Groupthink Research Paper

Groupthink refers to the kind of thinking in which members of a group seek concurrence because of cohesiveness among group members whose critical thinking becomes severely impaired as a result of it. They do not seek alternatives to courses of action when presented with policy making decisions, and instead, they are more likely to engage in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups. This phenomenon is very strong and common place, but can be very dangerous because group members are often driven by the desire to have social conformity because of social pressures exerted by members of the group. In order to maintain the cohesiveness of the group, objections raised by a group members are more often than not subjected to internal pressure in the name of achieving group consensus. In most instances, maintaining group loyalty is the catalyst that leads to group members supporting policies that might detrimental to the nation. Moreover, groupthink undoubtedly leads to a steady decrease in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgements brought to bear by group pressure. Individuals entrusted with leadership and decision …show more content…
Unfortunately, internalization of group norms suppresses the critical thinking of group members and that, coupled with psychological pressure and stress can cause the group to make wrong decisions. Besides having the same values, the group might think that they are invulnerable which makes them to not fully assess the dangers or risks of the decisions or actions that they make. That was demonstrated during the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which the security team acted on faulty intelligence from the CIA without raising objections. Members were in consensus for the invasion of Cuba without weighing about the cons and pros of the