Literatur: Janis Irving

Kritik zulassen, entwicklungsschädliches Gruppendenken vermeiden.

Irving Janis was the first psychologist to look at groupthink, back in the 1970s. He used the Bay of Pigs invasion to highlight how some of the most expert people can make poor decisions in a suboptimal setting: the Kennedy White House accepted plans the CIA had formulated with Eisenhower’s administration without question. The same assessment was made of BA and M&S’s attempts at global expansion in the 1990s: both darlings of the London Stock Exchange, they underestimated the risk that potential failure triggers held, with board members reinforcing each other’s sense of invulnerability.
http://www.cityam.com/227157/could-you-be-making-better-decisions

Janis has documented eight symptoms of groupthink:

• Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.
• Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.
• Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
• Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.
• Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.
• Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
• Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
• Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

 http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm

http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsleben/teamwork-warum-teamarbeit-blind-und-faul-macht-a-998842.html

Irving Lester Janis (* 26. Mai 1918 in Buffalo, New York; † 15. November 1990 in Santa Rosa, Kalifornien) [1] war ein US-amerikanischer Sozial- und Forschungspsychologe sowie Hochschullehrer an der University of California, Berkeley.

Janis forschte an den Universitäten Yale und Berkeley. Er erforschte die Wirkung von furchterregender Kommunikation, die Gruppendynamik und entwickelte eine Entscheidungsprozesstheorie, die er Gruppendenken (groupthink) nannte.[2] [3] 1972 erschien sein Buch über das Gruppendenken, in dem er darlegte, dass neben individueller Intelligenz Anpassungsneigung zur Urteilsfindung führt.