individuals of the same profession — others have also found evidence of this 

 phenomenon in other professions and among professionals in general (Goleman 

 1954; Lipset and Schwartz 1966; Twight and Catton 1975; Alston 1983). It 

 seems that similarity in education and professional background among group 

 members in an organization decreases antagonism and leads to more interaction, 

 not only within organizations, but among them. 



Groupthink, however, often contributes to organizational inability to 

 solve problems. Janis (1972) identified six tendencies that result from 

 groupthink within organizations. 



1. Discussions are limited to a few alternative courses of action, 

 without a survey of the full range of options. 



2. The group fails to reexamine later the initial preferences expressed 

 by the majority of members, from the standpoint of nonobvious risks 

 and drawbacks that had not been considered originally. 



3. Group members neglect courses of action initially evaluated as 

 unsatisfactory and spend little or no time discussing whether there 

 are ways, for example, to reduce the seemingly prohibitive costs 

 that had made the alternatives seem undesirable to begin with. 



4. Group members make little or no attempt to obtain information from 

 experts who can supply sound estimates of losses and gains to be 

 expected from alternative courses of action. 



5. Selective bias is shown in the way the group reacts to factual 

 information and relevant judgements from experts, the media and 

 outside critics, and instead the group shows interest in facts or 

 opinions that support their initially preferred policies. 



6. Groups spend little time deliberating about how the chosen policy or 

 course of action might be hindered by bureaucratic inertia or 

 sabotaged by political opponents. 



Indeed, a dominant characteristic of groups is that members tend to 

 remain loyal to the organization by sticking to the norms and decisions to 

 which the organization has committed itself, even when the policy is working 

 badly or has unintended consequences that are disturbing (Janis 1972; Janis 

 and Mann 1979; Cialdini 1984; Goleman 1985). 



The tendency of individuals and groups to stick to decisions and/or 

 attitudinal commitments is well documented (Festinger 1957, 1964; Cohen et al . 

 1963; Ingram 1973; Cialdini 1984; Goleman 1985). As with organizational 

 process, all aspects of group psychology are not negative. An organization 

 with properly defined internal roles, with traditions and routines to which it 

 consistently adheres, may well make good decisions. The key difference, 

 though, is that these norms and SOP's must facilitate critical thinking and 

 not block it. Further, organizational culture, and the values and loyalties 

 that are a part of that culture, serve to "knit together the institutional 

 fabric" of an organization, and represent the intangibles that make for 



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