According to Psychology Today, “Groupthink occurs when a group values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation. It causes individual members of the group to unquestioningly follow the word of the leader and it strongly discourages any disagreement with the consensus.”
Simply stated, groupthink occurs when a group of people decide to get together to arrive at a decision. There is no set of rules, yet there is a strong leader within the group. The group begins to discuss the decision. Members of the group begin to feel afraid to voice their own personal opinions and to avoid causing strife or upset to the group, will begin to go along with the decisions of the leaders and others within the group. In many instances, the final decision ends up being worse than the reason the group decided to meet.
Through the collective consciousness, the impact of groupthink can be far reaching and stretches beyond the borders of the original group where it first began. According to French Sociologist, Emile Durkheim who coined the term, “Collective consciousness refers to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.” Think about collective consciousness as in the collective energy that is created due to the result of the combined or collective individual thought processes of the entire population.
How exactly does groupthink really impact the collective consciousness? Is there really even a correlation between the two? It should probably be noted that the collective consciousness can contain both positive and negative energy whereas groupthink is generally primarily negative in nature.
In Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” he remembers the spring of 1974 during a temporary teaching assignment when he taught in Europe. During that time, he decided to visit some of the sites of concentration camps. He stated, “I’m in this setting and compelled to visit other horrendous places where atrocities were performed with the willing aid of an entire population who had been brainwashed by a compelling speaker who spewed evil and hatred and convinced a vast collection of people that it was their duty to behave in these malevolent ways, even though it violated their own original nature. They voluntarily let themselves violate their own inner sense of love toward their fellow humans.”
Why did they let this happen? For many years after, there were Germans who were involved in the Holocaust, those that worked within these concentration camps, inflicting pain upon the Jewish people, causing death and lasting psychological damage to those that survived. When later questioned, these same Germans didn’t want to speak of the atrocities that they themselves were involved in, proving that some of them had a conscience. So why did they allow themselves to be used as instruments of cruelty and death? It’s not as if they were all sociopaths. What drove them to participate?
For groupthink to occur, there must be a strong, influential person within a cohesive group of people. Think about Adolf Hitler for a moment. He was a strong leader during his reign. He was able to convince a nation of people to commit torture and to murder millions of innocent people. Very few of his followers ever questioned the unspeakable atrocities due to groupthink.
Groupthink begins to tie into the collective consciousness when an entire group of people feeds on a specific, negative thought. This is when it begins to take form and if not ceased, can ultimately manifest.
Despite what we may think, our consciousness does affect and create our realities. Think about people who are consistently negative. Many times it appears as if they hit roadblocks and obstacles at every turn. Others may pity them, agreeing that it seems as if things don’t ever seem to work out well for them. Think now of people who are overwhelmingly positive. It often seems as if life paves a golden path for them to follow, where everything they desire seems to naturally unfold.
In current events today, there are groups of people who are increasingly becoming targets of hate crimes and violence. In many cases, it appears that the aggressors have not taken the time to get to know any of these people on a personal level, but simply target and appear to hate them because of the groups in which they are perceived to be affiliated with.
These instances are where the groupthink mentality seems to be fueling the fire. How do we avoid groupthink as a society? Further yet, how we do prevent it from negatively feeding into the collective consciousness? First we must recognize the 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.
Think about today’s political parties for a moment. Most people who favor one party over the other do not give much critical thought to the ideals of the party they follow. They may agree with one or two issues, blindly follow based on those issues, and find themselves falling victim to a groupthink mentality. Not only does groupthink prevent people from acting and thinking as individuals, it also feeds into the collective consciousness in a negative way. To do so can be devastating and can only repeat history in a negative, shameful way.
How can we protect ourselves from falling into groupthink mentality?
Avoid Mainstream Media
Many people, especially those with a positive outlook on life, tend to avoid mainstream media. Whatever we fill our minds with and give our attention to can be brought into the world. Turn on the news whether it’s via television, radio or the internet and we are most certain to hear stories of murder, mayhem, layoffs, mass shootings and just about any other negative thing in this world.
What does that do for the psyche? Where does our focus shift? It shifts on the negative aspects of the world such as tragedy and how awful the world and the people in it must be. I’m not negating the seriousness of these situations however, our negative thoughts around these things begin to take form. They feed into the collective consciousness all around us. The effect is far-reaching as others begin to also shift their focus onto these things.
Avoid Negative People
Make a conscious decision to avoid negative people whether it’s at work, church, social functions or even family members. It does not mean that you need to cut this person or people out of your life. It simply means to walk away when they begin to complain. Take the person who always complains at work for instance. He or she is never satisfied. The boss could offer him/her a giant bonus and there would still be something to complain about.
We may even like ours job until we really begin to focus on the negative complaints we hear from this person. It begins as a small, cancerous lump and begins to grow the more we feed it with toxins. Before long, we engage in the same negative behavior and may even pass it on to others who also begin to feed. Eventually, the collective consciousness over how terrible the job is begins to affect everyone, causing a very serious morale issue, extending beyond the workplace, even into situations with family and friends.
Stop Caring What Other People Think
This can and is one of the major downfalls of society. Too many people care what others think. One of the major characteristics I enjoy most about self-actualized people is their ability to not care what other people think about them. Abraham Maslow’s theory of human needs was really onto something.
Among many characteristics, the ones that stand out the most in not caring what others think are:
- They perceive and understand human nature. They accept themselves, other people, circumstances and the natural world for what they are. They able to learn from anyone and are friendly with anyone, with no regard to stereotypes.
- They are autonomous and independent. Thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention. Their ethics are autonomous and they determine their own inner moral standards.
- They have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and appreciate the best aspects in all things. However, they resist conformity to the culture. They determine their own behavior and have their own views on people and events.
When we focus too much on what others are doing, wearing, thinking, and so forth, we’ll be feeding negativity into the collective consciousness, becoming closer to the precipice of falling into a pit of groupthink. We need to embrace our individuality, unafraid of becoming the individuals that we were put on this earth to be. Bask in it, welcome it, shout it from the tops of the highest mountain but be who you were born to be. It doesn’t matter what others think. Everyone’s path is different.
Personal Development
Many people hear or read the words “personal development” and instinctively run in fright. Regardless of where we are in our lives, we should always strive to be the best people we can be. Whether we seek to become spiritually enlightened, study from the Bible, or follow any other teachings of enlightenment or betterment, there is a plethora of personal development tools out there for all of us, to meet each of our individual needs.
It’s easy to accidentally fall into pits, even with the best of intentions. It’s also easy to sometimes forget that we are spiritual beings having human experiences. Busy schedules can often make us shy away from adding one more item to our plates.
Personal development doesn’t have to take much time out of our day. Start with only 15 minutes per day. Read a few pages out of an inspirational book, sit in meditation and repeat a positive affirmation, read a positive website, join a group, anything that helps you to develop personally. After a while, the 15 minutes a day may start to increase and that’s great. Just start. It is a habit you will not regret forming.
Do not be afraid to speak up
Maybe this one should be grouped with not caring what other people think however, I wanted to give it its own section because I feel it warrants it.
Many people are afraid to upset the status quo. We might attend meetings or social gatherings where people are talking about a specific subject. One person brings it up and a discussion ensues. We soon begin to see how most people in the group start to agree with each other.
Although not everyone may not agree 100%, they still nod their heads in agreement. Some start to think that the leader or other members of the group may not approve of them if they speak their mind. Although the military was personally a good experience for me, it very much pushed a groupthink mentality. I found that I was not allowed to speak up as an individual and had to often agree with whatever my superiors thought I should. This stifled my creativity for a while. My own ideas were never implemented in any of the work that I did because I was not only discouraged from speaking up, I was afraid to do so out of fear of disrespect to a senior rank and/or punishment.
The good news is that we can avoid groupthink. The key is to recognize it and to deal with it swiftly. We are all given the ability to think and to make decisions. When we allow others to decide for us, we are also allowing them to take away our right to make our own decisions. Nothing is worth giving that right away.
“Think for yourself. Trust your own intuition. Another’s mind isn’t walking your journey. You are.” - Author Scottie Waves
References:
www.psysr.org
www.abundance-and-happiness.com