Victims of Groupthink

Michael Sidiropoulos
4 min readOct 18, 2021

There are many factors that affect scientific objectivity. Even the most diligent and bias-free scientists may be influenced by various factors that compromise their impartiality. Like all people, scientists carry their own personal perspectives. These may be ideological, psychological, or other types of attitudes shaped by social influences. Scientific objectivity requires freedom from personal, political, religious, and social preferences. Of the many psychological factors that influence objectivity, I will focus on groupthink, which has not been adequately recognized as a bias factor in the evolution of science.

Groupthink was defined by Irving Janis, an American research psychologist at Yale. Janis defined groupthink as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. In other words, the need for harmony and conformity within a group drives the selection of ideas, overlooking the critical appraisal of alternatives that may create conflict within the group. Interestingly, nineteenth century philosopher Nietzsche had gone as far as to say that madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.

Victims of Groupthink

Think about the last time you were part of a group. Someone proposes an idea and you may think that the idea needs some exploratory discussion about evidence, consequences, possible alternative ideas and so on. However, you are reluctant to voice your opinion seeing that most members agree with the idea and fearing that you might disrupt the harmony of the group. There may be other members in the group who feel the same way and refrain from voicing their objections. This gets even worse if there is a strong voice in the room, such as a Chief Executive Officer, who makes his views known early in the session. The idea is quickly accepted without a critical appraisal of alternative ideas.

Janis’ examples of group decisions that were influenced by groupthink were primarily focused on political decisions, such as Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, as well as group decisions made in the corporate world. Other researchers, however, found instances of groupthink behavior in a much wider range of group settings than Janis had considered…

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Michael Sidiropoulos

Independent consultant and author who writes about the philosophy of science and the scientific method. His most recent book is “The Mind of Science”.