Re: Group Think
From: Joanie Connors (jvcphdgmail.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 18:59:57 -0700 (PDT)
While groupthink can be totally benign and pleasant, fear is still
connected to it in 2 ways.

First, there is fear of social rejection or of hurting someone's
feelings if one disagrees or voices an opinion that is different from
the majority. You may have seen what happened to an earlier group
member who disagreed or you may just want to be liked.

Many times you may think you have consensus but there are many who
secretly hold doubts or are not being honest. That's ok as long as you
have mechanisms for revisiting decisions and looking at what works and
what doesn't, as I understand for sociocracy. That way the timid ones
can have their day later on if the consequences don't work so well.

The other way fear is involved is that it can magnify groupthink. Fear
can be introduced to a group in many ways, via social or environmental
catastrophy (act of terrorism, oil spills...), a community problem
(rising crime) or personal traumas (illness, loss). Once fear has
entered the group mind, the pressure to conform is increased. Dissent
is met with cold shouldering or criticism or worse. Negative gossip
increases and ostracism can occur. The group mind projects its
problems on the naysayer(s) and group energy become focused on them
instead of the problems themselves.

It's an awful spiral.

Joanie Connors





On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Racheli Gai <racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com> 
wrote:
>
> IMO it might be useful to define what it is that people need to agree
> on in order to work together well, and where diverse opinions and
> varying POVs
> are useful.
>
> On PROCESS it's important to have strong agreements, especially in
> groups who wish to work by consensus.  I think that most people who left
> our community unhappily (or who are still here but have a hard time
> fitting in) are ones who either disagree with consensus work - in
> practice,  or in theory
> as well as in practice.  So, this isn't the place we wish to have many
> opinions  in general, even though there might be differences of opinions
> on how to do it, how it's applied, etc.  (We need to keep all those
> nice process trainers there alive, right? :))
>
> But diversity on "content" is really a good thing.  And my experience
> has been that the people who are hard to work with are not the one
> with whom
> I disagree on that level, but ones who have low tolerance to not
> getting their way.  That's where and how unpleasant vibes (or worse)
> creep in.
>
> Racheli, Sonora Cohousing, Tucson.
>
>
>
> On Jul 3, 2011, at 5:12 PM, Sharon Villines wrote:
>
>>
>> On 3 Jul 2011, at 6:27 PM, Racheli Gai wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I don't believe that people naturally and easily think the same.
>>> Yes,
>>> they do sometimes, but all the time?
>>
>> People choose their contexts and tend to choose familiarity and
>> similarity. The context of this discussion is decision-making
>> groups. I find that teams tend to become filled with people who
>> think the same way. People who don't think that way change teams.
>> It's more pleasant.
>>
>> Rob Sandelin used to say that cohousing communities grew less and
>> less diverse over the years, not more diverse.
>>
>> People with similar backgrounds, likes and dislikes, etc. will tend
>> to think more alike than those who don't share those backgrounds.
>> That's what leads to group think. Otherwise group think wouldn't
>> exist.
>>
>> Sharon
>> ----
>> Sharon Villines
>> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
>> http://www.takomavillage.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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