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Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes

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Irving L. Janis culls together evidence regarding three fiascoes, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Pearl Harbor, and the United States' invasion into North Korea, and contrasts those with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Marshall Plan. The bottom line is that the first three incidents were examples of groupthink, the last two were able to avoid this problem.

Groupthink is the process described by Janis when a group follows a certain set of patterns that result in disastrous consequences. Clearly if the same group patterns were applied to the Cuban Missile Crises that were used in the Bay of Pigs, the world might well have been destroyed by nuclear war. The possible consequences for groups are enormous.

When a group, whether it is a business, church, school, little league, not for profit, or other organization, knows how to avoid groupthink, it can come to a much better decision for the group itself, as well as those the group represents. Janis provides the means to help groups accomplish this very important goal. This is material from which any group can benefit, if they chose to put it into practice.

I recommend this work very highly to anyone who works with groups of any kind.

When you fill a room with smart, capable people, why do decisions sometimes go so wrong? Janis has one hypothesis: They can become victims of "groupthink." Groupthink refers to (Page 9) ". . .deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures." Janis describes the dynamic thus (Page 5):

"In studies of social clubs and other small groups, conformity pressures have frequently been observed. Whenever a member says something that sounds out of line with the group's norms, the other members at first increase their communication with the deviant. . .But if they fail after repeated attempts, the amount of communication they direct toward the deviant decreases markedly. The members begin to exclude him. . . . [T]he more cohesive the group and the more relevant the issues to the goals of the group, the greater is the inclination of the members to reject a nonconformist." In short, groups will tend to reinforce their own views and reject the words of those who disagree. In this case, members of the group become "conformist to some conformity."

Janis uses several case studies of what he considers to be "groupthink"--The Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of the Korean War in 1950, the attack on Pearl Harbor while the "fortress slept," and escalation of the Viet Nam War. In each instance, according to Janis, top decision-makers walled themselves off from dissenting voices and tended to reinforce one another's preexisting positions. In counterpoint are two successes, where groupthink did not triumph--the Cuban Missile Crisis and the development of the Marshall Plan.

The thesis may be a bit simplistic, but it is abundantly clear from this book and from what we see around us that groupthink can be problematic. I suspect that one could argue that decisions such as the following, which appear to be one poor decision on top of another, may be examples of this phenomenon at work: Jimmy Carter's failed effort at a rescue mission to liberate the hostages in Iran; the plan to attack Iraq without any serious planning for what would happen afterwards; the dividing up of the Middle East into artificial countries after World War I. Readers can try to think of other examples, too--whether in politics, in their workplace, or in any other location where group decision-making takes place.

What to do? Some point out Franklin Roosevelt's style of getting input from many different advisors, this hearing an array of voices (although in the run up to Pearl Harbor, one doesn't find much of this in the President's Inner Circle). In the last chapter, Janis provides a number of suggestions as to how decision-making can be structured so as to reduce the odds of groupthink occurring (e.g., don't have the leader express preferences until all voices have been heard; have the leader encourage questions to be raised and then pay attention to those who dissent and taker their arguments seriously). These may not be earth shaking ideas, but they would, in Janis' view, at least reduce the odds of dire consequences coming from groupthink.

The first version of this book came out in the early 1970s, but it is still timely today.

This classic of social psychology is based on the idea that people in groups might think differently and by implication less well than they would have thought as individuals on the same issue at the same time. That is probably true for some groups at some times just as it is also probably true that some groups at some times might actually think better than any individual member of that group. In fact, most of the evidence cited in this book supports the idea that group thinking, like thinking in general, goes awry when there is a failure to evaluate all the available evidence for relevance and sufficiency in quality, quantity, and weight. When a group or an individual fails to evaluate the evidence, then the group or the individual reaches a decision not justified by the data and vice versa. Failure to perceive the reality, as demonstrated by evidence, has tremendous adverse consequences as is so well illustrated by Janis' detailed account of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Correct evaluation of the data, as demonstrated by evidence, has tremendous beneficial consequences as is so well illustrated by Janis' detailed account of the Cuban Misssile crisis. In fact, the fascinating parts of this book relate to the detailed analysis of group decisions in history, a reason enough to buy and read this fine work despite the price. Incidentally, Gilbert Murray has sought to explain the group cohesiveness thing by another myth which he calls "the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious animal to find its herd or its herd-leader." But however we attempt to account for the craving for unity in some groups, it seems to be a deeply rooted human irrational demand. Like James' "sentiment of rationality," it is a sentiment and a need long before it is justified by any discoverable facts. Our duty is to be on guard against it. Groupthink, this classic book, should boost our defenses.

To put it simply, this book is about what can happen when people get together in insular groups to make decisions: the "groupthink" phenomenon can take hold of the members of the group, making the group and its consensus take control over the people in it. In a way, it's kind of like the riot mentality: the group becomes a mind of its own.

When making important decisions, the worst thing you can do is create an insular group who only listen to and reinforce each other. To make intelligent decisions, one needs to seriously consult with people outside the core "groupthink" group, and otherwise touch base with the reality outside the group.

I have been a victim of groupthink. I was on a group design project, 10 years after reading this book, when I suddenly realized groupthink had taken control. We worked well together and the project started off wonderfully. We started agreeing on everything and suddenly anything any group member had to say was great. It went overboard: talking about anything, especially how great our group project was going, became more important than actually making progress, or listening to critiques. As a result, we were cut off from reality, and fed each other on our desire to believe that what we were doing was great.

I am a very intelligent person, and I fell victim to it, until I recognized it, which was ONLY because I had read this book 10 years before. I think it is something everyone should be aware of, in order to prevent, especially in this let's-hold-another-meeting-about-it culture in large American corporations.

Today, I think this book, like the Bay of Pigs incident the book goes into details about, explains why Geroge W and his "group" attacked Iraq. There was NO evidence to support it... BUT, by purposely excluding those with different perspectives, like Colin Powell, Bush and crew generated an extremeely insular groupthink environment, convincing and reinforcing each other's assesment of the situation, without contact with reality. And thus we pissed off everyone else in the world, except those officials corrupt enough to blindly follow American cash, for a time at least.

Even if you disagree with my last paragraph for political reasons, you should read the book to be able to discuss it.

Janis defines groupthink as the "deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment" in the interest of group solidarity.
Pressure to conform. Formal and informal attempts are made to discourage discussion of divergent views. Groups exert great pressure on individual members to conform.
Opposing ideas dismissed. Any individual or outside group that criticizes or opposes a decision receives little or no attention from the group. Group members tend to show strong favoritism toward their own ideas in the manner by which information is processed and evaluated, thus guaranteeing that their ideas will win out.

Janis provides wonderful insights into human business and organisational behaviour that have been overlooked for too long in the technological, one-size-fits-all and 'formulamatic' age.

With some great case analyzes this book make the point on why some great people working together can fail. The only problem is that the way the cases as described and analyzed are very repetitive, after the first four chapters you already got all the points and the book start to walk in circles.

nice read and even more relevant with our current status and love fest between the media and big govt, amazing that this is still in print yet our "leaders" continue the lockstep march to follow status quo and ignore any relevant outsider info
especially relevant with the fact that fbi had info on airplanes flying into towers and did nothing at top end

The main contention of this book is that major diplomatic and political decisions are often wrongly made because of ' groupthink' i.e. the tendency of a small group of people to re-enforce and agree with each other in making a decision, rather than really sift through all the evidence- investigate the implications to the end, contradict honestly the decision urged by the group leader. 'Groupthink' is taken to be responsible for failed American decision-making before Pearl Harbor, in the Korean War, and in Watergate. The main instance however which is analyzed in this book is the Cuban Bay of Pigs decision of the Kennedy Administration.
According to Shmuel Rosner in his analysis of the faults made by Israel in its second Lebanon War in the Israeli newspaper 'Haaretz' Janis indicates six major faults in regard to the 'Bay of Pigs' decision." " the illusion of invulnerability; "mind-guarding," which happens when group consensus is preserved by suppressing dissidents; suppression of doubts; illusion of unanimity; group passivity encouraged by the leader; and acceptance of the CIA as the unquestioned leader."
Despite the impressive critique offered by Janis it is possible to wonder whether even the most careful investigation , the most critical and cooperative decision- making process can avoid the contradictions presented to human hopes by an open future and an unpredictable reality.

I first used this book when I taught a course on group decision making in 1990. It is as relevant now as ever and I recommend it to my students studying national and homeland security policy and civil liberty. It ought to be required reading for the President, his Cabinet and all senior White House staff.