Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Group Think

[Robin Alexander (alexande.robi]

Very interesting and counter-intuitive to me. Where I have seen group-think
in action, the key characteristics of the group that led to it are 1) there
is a sense of perceived danger from outside, 2) any hint of questioning the
emerging policy is seen as disloyalty to the group itself (not just the
policy) and is not to be tolerated. Members who even bring up points for
consideration are so branded and their ideas are not considered and if they
persist they may be excluded from the group. This does not sound like
amiability and esprit de corps to me. It seems to usually require a degree
of paranoia in the group. It would be very interesting (and disturbing) if
group-think would tend to arise *merely* from the existence of amiability
and esprit de corps in the group.



Robin A Alexander



-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Villines [mailto:sharon [at] sharonvillines.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 9:08 AM
To: Cohousing-L Cohousing-L
Subject: [C-L]_ Group Think





In working on another project I came across the original source of "group
think".



"The more amiability and esprit de corps among the members of the of a
policy-making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical
thinking will be replaced by group-think, which is likely to result in
irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against and out-group." Irving
Janis, 1972.



Sharon

----

Sharon Villines

Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC

http://www.takomavillage.org









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