" and no one, including Lay, could change the adverse course of events once their world began to unravel. It appears that legions of normally thoughtful people crossed the boundary into unreality; they all "drank the Kool-Aid," reinforcing one another's view of reality and entered into a world of their own design and creation. It's likely that the growing pressures, as problems arose, drove Lay and his senior managers further beyond the boundary of accountability, and then deluded themselves further into believing that they could get away with their machinations and schemes.

Unfortunately, we all are victims of their delusion. It will be up to the courts to decide an appropriate punishment for their misguided ways.
 

medialens: DANGEROUS MINDS By: David Edwards

"Our complex global economy is built upon millions of small, private acts of psychological surrender, the willingness of people to acquiesce in playing their assigned parts as cogs in the great social machine that encompasses all other machines. They must shape themselves to the prefabricated identities that make efficient coordination possible... that capacity for self-enslavement must be broken.” (Theodore Roszak - The Voice Of The Earth)

Heart Murmurs

Few tasks are more challenging than that of attending to our subtle, internal responses to the world against the deafening roar of what is deemed ‘obviously true‘. Writing in the 1930s, the anarchist Rudolf Rocker made the point that the state is not a disinterested spectator on the issue of freedom of thought. In his classic work, Culture And Nationalism, Rocker wrote:

"The state welcomes only those forms of cultural activity which help it to maintain its power. It persecutes with implacable hatred any activity which oversteps the limits set by it and calls its existence into question. It is, therefore, as senseless as it is mendacious to speak of a ‘state culture‘; for it is precisely the state which lives in constant warfare with all higher forms of intellectual culture and always tries to avoid the creative will of culture." (Rocker, Culture and Nationalism, Michael E. Coughlan, 1978, p.85)

The stakes, Rocker noted, are high:

"If the state does not succeed in guiding the cultural forces within its sphere of power into courses favourable to its ends, and thus inhibit the growth of higher forms, these very higher forms will sooner or later destroy the political frame which they rightly regard as a hindrance." (Rocker, p.83)

If this strikes us as implausible (as it should), it is for a very good reason. It seems incredible to us that individuals working for the state - in government, education, local government - could be eagerly working to “reduce all human activity to a single pattern”. Are they not human beings like us? Do they not seek freedom of thought, independence of mind, for their own children?

It is a very reasonable argument and applies equally to the media. Dissident analysts claim, and in fact demonstrate, that truth is filtered, depleted to a dramatic degree by the corporate media. But surely the men and women of the press - again, human beings like us - are not eagerly striving to oppress humanity.

The answer is found in the way the performance of an organisation is shaped by its primary, bottom line goals. As I have discussed elsewhere, the process is similar to the mechanisms underlying crystal formation. The near-perfect, symmetrical shapes of snowflakes and other crystalline structures are no accident but flow from the founding conditions around which the crystals form.

[Jan 31, 2005] Groupthink and You - Mises Institute by Karen De Coster and Brad Edmonds

[Posted August 29, 2001]

You see it in daycare centers, and you see it in the public schools, from kindergarten to high school. Group projects abound, shoving together individuals who have no formal bonds, yet are banded together for the purpose of collective decision-making.

Universities, both public and private, are not immune to this affliction. In fact, if you attend a business college today, you’ll think it’s the newest rage, but it’s been the rule for decades.

Most university programs may not use group projects, but undergraduate and graduate programs in business are full of them. It is our contention that group projects are criminal in themselves and should be abolished on moral grounds, in that they function as collectivist indoctrination.  Like government schools, group projects homogenize thought and neuter high achievers.

Individuality is forced out of our kids at an early age. After all, group projects are often the standard for young children in childcare situations, where the young ones are often taught that individuals don't do things or go places, groups do. By college age, the collective cast of mind has only gotten more oppressive. Groupthink is a process of gradualism that seeks to gently merge the followers into a pack with leaders, the hope being that the leaders will pull up those who typically reside on the low end of the motivation and achievement scale.

For example, a professor assigns an innocuous academic exercise, such as a term paper, communications presentation, or marketing proposal. It is turned into a group project by fiat—the professor segments the class into groups. More often than not, these groups are not even voluntary. When the students turn in their papers, the professor usually assigns the same grade to everyone in the group.

Another common stratagem in this setting is to have group members grade one another and develop useful constructive criticism for fellow teammates. However, this commonly dovetails into grades by mutual agreement. If one member doesn't go along with this forced "agreement" by granting the agreed-upon concessions, he is usually excoriated by his fellow groupthinkers for doing so. This is a pact where honest evaluations take a back seat to easy A's and phony feel-goodism.

Shirking is the most immediate danger within group projects. Usually, the group members with some semblance of a work ethic labor hard and often to take up the slack from the free riders. There are other dangers as well.  In a case experienced by one of us, for example, a group member simply cut and pasted text from the Web instead of writing up his share of the research. Thus, the final version of the paper given to the professor was 20 percent pure plagiarism, unbeknownst to the rest of the group until it was too late. The slacker got a grade of 98 for the project, as did the people who actually worked.

In other cases, the shirking of duties simply cannot be overcome. High achievers are forced to relax their standards and accept being reduced to the lowest common denominator in the group. This can have a dreadful effect on work ethic and attitudes through the following insidious lessons instilled by group projects:

Lesson 1:  You will learn cooperation, not competition.

Lesson 2:  The achiever will be taxed: The reward of his efforts will go to others, so the low achiever who exerts little effort and contributes almost nothing will be taken care of by the professor (serving as the government).

Lesson 3:  Individualism will not be allowed. The individual with the best ideas will do what the group decides. If you have an original or daring thought, forget it. The group will write up a bland sack of platitudes that represents the thinking of its lowest common denominator.

Lesson 4:  Conservatism and caution are the name of the game. Whereas high achievers constantly strive to better themselves and have the room to operate in a more daring realm, the low achievers want things quickly and easily as they conform to less strict standards for excellence. The result is likely to be one of mediocrity.

Lesson 5:  Get used to the emotional feel of a collectivist, totalitarian state. If you are an individualist with a work ethic and a drive to excel, you will be pounded down until you adopt the debilitating, depressing learned helplessness that socialism produces. If you are a slacker, however, a free rider with no qualms about living on the purloined toil of honest people, you can feel relieved, satisfied, secure; if you are a thoroughgoing scumbag, you can even feel pride in any good grade given you on the backs of your teammates.

Business programs, in forcing group settings upon (previously) ambitious students, are responding to the demands of the business community. This can be dangerous.

First, the business community isn’t always the only entity to ask for the secrets of success. Successful businessmen such as Ted Turner and Warren Buffett have proven they don’t understand well what makes success possible. They know how to make money in ignorance of the economic principles that make it possible. This is due in part to the fact that most tycoons have navigated an ocean of government regulations in making their fortunes, and they mistakenly conclude that the government therefore had something to do with their success.

Second, and more ominous, business schools are usually the only programs on campus employing any right-wing (if mildly so) professors. Having the only campus department that makes extensive, mandatory use of group projects, business programs subject and desensitize their hapless students to the most realistically socialist experience available at most universities. Administrators are probably comfortable in the knowledge that the group project experience more than compensates for professors who occasionally dare to admit publicly that market solutions are better than government dictates. And students aren’t the only ones ruined: after enough years of being commissars, professors may slowly convert to the leftist mentality as well.

In truth, groupthink has become a chronic problem in universities; it is a consensus-seeking process that does not allow for the preservation of individuality. It stifles creativity for the purpose of compromise and agreement. The university—through its group-project mentality—has become a test lab for socialization skills. The fostering of such rigid cooperation and coerced integration can be had only at the expense of lesser accomplishment.

Ayn Rand had it right when she said that any collectivist system is necessarily self-defeating no matter what its specific policies or leaders. After all, if Johnny is in your group and he can't read or write very well, you'll be getting Johnny's grades.

Chickenhawk Groupthink by by Jim Lobe Published on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 by the Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON - In a 1972 book, 'Victims of Groupthink: A Psychology Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes', Irving Janis identified the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as particularly compelling examples of how very smart people can collectively make very stupid decisions.

In studying the Bay of Pigs, for example, Janis noted that the group around President John Kennedy made a series of assumptions -- that Cubans would welcome the invasion and rise up against Fidel Castro and that the U.S. could credibly deny involvement in the invasion, if necessary -- that were fundamentally deluded.

As in Iraq, many of those assumptions were based largely on the accounts of exiles and defectors, but the group dynamics involved in decision-making also played a key role in rallying the administration of the ''best and the brightest'' behind an adventure that proved disastrous, according to Janis.

A great deal more is known about group dynamics within the Bush administration foreign-policy apparatus today -- as a result of leaks, memoirs, and books, such as Bob Woodward's 'Plan of Attack' and Jim Mann's 'Rise of the Vulcans' -- than was known at the time about the Kennedy administration.

And what is known suggests the existence of two major groups -- an ''in-group'' of hawks whose captain is Vice President Dick Cheney and which has had a decisive influence on Bush himself, and an ''out-group'' of ''realists'' headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage.

While the out-group, which ironically boasts men, including Powell, Armitage, ret. Gens. Anthony Zinni and Brent Scowcroft, with real war experience, the in-group is dominated by individuals, particularly Cheney and virtually the entire civilian leadership of the Pentagon, who have none at all.

Hence the moniker ''chickenhawks'', defined as individuals who favor military solutions to political problems but who themselves avoided military service during wartime. Cheney, who received five different deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam War, famously told an interviewer once that he ”had other priorities'' in the 1960s than military service.

What also makes the in-group so remarkable is its very small size, the long history it has shared together, and its close personal relationships.

Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney, for example, worked together under Richard Nixon and have been the very best of friends ever since. Their neo-conservative aides and advisers, such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former Defense Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard Perle, and DPB member Kenneth Adelman, likewise have been close for more than three decades and have personally mentored other top aides and advisers, such as Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, Defense Undersecretaries for Policy and Intelligence, Douglas Feith and Stephen Cambone, respectively, and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, to name just a few.

The sense of kinship that unites the group is illustrated in part by a dinner hosted by Cheney shortly after U.S. troops took Baghdad 13 months ago. The guests included Wolfowitz, Libby, and Adelman; the atmosphere, warm and celebratory as they recounted their defeat of the ''realists. ''Someone mentioned Powell, and there were chuckles around the table'', Woodward noted. And then ''They turned to Rumsfeld, the missing brother'', and told affectionate stories about their past associations with the crusty Pentagon chief.

When Adelman said he had been surprised U.S. troops had not yet found weapons of mass destruction (WMD), he was assured by Wolfowitz, ''We'll find them'', and by Cheney, ''It's only been four days really. We'll find them''.

Students of Groupthink list a number of symptoms of the phenomenon that can lead the group into disaster, among them:

• believing in the group's inherent morality;
• sharing stereotypes, particularly of the enemy;
• examining few alternative or contingency plans for any action;
• being highly selective in gathering information;
• avoiding expert opinion;
• protecting the group from negative views or information that would contradict their basic assumptions;
• and - having an illusion of invulnerability.

From what is now known about planning for Iraq, each of these factors obviously played a role, and they continue to inform U.S. policy not only against perceived enemies, but even against out-groups in the administration or in Congress. And, because the in-group was so small, many of these characteristics were unusually pronounced.

The notion that the chickenhawks were morally superior, not just to Saddam Hussein or the ''terrorists'' or ''Ba'athist dead-enders'' whom they've been fighting since the war ended, extended even to the ''realists'', who were denounced in internal battles as ''appeasers'' or worse. As Cheney was recently quoted as declaring with regard to State Department proposals to engage North Korea, ''We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it''.

Middle East experts at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were likewise scorned and excluded from both planning and the immediate aftermath of the invasion, while the creation in Feith's office of ad hoc intelligence analysis groups that ''stovepiped'' evidence of Iraqi WMD and ties to Al Qaeda was a classic illustration of selective intelligence gathering that would confirm pre-existing stereotypes.

Similarly, the total failure to prepare contingency plans to deal with looting, or even with the emergence of an insurgency against the occupation, displayed a confidence that turned out to be completely unwarranted. Likewise, former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's prediction that more than 200,000 troops would be needed to occupy Iraq in order to ensure security had not only to be rejected in order to protect the group from negative views; it had to be publicly ridiculed by Wolfowitz as ''wildly off the mark''.

In his latest expose on the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, New Yorker correspondent Seymour Hersh noted that Rumsfeld's penchant for ''secrecy and wishful thinking'' -- characteristics that also apply to Groupthink -- resulted in the Pentagon's failure to do anything about it or about the many other problems they have encountered.

And whenever Powell or Armitage tried to bring to the attention of the highest levels in the administration the growing concern about prisoner abuse, according to a source recently cited in the ''Nelson Report'', an insider Washington newsletter, they were forced to endure from the chickenhawks what an eyewitness source characterized as ''around-the-table, coarse, vulgar, frat-boy bully remarks about what these tough guys would do if THEY ever got their hands on prisoners...''

Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source Groupthink and the slide into fascism By Ritt Goldstein

On July 8, Asia Times Online broke the story (Patriotic pride and fear) of how noted Canadian psychologist Daniel Burston (two PhDs from Canada's York University and a widely acclaimed author) perceived a broad retreat into "social fantasy systems" and "socially patterned defects" as explaining much of the Bush administration's decision-making. He observed for ATol that such flaws bring those involved to "act in ways which - from an outsiders perspective - look insane". On the following day, July 9, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the United States' justification for the Iraq war, claiming an erroneous "groupthink" was to blame, and coincidentally highlighting the validity of Burston's observations.

Groupthink is defined 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". In other words, retreat into a "social fantasy system" allowed "socially patterned defects" to flourish within the group's members.

The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, stated that "it is clear this groupthink also extended to our allies and to the United Nations and several other nations as well". The July 8 ATol piece provides parallel commentary on this, noting that "in most cases, destructive impulses are rationalized, ensuring 'at least a few other people or a whole social group share in the rationalization and thus make it appear to be realistic to the members of such a group'. In effect, an emotional-support network is formed, providing its individual members with a mistaken sense of legitimacy."

In an October 2003 article titled "Cheney's hawks hijacking policy", this journalist revealed that former senior Pentagon staffer Lieutenant-Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (retired) described "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress", adding that "in order to take that first step - Iraq - lies had to be told to Congress to bring them on board". Planned and deliberate lies were told in order to manipulate Congress and the American people purposefully, effectively, and criminally, undercutting the very foundations of US democracy.

Not to be misunderstood, the "groupthink" in question is far from innocent error, and administration critics charge that the Senate Intelligence Committee reports' attempts to couch blame as mere "fuzzy thinking" highlight the propaganda efforts ongoing, the groupthink still dominating policy. But this psychological phenomenon perhaps best translates to a broad failure to appreciate the reality of circumstance, the nature or implications of actions, the very difference between right and wrong. And while a hard core of believers/leaders is typically central to such a phenomenon's workings, their influence radiates broadly outward through their immediate group(s) and those they interface with.

Coincident with the Intelligence Committee's report, Senator Roberts defended the Iraq war as justified for humanitarian reasons, though numerous human-rights organizations have condemned the US record in Iraq, the war crimes that US forces are alleged to have committed there.

Notably, before the Iraq war began, numerous figures had publicly challenged the Bush administration's prewar assertions. On September 9, 2002, CNN had headlined "Former weapons inspector: Iraq not a threat", noting, "Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says US military action against Iraq would be a mistake." And oil-war questions were abundant.

But highlighting the dynamics of what was ongoing, Kwiatkowski had charged that "there was an extra-governmental network operating outside normal structures and practices, 'a network of political appointees in key positions who felt they needed to take some action, to make things happen in a foreign affairs, national security way'. She said Pentagon personnel and the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] were pressured to favorably alter assessments and reports", a hard core of misguided individuals within the administration of US President George W Bush enjoying "a mistaken sense of legitimacy" in their efforts, spreading this false and wrongful mindset to many of those they encountered.

While groupthink is undoubtedly to blame for the Iraq war's false premises, the full implications of the "groupthink" that occurred, as well as that which is ongoing, appear to have yet to emerge.

Highlighting a disturbing reality, Burston had noted parallels between the social psychology of the present and that of the 1930s.

In a further parallel to the 1930s, on July 9 the conservative Chicago Sun-Times (one of the United States' top 50 papers) ran a commentary on US fascism, stating that "fascism' is not an exaggeration", and adding that anyone who doubted this "doesn't know what fascism is". It went on to note: "Some liberals suggest that the administration is capable of canceling the November election on the grounds of national security if it looks like Bush would lose. I doubt this." But on July 11 and 12, news of the administration seeking legal authority for just such an election postponement - a delay in the November election for national-security reasons - widely broke.

Burston had said he believed the US could be poised "on the verge" of a corporate fascism, and eminent political scientist Dr Michael Parenti (Yale PhD in political science and author of 18 books) spoke similarly. And indeed, the slippery slope of "groupthink" in effect provided the basis for the psycho-dynamics dominating the rise of 1930s fascism, its proponents of a "new order" perceiving endless lies, propaganda, repression, mass violence, and even mass murder as legitimate means to what they perceived as their "noble" ends, versus tragic and criminal delusions. Students of history will note the "groupthink" evidenced in Germany's 1930s mass rallies at Nuremberg, though the realization of what was then occurring didn't fully emerge until the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals of the 1940s.

As discussed in ATol's July 8 article, the process of groupthink then in effect spawns "'socially patterned defects' that enabled large groups of people to adjust themselves comfortably to a system that, humanly speaking, is 'fundamentally at odds with our basic existential and human needs'". Burston then noted that this resulted in "deficiencies, or traits, or attitudes which don't generate internal conflict when, in fact, they should". He then cited "Nazi mass-murderer Adolf Eichmann as representing the 'prototypical example' of what the phenomenon of 'socially patterned defects' can engender", emphasizing that "with one very questionable exception, Eichmann tested normal on all psychological tests that were administered to him by mental-health experts before his trial".

In discussing questions of contemporary fascism with Asia Times Online, Dr Parenti said, "When fascism came to power [in the 1930s], what it did was cut back on the public sector, privatize a lot of state-owned industries, abolish inheritance taxes and other taxes on the rich, abolish corporate taxes, cut wages, destroy labor unions, and destroy or undermine opposition parties." He described fascism as simply a tool employed by ruthless power-elites in achieving their ambitions. He added: "There's a concern that we're [the US] heading towards fascism, or that we're replicating fascism today."

Parenti saw citizenry being mobilized by "waving the flag in their face, and wrapping the flag around the leader, and telling them that they're being threatened by one menace or another, from abroad or within." In a parallel, Bush critics have long charged his administration with precisely this. Parenti cited Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goering's similar explanation of popular motivation, which emerged from the period of the Nuremberg Tribunal.

In a purely American vein, Parenti recalled that former US secretary of state John Foster Dulles had said: "To get the people to support large military budgets and intervention, you've got to conjure up a threat, and you've got to make this scenario of 'one nation is a hero, another nation is a villain'. It's got to be hero versus villain." And the Senate Intelligence report does aid parallels between Dulles' vision and the Iraq war.

"You fool the people into thinking that you're protecting them, you're watching out for their interests, and you get them to vote against their own interests," Parenti charged.

Comparing today's United States to the 1930s, Parenti addressed the recent US Supreme Court decision allowing Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush administration to refuse public access to the documents of Cheney's so-called Energy Task Force. Indications exist that oil-war questions were discussed within this group, a September 2003 Inter Press Service article, "Oil war questions surround Cheney energy group", addressing such concerns. Parenti strongly emphasized the implications of the court decision.

"The Supreme Court decision does, in effect, lift the executive power to an unaccountable and undemocratic status. So you really have no way for Congress or the public to hold these people accountable for what they're doing. You're, in effect, setting up a cloak of impunity on their actions under the guise of 'executive privilege' ... so what we're getting here is many of the same things that the fascists accomplish, while maintaining a democratic veneer," Parenti claimed, adding: "You're getting enormous tax cuts for the rich - there are now corporations that are making billions of dollars in profits that are paying no taxes - you're getting the rollback of trade unions through outsourcing, closing down unionized factories ... you're getting depressed wages, wages aren't keeping up with inflation; increasing spending in the military sector - this is just exactly what the fascists did. So you're accomplishing a lot of these same things without having to 'go all the way' and destroy every little shred of democracy." Parenti then proceeded to draw a firm parallel with the Italian 1930s "corporative state".

"In practice, the big decisions regarding the political economy were made by the industrialists," Parenti noted, but prefacing that by saying all groups within the Italian corporative state were "supposed to" share the decision power. He likened the large Italian industrialists' group to America's National Association of Manufacturers, saying, "in effect, those were the guys who were really thoroughly incorporated, and most of the ordinary people were left out in the cold, as subjects of the state".

After a moment, Parenti quickly observed that "the people always get a share of this action, though. The American people get a share of it, the Italians did ... their share is the taxes and the blood. They pay the taxes, and they send their sons off."

Notably, with the Nuremberg Tribunals, society long ago determined that those who may commit criminal acts while influenced by groupthink are nevertheless criminals, and should be judged accordingly.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

Meatball Wiki GroupThink

The phenomenon that group discipline and dynamics leads to hindrances for new ideas in groups.

"Yes! We're all individuals!" "I'm not"

Most broadly, groupthink occurs when a group makes suboptimal decisions because of process problems or communication problems due to SocialNormalization. Most or all of the group members may, privately, realize that the decisions is a poor one but feel powerless to change it for fear of offending other group members, injuring SacredCows, or detonating LandMines.

If everyone takes for granted the group's perceived opinion, the group will choke itself to death. This can give rise to the Wiki:AbileneParadox. Usually when this happens, the group is considered to have an identity all unto itself. Sometimes it gets fuzzy whether or not the individuals have identities or are even conscious. Sometimes it's fuzzy whether or not there's even such a thing as an individual.

GroupThink is absolutely not collective intelligence. In CollectiveIntelligence, decisions are taken or opinions are set up by a group of people in such a way you can't distinguish an individual as the "author" of the decision or the opinion. To be achieved, it requires to get over groupthink. In the situation where groupthinking occur, each individual tend to conform his opinion to the opinion reached by the group. That often lead to bad choices, as no individual entirely agrees with what he finds himself ultimately supporting; also, it reduce creativity, as individuals tend to forget they have other choices than the one displayed by the group.

Contrast BarnRaising, where TheIndividual grants TheCollective influence over his actions, but not his thoughts. This is much more healthy.

Further reading: Groupthink : Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, by Irving L. Janis

GroupThink and the AntiAuthoritarian

You will often see online people complain about GroupThink and how it must be combatted. This is justified by people's general, cynical understanding of groupthink. To quote an anonymous author on this page:

Groupthink generally refers to the collective stupidity, or lowest common denominator of individual intelligence. It is mob rule. To err is human, to really f*ck things up requires a committee.

However, certain