Groupthink
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Janis" title="Irving Janis">Irving Janis</a> pioneered the initial research on the groupthink theory. He does not cite Whyte, but coined the term by analogy with "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink" title="Doublethink">doublethink</a>" and similar terms that were part of the newspeak vocabulary in the novel <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four" title="Nineteen Eighty-Four">Nineteen Eighty-Four</a></i> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell" title="George Orwell">George Orwell</a>. He initially defined groupthink as follows:</p>
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<p>I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when <i>concurrence-seeking</i> becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. Groupthink is a term of the same order as the words in the newspeak vocabulary George Orwell used in his dismaying world of <i>1984</i>. In that context, groupthink takes on an invidious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connotation" title="Connotation">connotation</a>. Exactly such a connotation is intended, since the term refers to a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures.<sup id="cite_ref-Janis1971_6-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink#cite_note-Janis1971-6">[6]</a></sup><sup class="reference" >:43</sup></p>
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<p>He went on to write:</p>
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<p>The main principle of groupthink, which I offer in the spirit of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law" title="Parkinson's Law" class="mw-redirect">Parkinson's Law</a>, is this: <i>The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups" title="Ingroups and outgroups">ingroup</a>, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups" title="Ingroups and outgroups">outgroups</a></i>.<sup id="cite_ref-Janis1971_6-2" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink#cite_note-Janis1971-6">[6]</a></sup><sup class="reference" >:44</sup></p>
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