Extra! Extra! Read all about Groupthink!

In high school, I was a senior editor for our school newspaper, The Ledger.  After a couple of dull issues, our advisor urged us to buckle down and start writing more topical, salient pieces to generate more interest from our readers.  So, we began a brainstorming session to construct a theme upon which we could build a “breaking-news” worthy edition. 

First, we began with current “hot” topics floating around the school.  Because I attended a Catholic high school, the diocese often sent speakers to discuss “important issues.”  This time, the issue in question was sex.  To no one’s surprise, the speakers took a largely conservative approach to the discussion.  What was unexpected, however, was the extremity and intensity with which they argued against certain practices, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF), premarital sex, and any “unnatural” contraceptives (i.e., anything that is not natural family planning).  Using scare tactics, the speakers emphasized how an individual was “dirty” or “unclean” after having premarital sex.  The most extreme tactic was saying that individuals who were born via IVF were unloved by God and were “unnatural.”  Given the personal nature of these issues, many individuals were deeply offended by these speakers (Some burst into tears).

While brainstorming, we decided that these speakers would fit as a perfect theme.  We assigned articles and were well on our way to releasing “the new and improved Ledger!”  Finally the day came to distribute the newspapers to the school!  To our dismay, after we returned from distributing the papers, we found the dean of students furiously seizing every newspaper in sight.  Unfortunately (for us), he found our coverage of the speakers to be “out of line” with the school and, thus, the newspaper did not “represent” the school’s views (although it was student­-led!).  So, he issued a recall for all of the newspapers that we had just disseminated.  I and the other editors spent the rest of the morning in the president’s office discussing what we did “wrong.”

As demonstrated by my example, brainstorming can lead to disastrous consequences.  One reason that this can happen is due to the phenomenon known as groupthink (Janis, 1982).  Groupthink is the tendency for group members to seek agreement, which can lead to close-mindedness and poor decision making (Janis, 1982).  During our brainstorming session, we exhibited groupthink; for example, after deciding on our topic, we did not ask our advisor whether she thought it was a good idea.  Similarly, we failed to consider how the school would react, especially given that it would present them and the diocese poorly.  Furthermore, there are three factors that can lead to groupthink: high cohesiveness, group structure, and stress (Janis, 1982).  First, our advisor put pressure on us to think of something that our primary audience (the students) would find interesting.  Second, we were a tight-knit group.  Lastly, our editor-in-chief was very critical of bad ideas and we did not have a system for reviewing decisions.  Sadly, our groupthink led to stricter censorship on the once loosely regulated newspaper (the dean and the president had to read each edition before it went to print!).  (N=517)

References

Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink (2^nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.