Focus groups are more strongly influenced by the first factor: They are a completely invulnerable group, because they will never be held accountable for their decisions. Pearl Harbour suffered from both of these: Overestimating the power of their country (which led them to take the risk of not preparing), and believing to be in the right, supporting the right cause, and therefore ignoring the consequences of their actions (or non-actions in this case). Overestimating the GroupĪccording to Janis, group members overestimate their group in two ways: They think they are invulnerable, and they don’t question the morality of their group and the decision it makes. When Janis developed his theory, he named three groups of symptoms that groups suffer from when making a decision: overestimating the group, closed-mindedness and pressure towards uniformity. What does groupthink have to do with these conclusions, and how does it affect our everyday decision-making? Also, the officers thought that even if the attack should happen, they would be able to detect and destroy the fleets before they could reach the base. They assumed that the attack would only happen as a response to the US attacking Japan, and that Japan would surely not be crazy enough to start a war that they couldn’t win. But why was this warning not taken seriously enough to prepare for the attack? Discussions led the Navy and Army to conclude that the attack was unlikely, and they rationalised their opinion in many different ways. As a result of this, Washington sent a warning to the officers stationed at Pearl Harbour. But before I talk about how it has an effect on work or focus groups, let’s focus on one of the prime examples of groupthink: The Attack on Pearl Harbourīefore Pearl Harbour was attacked on 7th December 1941, internal Japanese messages had been intercepted and it was discovered that they were preparing for an attack in the Pacific. Groupthink was first talked about by Irving Janis in the 1970s and has been used to explain bad decision-making in many different contexts. It affects political discussions, work meetings, focus groups and pretty much any situation in which groups try to solve a problem, or come to a consensus decision. Have you ever sat in a group discussion and stayed quiet because you were worried that you were wrong, or that everyone else had a different opinion from yours? Most of us have been a victim of ‘groupthink’ in one way or another.
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