Raven BH
University of California, Los Angeles
Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 1998 Feb;73(2/3):352-61. doi: 10.1006/obhd.1998.2766.
Irving Janis's concept of groupthink can be seen in the context of our on-again-off-again love affair with groups. Group decisions have often been seen as offering the benefits of collective wisdom, but may also lead to disastrous consequences. Groupthink then focuses on the negative effects of erroneous group decisions. Two major examples of groupthink are reexamined and compared: the disastrous Bay of Pigs decision by the elite advisory group of President Kennedy, and the advisory groups of President Nixon, which led to the Watergate disaster and at unsuccessful attempts to cover up. In both, it is suggested there was a "runaway norm," escalation and polarization with the norm being to exceed other members of the group in taking more extreme and unrestrained actions against an "enemy." While Janis seems to suggest that groupthink will ultimately lead the group to fail in its ultimate endeavors, we need to consider the frightening possibility that in the case of the Nixon group, the group actions came close to being successful. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.
欧文·贾尼斯的群体思维概念可以在我们与群体时而亲密时而疏远的关系背景中得以体现。群体决策常常被视为能带来集体智慧的益处，但也可能导致灾难性后果。群体思维关注的是错误的群体决策所产生的负面影响。本文重新审视并比较了群体思维的两个主要例子：肯尼迪总统精英顾问团做出的灾难性猪湾决策，以及尼克松总统的顾问团，其导致了水门事件灾难以及掩盖真相的失败尝试。在这两个例子中，都存在一种“失控规范”，即规范不断升级和两极分化，表现为在针对“敌人”采取更极端、无节制行动方面要超过群体中的其他成员。虽然贾尼斯似乎暗示群体思维最终会导致群体在其最终努力中失败，但我们需要考虑一种可怕的可能性，即在尼克松顾问团的案例中，群体行动差点就成功了。版权所有1998年学术出版社。
