Mitigating the Negative Decision Making Consequences of Groupthink and Other Social Pressures

1. Mitigating the Negative Decision Making Consequences of Groupthink and Other Social Pressures Anthony R. Pratkanis University of California Marlene E. Turner San Jose State University

2. The discovery of groupthink • Within the period of a little over a year and a half, the Kennedy administration made one of the worst and one of the best foreign policy decision in U.S. history • Bay of Pigs • Cuban Missile Crisis • Irving Janis wondered how the same group of people could produce such different decisions • A comparison of the group dynamics of both cases revealed the conditions of groupthink

3. Groupthink is extreme concurrence seeking in a group • Antecedent Conditions • Cohesion • Insulation of group • Directive leadership • High stress & low hope of finding solution • Limited search and appraisal • Results in: • Groupthink symptoms • Defective decision making symptoms • Poor decisions

4. Groupthink & the Bay of Pigs • Cohesion (Kennedy White House & esprit de corps) • Directive leadership (JFK made known his intentions early in the process) • High stress (first time on world stage) • Insulation & limited search (due to sensitivity of matter little outside intervention)

5. Groupthink & the Bay of Pigs (cont.) • Invulnerable or unlimited confidence (get away with cover story for the invasion) • Self-censorship (Schlesinger wrote critical memos to others but withheld criticism at the White House) • Mindguards (Edward Murrow of USIA was prevented from voicing opposition) • Outgroup stereotyping (press to blame for release of information) • Limited search for conflicting information (no evidence that invasion would set off mass revolt in Cuba) • No risk assessment • No contingency plans made (except escape to distant mountain area if invasion failed)

6. Cuban Missile Crisis • As a result of the Bay of Pigs, JFK: • Took responsibility for the decision personally • Conducted a review of the decision to establish new procedures • The new procedures included: • Group members told to be critical and watchdogs • Outside experts and fresh perspectives obtained • Independent subgroups to create competing policies • Leadless sessions (JFK not present to direct discussion)

7. Results of Cuban Missile Crisis • Despite operating under conditions of high cohesion and stress and threat, the group made an effective decision including • The creation of contingency plans • Realistic risk appraisal • Reversal of judgments and decisions • Complete information search and appraisal

8. Other groupthink fiascos • Lack of preparedness at Pearl Harbor • Watergate • Challenger disaster • City of Santa Cruz’s earthquake preparedness • Appeasement of Nazi Germany • Decisions at Kent State • Marketing the drug thalidomide • Israel’s lack of preparedness for Oct. 1973 war • WorldCom accounting fraud incident • Columbia space shuttle tragedy

9. Research controversies • Case studies are open to alternative interpretations; not all agreed with Janis’s interpretation of his cases • Experiments – the gold standard in science – were unable to reproduce groupthink in controlled conditions • These findings lead to a new theory of groupthink termed “Social Identity Maintenance”

10. Social Identity Maintenance theory of groupthink • Groupthink occurs when • The group has a positive social identity (NASA, Kennedy White House) as opposed to an esprit de corps • That positive identity comes under threat • The result: • Group engages in identity protection (collective rationalization) as opposed to problem-solving • Group accepts poor decision (simple solution or one from the leader) even when a better solution is known by some members.

11. Experimental test of SIM groupthink • Ad hoc groups were: • Given a social identity (cohesion) • Put under threat • Completed a case in which discussion resulted in better solutions • Results showed that the combined effects of cohesion and threat resulted in poor decision-making • Results have been repeatedly replicated

12. Additional experimental tests • Groupthink was prevented in high cohesive, threat groups when: • The group was given an excuse for poor performance (provides a face-saving mechanism for maintaining positive identity) • The group was given a set of discussion guidelines to focus process and serve as a coping mechanism for the threat: • Recognize all suggests and continued solicitation of solutions • Protect members from criticism • Keep discussion problem-centered • List all solutions before evaluating them

13. Additional group dynamics that may lead to poor decision making • Group polarization (risky shift) • Social loafing • Hidden, unshared information • Politicothink • Façade of conflict and discussion • Conflict avoidance

14. Social Influence Pressures • Landscaping of the decision • Agenda setting, decision criteria, limiting choices, decoys & phantoms, problem framing, comparison points, information control, and labeling • Conformity and bandwagon • Obedience to authority • Granfallooning • Escalating commitment to a failing course of action (rationalization trap) • Plus others

15. Mitigating the Effects of Groupthink • Goals: • Decision quality • Decision acceptance (by group and constituents) • General strategies: • Increase constructive conflict (debate and discussion about the issues) • Decrease emotional conflict (desire to maintain social identity) • Conduct a social influence analysis to determine sources of influence that may serve to bias decision making • Results: Teams that focus on facts, consider multiple alternatives, create common goals, use humor, balance power, and seek consensus based on qualifications perform better than their counterparts.

16. Implementation of interventions can be difficult during “groupthink” • Any intervention can be seen as a “threat” and therefore may induce pressures to maintain social identity • Interventions work best when: • implemented before or early in the process • the intervention becomes normative (normal) and linked to the identity

17. Decrease emotional conflict • Provide a face saving mechanism for poor performance • For example, the task is tough, it is to your credit to succeed • While an effective tactic for preventing groupthink, it can be difficult to implement: • High stakes decisions imply consequences • Excuse can take the form of scapegoating

18. Decrease emotional conflict • The risk technique • The discussion is structured so that • Group members are encouraged to express risks and fears about a decision (including implications for group identity) • After listing the risks, the group turns to a discussion of how to mitigate those risks. • Technique is useful for dealing with underlying emotional conflict and turning it into constructive conflict

19. Decrease emotional conflict • Multiple role playing procedures • Group members assume the roles and perspectives of • Key constituencies • Other group members • The exploration of other perspectives • Reduces links to social identity • Facilitates confrontation of threats and rationales • Provides additional perspectives and potential information

20. Decrease emotional conflict • Link a social identity to critical analysis • Examples: • Railroader identity of safety • Toyota plant and defects • Speak truth to power • Technique makes critical analysis second nature and provides for a positive identity

21. Decrease emotional conflict • Identity Metamorphosis • Destroy an old identity and replace it with a new identity (along with the resources to maintain that identity) • Andy Grove, the Great America Ferris wheel, and exiting the DRAM market and entering the PC chip market

22. Increase constructive conflict • Structured discussion principles (train leaders and group members in effective discussion principles) • Guidelines include: • Recognize all suggests and continued solicitation of solutions • Protect members from criticism • Keep discussion problem-centered • List all solutions before evaluating them • “Getting to yes” approach adapted to group decisions

23. Increase constructive conflict • Establish procedures for protecting minority opinion • Groups often generate high quality solutions but don’t adopt them • Attention to minority opinion enhances cognition processing resulting in better decisions • Implementation approaches • Leader solicits and respects minority views • Decision process solicits minority views • A hallmark of democratic process

24. Increase constructive conflict • Use directed decision aids to structure group process • Developmental discussion (leader breaks problem into steps and explores each systematically via question-asking) • Two column method (list and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative) • Second solution (require group to produce a second solution to the problem after the first)

25. Increase constructive conflict • Debias technique of considering multiple hypotheses and alternatives • “method of multiple working hypotheses” or bring up all rational explanations, perspectives, and alternatives for consideration as a means of avoiding premature closure on a suggested option. • Consider the opposite

26. Social influence analysis • Analyze the social situation of the decision maker in terms of the social influence pressures and tactics. • Suggest specific interventions based on that analysis to reduce the effects of potentially biasing influence sources. • Useful for countering influence such as landscaping, granfallooning, bandwagon, etc. • SIA has been used to suggest interventions in fraud crimes, public diplomacy, and consumer protection, among others.

27. Scientist: Think that you might be wrong • Instill in each decision maker the norms of the scientist: • Ask: What else can it be? • Ask: So what? (If a given hypothesis is true, then how should the world look?) • Go find out if the “so whats” are true, looking for cases when they are not.