Castlevania Dungeon Forums
Off Topic => Off Topic => Topic started by: Johnny on May 23, 2015, 06:44:48 PM
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Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)
I have never been a huge believer in Group Think at all being an oddball and outcast myself. Yes being an oddball comes with many negative examples such as hipsters or social justice warriors but I still believe in going against the grain to be my own self. Even if people don't agree with me or like me I have come to like myself. I could give a fuck what anyone thinks. I would encourage anyone NOT to engage in group think as it strips your own identity away from yourself and you simply inherit a carbon copy identity that everyone else has.
Group Think does has its positives such as being able to more easily fit in so you can be more socially acceptable. It can also aid you in climbing many success ladders. But think about this, what will it cost you? Who will you really be?
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I consider groupthink to be a lamentable side-effect of natural human thought processes, and all too often a hindrance to human advancement. At the same time, though, the exact opposite of groupthink isn't much better. Many of the craziest and most notable screwups in history have been "independent thinkers" who marched only to the beat of their own drum. Exhibit A: Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber, who (aside from some help making the bombs, IIRC), worked alone and was entirely driven by his own curious interpretations of the Waco siege.
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Independent thinking and Group thinking both have their pluses and minuses. I'd rather see something in the middle-ground and not leaning towards the extreme right or left. I'm not against either type but at the same time, not all for them.. Middle ground is perhaps the best solution as it allows for unity in thinking and at the same time supports individual creative thinking.
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The best argument against group-think is that it a bad way to make decisions if you want to reach the right answer, or at the very least, escape the wrong one. Let's assume one person offers to take action A, and 5 other people in the group offer to take action B. Assuming that decision A is right and B is wrong. If you use democratic decision making, i.e. go by the will of the majority, you take the wrong decision. Democracy would win, but the group would lose. The best option, in that case, would be to give the one person an opportunity to convince the rest that his offer is better. The biggest problem here would be that the majority may refuse to listen to his argument simply because they are the majority, and people tend to think the more people believe in an idea, the more true it is. Historical progress, however, was based on "truths" that were eventually disproved (proven to be nothing more than bad theories).