This week we are studying different lesson styles for engaging students in interactive activities -- for instance Role Playing, Case Studies, Small group projects, etc. My group is supposed to brainstorm which interactive activities would work well to teach the concept of Groupthink.
I find groupthink to be a fascinating concept - in short that closed groups can be self-reinforcing in their beliefs. The article we read on it discuss the attributes of group think and how in hindsight people tend to claim something was groupthink when its really hard to determine that. When a descision goes bad and it looks like the decision making body ignored some evidence group think might be blamed. I think it's very interesting that only bad decisions ever get analyzed for group think. I think group think can occur even if the group ends up making the "right" choice. Since rarely do goup choices have huge impacts (like the challenger explosion), I think group think can occur fairly often and just goes unnoticed because the group's decisions don't really matter.
1 comment:
Great observation on groupthink and the failure to look for it except when something goes wrong! : ) I also think some organizations value group consensus too much. I spent some time in a Quaker meeting that drove my absolutely up the wall. We had "meetings for business" every month where nothing ever got done until group consensus was reached. Conversations on something as simple as the color of a newsletter could go on for months. : ) Made me crazy!
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