Groupthink Model Research Articles

Analyzing the Phenomenon of Policy Support for the Education and Employment of Persons with Disabilities Based on the Groupthink Model--Take Hunan Province as an Example

In recent years, the Hunan Provincial government has adopted a series of support measures in the education and employment policies for the disabled. The study focused on the education and employment policy for the disabled in Hunan Province, and used the groupthink model. The study found that there are blind spots in the process of policy formulation and implementation, and the lack of attention to the overall needs of persons with disabilities, resulting in incomplete content and poor implementation. The internal differences and interaction of the disabled affect the support effect, the policy content is limited, the implementation of resistance, and the one-sided evaluation. Policy makers need to pay attention to diverse voices and practical needs, and avoid fixed thinking and prejudice. This study helps to reveal the negative impact of groupthinks on the formulation of education and employment policies for the disabled, provide warnings and reference for policy makers, promote policy innovation and improvement, and promote the inclusive and diverse development of social culture.

Groupthink, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Disaster

The article has two primary objectives: first, to elucidate why qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) stands out as a superior method for the study of groupthink, and second, to demonstrate the extent to which the Chinese leadership in 1989 fell prey to groupthink, resulting in ineffective decision-making that caused nationwide upheaval. While evidencing the causal connection between groupthink and the leadership group’s ineffective crisis management, the study nevertheless confirms the growing consensus that the groupthink model is over-specified. Accordingly, the article offers a revised model as a way to improve the groupthink theoretic constructs.

Significance & Adaptation of Janis’s Groupthink Model among Students: A Case of Research Groups in BUITEMS

The Janis’s Groupthink model has its foundation on the concept that when group decision is made under some antecedent conditions, they are less successful. Furthermore, there are earlier researches which tested the significance of overall model to know whether it can be adapted in each type of group decision making or not, however, this study finds sparse studies in student groups. As research students at BUITEMS have to work in groups and make decision regarding their research work during their scholarship. Which ultimately results in the success or failure and influence their academic career. Therefore, the main purpose of our study is to explore the relevance and adaptation of Janis Groupthink Model among students. For this purpose, this study used the group discussion method to check the fitness of Janis’s Groupthink model in education context. Data were collected from the 4 research groups of MS Scholars of the 2013 batch studying in BUITEMS by using Glaser Groupthink Index. The results revealed less support for the Janis’s Model as the Conditions in each Stage were not met.

Models of Groupthink: A Search for a Proper Perspective of the Groupthink Causal Chain

The attractiveness of any groupthink model lies in the prediction of its intuitively appealing causal chain that antecedent conditions would generally produce symptoms of groupthink which would lead to defective decision making and which in turn would result in unfavorable outcomes. While the results of the two quantitative studies of the same 19 cold war case histories could be interpreted to lend support to a part of the causal chain that symptoms of groupthink would result in information processing errors which in turn in would lead to unfavorable outcomes, they failed to sustain the relevance of both the primary and secondary antecedent conditions hypothesized by Janis (1972, 1982) to cause groupthink symptoms. This paper attempts to explore the groupthink models of Whyte (1998) and Baron (2005) to identify those antecedents that may probably be more appropriate and relevant to fit into the postulated groupthink causal chain.

Case Study to Investigate the Policy Making Process of the Great Advance Movement in China: in Terms of Janis’ Groupthink Model

Case Study to Investigate the Policy Making Process of the Great Advance Movement in China: in Terms of Janis’ Groupthink Model

Application of Groupthink to Generation Y Decision Making Processes within a Professional Services Context in New Zealand

Many organisations are adjusting to the presence of Generation Y and their values. Industries that have largeannual intakes of employees, like Professional Services, find this adjustment particularly challenging. GenerationY challenges workplace rules and norms, this article seeks to understand the decision making process used byGeneration Y to form expectations and perceptions in relation to workplace rules and norms. Understanding thisprocess will help organisations to better educate and influence Generation Y regarding their career choices andconduct within the workplace. This article will focus on applying the Groupthink theory to explain the decisionmaking process used by Generation Y to form expectations and perceptions in relation to workplace rules andnorms. In the conclusion an adjusted Groupthink Model that applies specifically to this context is presented.Lessons for organisations that may want to have greater influence over the decision making process used byGeneration Y are also presented.

Anxiety and defective decision making: an elaboration of the groupthink model

PurposeThis article sets out to revisit Janis' groupthink theory that holds that, when anxiety is present for a decision‐making group, premature concurrence seeking emerges unless other mitigating factors are present. Research from selected segments of the decision making literature are introduced to explain the underlying causes of concurrence seeking. The result is an elaboration of the theory based on a synthesis of older and newer ideas, supporting Janis' core thesis that anxiety triggers this phenomenon.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is conceptual and draws on literature addressing the impact of emotions on decision‐making behaviour; human responses to anxiety, including psychological defence modes and mechanisms; and groupthink research and writing.FindingsThe theoretical elaboration of the groupthink model centres on the idea that anxiety associated with a decision task triggers implicit motivations of anxiety reduction in groups, which are enacted through the activation of common defence mechanisms, thus resulting in the symptoms of defective decision making. A table that recasts the symptoms of groupthink as common defence mechanisms is provided.Research limitations/implicationsSuggestions are made for broadening the conceptual base of the groupthink model, including consideration of the research on negative and positive emotions.Practical implicationsThe article distinguishes between poor decision making due to groupthink and other causes. Remedies for the emergence of groupthink include better approaches to recognising and surfacing anxiety and other negative emotions, so they can be managed constructively. Such remedies complement more conventional methods of improving group decision making.Originality/valueThe article focuses on the underlying causes of premature concurrence seeking, an aspect of the groupthink model that is not well understood. It builds on Janis' explanation of anxiety as the main cause, by elaborating the linkages between the presence of anxiety, the symptoms of groupthink and the signs of defective decision making. In this, the article draws on research into the effects of negative emotions on decision‐making behaviour and related theories. It synthesises several research streams to provide a more comprehensive explanation of concurrence seeking.

A comprehensive empirical investigation of the relationships among variables of the groupthink model

Although a quarter of a century has passed since Janis proposed his groupthink model in 1972, there is very little consensus among researchers on the validity of the model. This study conducted a comprehensive empirical investigation of Janis's model by including all 24 variables in the research. Data were collected from 64 four-person ad hoc groups; the group discussion sessions were videotaped and content-analysed afterwards. Statistical analyses revealed that Janis's predictions about the causal relationship among four groups of variables in the model are only partially correct; when the effects of individual independent variables on the dependent variables were tested, Janis's predictions were confirmed in only two out of 23 cases. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Developing Consensus about Groupthink after All These Years

The groupthink model is evaluated in the context of the papers of this special issue. The major focus is on the basis for its impact and its scientific status. The groupthink perspective is seen as consistent with some other contributions to the groups literature. Interesting parallels between the groupthink and the brainstorming literature are noted. It is concluded that many of the issues raised by the groupthink model are worthy of further examination in a broad-based study of group decision processes.

Recasting Janis's Groupthink Model: The Key Role of Collective Efficacy in Decision Fiascoes

This paper advances an explanation for decision fiascoes that reflects recent theoretical trends and was developed in response to a growing body of research that has failed to substantiate the groupthink model (Janis, 1982). In this new framework, the lack of vigilance and preference for risk that characterizes groups contaminated by groupthink are attributed in large part to perceptions of collective efficacy that unduly exceed capability. High collective efficacy may also contribute to the negative framing of decisions and to certain administrative and structural organizational faults. In the making of critical decisions, these factors induce a preference for risk and a powerful concurrence seeking tendency that, facilitated by group polarization, crystallize around a decision option that is likely to fail. Implications for research and some evidence in support of this approach to the groupthink phenomenon are also discussed.

Twenty-Five Years of Groupthink Theory and Research: Lessons from the Evaluation of a Theory

In this paper, we examine the historical development of the groupthink model and discuss recent responses to the body of empirical evidence amassed on the model. We conclude by articulating general lessons implied by the evolution of research on the groupthink model.

Organizational Tonypandy: Lessons from a Quarter Century of the Groupthink Phenomenon

We adopt the role of devil's advocate, arguing that the quarter-century experience with groupthink represents an unfortunate episode in the history of group problem solving research. In view of the facts that there has been remarkably little empirical support for the groupthink phenomenon, that the phenomenon rests on arguable assumptions, that published critiques of groupthink have generally been ignored by groupthink researchers, and that groupthink is presented as fact in journal articles and textbooks, we see continued advocacy of groupthink as a form of organizational Tonypandy, in which knowledgeable individuals fail to speak out against widely accepted but erroneous beliefs. We explore the nature and causes of this Tonypandy and encourage researchers to cast off the artificial determinism and constraints of the groupthink model and instead seek to inform the general group decision making literature.

Groupthink

Despite its widespread appeal, the groupthink model has come under severe attack recently. Taking the position that recent calls for major revisions to the original formulation are premature, this article examines four theoretical areas that have been problematic for scholars investigating the groupthink phenomenon. This examination allows for the presentation of both implications and research suggestions designed to refocus research efforts on the model as originally proposed by Janis.

Antecedents of Groupthink

This article reports results of a quantitative analysis of I. L. Janis's (1982) original specification of the groupthink model. The study builds on the earlier work on 19 cold war crises conducted by Herek, Janis, and Huth (1987), who found that information-processing errors in group decision making were directly related to unfavorable outcomes. The present research looks further back in Janis's casual story to investigate the factors that give rise to the information-processing errors. This data identify five key antecedent conditions: lack of tradition of impartial leadership, lack of tradition of methodical procedures, overestimation of the group, closed-mindedness, and pressures toward uniformity. Several factors that Janis anticipated as important antecedent conditions do not correlate with faulty decision making, such as group homogeneity and a recent failure. The results indicate that faulty decision making has its roots in leadership style, traditional group procedures, and patterns of group behavior.

SOCIAL IDENTITY MAINTENANCE PRESCRIPTIONS FOR PREVENTING GROUPTHINK: REDUCING IDENTITY PROTECTION AND ENHANCING INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT

Although the concept of groupthink (the extreme concurrence‐seeking tendency displayed by decision making groups), has been an influential one, empirical research has provided equivocal support for the groupthink model. In this paper, we review previous case and laboratory work on groupthink and identify empirical and theoretical inconsistencies. We then describe a model of groupthink as social identity maintenance (SIM) that is capable of reconciling these inconsistencies and summarize laboratory experiments that specifically test the SIM hypothesis. We use the model to suggest possible pitfalls of previous proposals for preventing groupthink when SIM pressures are operative. Finally, we suggest intervention strategies capable of mitigating groupthink due to SIM that have two objectives: (a) the reduction of pressures toward identity protection and (b) the stimulation of intellectual conflict.

Cohesiveness without Groupthink

This study attempts to examine the role of task-oriented cohesion and its relationship to social-emotional cohesion within the groupthink framework. Specifically, it was predicted that the symptoms of groupthink would be least likely to appear when task-oriented cohesion exceeded social-emotional cohesion. In addition, it was predicted that the symptoms of group-think would be most likely to appear when social-emotional cohesion was high. The design manipulated type of cohesion (social-emotional cohesion: high vs. low; task-oriented cohesion: high vs. low) with the symptoms of groupthink serving as dependent variables. Group members were asked to indicate the degree to which they experienced the symptoms of groupthink after completing a decision-making task. Results indicated that the combination of low social-emotional and high task-oriented cohesion resulted in the lowest perception of groupthink symptoms. In addition, groups high in social-emotional cohesion were more likely to experience the symptoms of groupthink than were groups high in task-oriented cohesion. Implications of these findings for cohesion and the groupthink model are discussed.

Assessing political group dynamics: A test of the groupthink model.

This study used the Group Dynamics Q sort (GDQS) to explore the empirical underpinnings and theoretical logic of the groupthink model. Examination of 10 decision-making episodes revealed considerable historical support for Janis's (1982) classification of groups into groupthink and vigilant decision-making episodes. LISREL analysis, however, revealed less support for Janis's (1982) causal model of groupthink. Neither group cohesiveness nor situational stress emerged as independent predictors of symptoms of groupthink. Structural and procedural faults of the organization did, however, emerge as a potent predictor. Little support was found for Janis's (1982) suggestion that the ill-fated Mayaguez and Iran rescue decisions were the product of groupthink. The results illustrate the symbiotic relationship between social psychology and history. Historical case studies allow for testing theories of group dynamics; social-psychological concepts and research methods can inform interpretations of historical events.

Assessing political group dynamics: A test of the groupthink model.

Assessing political group dynamics: A test of the groupthink model.

A Review of research on Groupthink

AbstractDespite an extensive use of the groupthink model in various areas of social science, there are few empirical studies testing groupthink and many criticisms of it. In order to better understand the concept of groupthink, and to set a foundation for future research, this paper summarizes previous empirical studies on group‐think and indicates problems (e.g., limited inclusion of variables and an inappropriate usage of measurement modes) that exist throughout those studies. Recommendations for future research are then provided.

An Empirical Investigation of the Groupthink Phenomenon

This paper reports results of an empirical investigation of the groupthink theoreticalframework presented in Janis'second edition of Groupthink. Factor analysis was used to develop scales to measure the aspects of groupthink proposed by Janis (1982). Results supported some, but not all, of the symptoms and defects postulated by Janis. Next, a path analytic procedure was utilized to test the implied causal ordering of the Groupthink model (Janis, 1982, p. 244). This study provides limited support for the causal sequence specified in the model. However, the relationship between groupthink-induced decision defects and outcomes were not as strong as Janis suggests. These results prompt the authors to agree with Courtright (1978) that many intervening and/or moderating factors not included in the Janis framework influence decision outcomes.