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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". Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process. Groupthink is a construct of social psychology but has an extensive reach, and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.〔 Groupthink is sometimes stated to occur (more broadly) within natural groups within the community, for example to explain the lifelong different mindsets of conservatives versus liberals,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Does Liberal Truly Mean Open-Minded? )〕 or the solitary nature of introverts.〔 *.〕 However, this conformity of viewpoints within a group does not mainly involve deliberate group decision-making, and thus is perhaps better explained by the collective confirmation bias of the individual members of the group. Most of the initial research on groupthink was conducted by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University. Janis published an influential book in 1972, which was revised in 1982.〔 Janis used the Bay of Pigs disaster (the failed invasion of Castro's Cuba in 1961) and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as his two prime case studies. Later studies have evaluated and reformulated his groupthink model. == History == William H. Whyte, Jr. coined the term in 1952 in ''Fortune'' magazine: Irving Janis pioneered the initial research on the groupthink theory. He does not cite Whyte, but coined the term by analogy with "doublethink" and similar terms that were part of the newspeak vocabulary in the novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' by George Orwell. He initially defined groupthink as follows: He went on to write: Janis set the foundation for the study of groupthink starting with his research in the American Soldier Project where he studied the effect of extreme stress on group cohesiveness. After this study he remained interested in the ways in which people make decisions under external threats. This interest led Janis to study a number of "disasters" in American foreign policy, such as failure to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941); the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco (1961); and the prosecution of the Vietnam War (1964–67) by President Lyndon Johnson. He concluded that in each of these cases, the decisions occurred largely because of groupthink, which prevented contradictory views from being expressed and subsequently evaluated. After the publication of Janis' book ''Victims of Groupthink'' in 1972,〔 and a revised edition with the title ''Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes'' in 1982,〔 〕 the concept of groupthink was used to explain many other faulty decisions in history. These events included Nazi Germany's decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941, the Watergate Scandal and others. Despite the popularity of the concept of groupthink, fewer than two dozen studies addressed the phenomenon itself following the publication of ''Victims of Groupthink'', between the years 1972 and 1998.〔 This is surprising considering how many fields of interests it spans, which include political science, communications, organizational studies, social psychology, management, strategy, counseling, and marketing. One can most likely explain this lack of follow-up in that group research is difficult to conduct, groupthink has many independent and dependent variables, and it is unclear "how to translate () theoretical concepts into observable and quantitative constructs."〔 Nevertheless, outside research psychology and sociology, wider culture has come to detect groupthink (somewhat fuzzily defined) in observable situations, for example: * " () critics of Twitter point to the predominance of the hive mind in such social media, the kind of groupthink that submerges independent thinking in favor of conformity to the group, the collective"〔 〕 * "() leaders often have beliefs which are very far from matching reality and which can become more extreme as they are encouraged by their followers. The predilection of many cult leaders for abstract, ambiguous, and therefore unchallengeable ideas can further reduce the likelihood of reality testing, while the intense milieu control exerted by cults over their members means that most of the reality available for testing is supplied by the group environment. This is seen in the phenomenon of 'groupthink', alleged to have occurred, notoriously, during the Bay of Pigs fiasco."〔 〕 * "Groupthink by Compulsion () ()roupthink at least implies voluntarism. When this fails, the organization is not above outright intimidation. () In (nationwide telecommunications company ), refusal by the new hires to cheer on command incurred consequences not unlike the indoctrination and brainwashing techniques associated with a Soviet-era gulag."〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「groupthink」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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