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Rating: 
Summary: I agree with the others
Review: Although I haven't read the book, I am confident it deserves five stars because that's what all the other reviewers gave it.
Rating:
Summary: Needs Updating to Include the Iraq War
Review: I studied this book 17 years ago and as I think about it, it should have been required reading for the Bush administration. Clearly, a discussion of the Iraq War should be added to the book under the "fiascos" section.
Rating:
Summary: Needs Updating to Include the Iraq War
Review: I studied this book 17 years ago and as I think about it, it should have been required reading for the Bush administration. Clearly, a discussion of the Iraq War should be added to the book under the "fiascos" section.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely important and underrecognized study of groups
Review: Irving L. Janis culls together evidence regarding three fiascoes, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Pearl Harbor, and the United States' invasion into North Korea, and contrasts those with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Marshall Plan. The bottom line is that the first three incidents were examples of groupthink, the last two were able to avoid this problem.Groupthink is the process described by Janis when a group follows a certain set of patterns that result in disastrous consequences. Clearly if the same group patterns were applied to the Cuban Missile Crises that were used in the Bay of Pigs, the world might well have been destroyed by nuclear war. The possible consequences for groups are enormous. When a group, whether it is a business, church, school, little league, not for profit, or other organization, knows how to avoid groupthink, it can come to a much better decision for the group itself, as well as those the group represents. Janis provides the means to help groups accomplish this very important goal. This is material from which any group can benefit, if they chose to put it into practice. I recommend this work very highly to anyone who works with groups of any kind.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative Analysis of highly cohesive groups
Review: Janis defines groupthink as the "deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment" in the interest of group solidarity.
Pressure to conform. Formal and informal attempts are made to discourage discussion of divergent views. Groups exert great pressure on individual members to conform.
Opposing ideas dismissed. Any individual or outside group that criticizes or opposes a decision receives little or no attention from the group. Group members tend to show strong favoritism toward their own ideas in the manner by which information is processed and evaluated, thus guaranteeing that their ideas will win out.
Rating:
Summary: This is a classic of social psychology
Review: This classic of social psychology is based on the idea that people in groups might think differently and by implication less well than they would have thought as individuals on the same issue at the same time. That is probably true for some groups at some times just as it is also probably true that some groups at some times might actually think better than any individual member of that group. In fact, most of the evidence cited in this book supports the idea that group thinking, like thinking in general, goes awry when there is a failure to evaluate all the available evidence for relevance and sufficiency in quality, quantity, and weight. When a group or an individual fails to evaluate the evidence, then the group or the individual reaches a decision not justified by the data and vice versa. Failure to perceive the reality, as demonstrated by evidence, has tremendous adverse consequences as is so well illustrated by Janis' detailed account of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Correct evaluation of the data, as demonstrated by evidence, has tremendous beneficial consequences as is so well illustrated by Janis' detailed account of the Cuban Misssile crisis. In fact, the fascinating parts of this book relate to the detailed analysis of group decisions in history, a reason enough to buy and read this fine work despite the price. Incidentally, Gilbert Murray has sought to explain the group cohesiveness thing by another myth which he calls "the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious animal to find its herd or its herd-leader." But however we attempt to account for the craving for unity in some groups, it seems to be a deeply rooted human irrational demand. Like James' "sentiment of rationality," it is a sentiment and a need long before it is justified by any discoverable facts. Our duty is to be on guard against it. Groupthink, this classic book, should boost our defenses.
Rating:
Summary: Particularly relevant now in America
Review: To put it simply, this book is about what can happen when people get together in insular groups to make decisions: the "groupthink" phenomenon can take hold of the members of the group, making the group and its consensus take control over the people in it. In a way, it's kind of like the riot mentality: the group becomes a mind of its own. When making important decisions, the worst thing you can do is create an insular group who only listen to and reinforce each other. To make intelligent decisions, one needs to seriously consult with people outside the core "groupthink" group, and otherwise touch base with the reality outside the group. I have been a victim of groupthink. I was on a group design project, 10 years after reading this book, when I suddenly realized groupthink had taken control. We worked well together and the project started off wonderfully. We started agreeing on everything and suddenly anything any group member had to say was great. It went overboard: talking about anything, especially how great our group project was going, became more important than actually making progress, or listening to critiques. As a result, we were cut off from reality, and fed each other on our desire to believe that what we were doing was great. I am a very intelligent person, and I fell victim to it, until I recognized it, which was ONLY because I had read this book 10 years before. I think it is something everyone should be aware of, in order to prevent, especially in this let's-hold-another-meeting-about-it culture in large American corporations. Today, I think this book, like the Bay of Pigs incident the book goes into details about, explains why Geroge W and his "group" attacked Iraq. There was NO evidence to support it... BUT, by purposely excluding those with different perspectives, like Colin Powell, Bush and crew generated an extremeely insular groupthink environment, convincing and reinforcing each other's assesment of the situation, without contact with reality. And thus we pissed off everyone else in the world, except those officials corrupt enough to blindly follow American cash, for a time at least. Even if you disagree with my last paragraph for political reasons, you should read the book to be able to discuss it.
Rating:
Summary: Particularly relevant now in America
Review: To put it simply, this book is about what can happen when people get together in insular groups to make decisions: the "groupthink" phenomenon can take hold of the members of the group, making the group and its consensus take control over the people in it. In a way, it's kind of like the riot mentality: the group becomes a mind of its own. When making important decisions, the worst thing you can do is create an insular group who only listen to and reinforce each other. To make intelligent decisions, one needs to seriously consult with people outside the core "groupthink" group, and otherwise touch base with the reality outside the group. I have been a victim of groupthink. I was on a group design project, 10 years after reading this book, when I suddenly realized groupthink had taken control. We worked well together and the project started off wonderfully. We started agreeing on everything and suddenly anything any group member had to say was great. It went overboard: talking about anything, especially how great our group project was going, became more important than actually making progress, or listening to critiques. As a result, we were cut off from reality, and fed each other on our desire to believe that what we were doing was great. I am a very intelligent person, and I fell victim to it, until I recognized it, which was ONLY because I had read this book 10 years before. I think it is something everyone should be aware of, in order to prevent, especially in this let's-hold-another-meeting-about-it culture in large American corporations. Today, I think this book, like the Bay of Pigs incident the book goes into details about, explains why Geroge W and his "group" attacked Iraq. There was NO evidence to support it... BUT, by purposely excluding those with different perspectives, like Colin Powell, Bush and crew generated an extremeely insular groupthink environment, convincing and reinforcing each other's assesment of the situation, without contact with reality. And thus we pissed off everyone else in the world, except those officials corrupt enough to blindly follow American cash, for a time at least. Even if you disagree with my last paragraph for political reasons, you should read the book to be able to discuss it.
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