Friendship and group identification: a new look at the role of cohesiveness in groupthink

Abstract

This article proposes that research has failed to clarify the causal role of group cohesiveness in groupthink because of a failure to distinguish cohesiveness from friendship. To remedy this, a conceptual distinction, based on social identity theory, is drawn between positive regard grounded in interpersonal relations (personal attraction, friendship), and solidarity grounded in group identification (depersonalized social attraction, true group cohesiveness)—Hogg (1992). An experiment compared the roles of friendship and social attraction in groupthink. Four‐person discussion groups of friends, or socially attractive or random groups of strangers, made decisions (N=472). Background conditions for groupthink were established, and a wide range of subjective and behavioural measures of friendship, identification/social attraction, and the decision‐making process were taken. Analyses isolated effects associated with friendship/personal attraction, from those associated with identification/social attraction. Friendship was found to be weakly and negatively related to symptoms of groupthink, while group identification and social attraction were strongly and, with some exceptions, positively related to symptoms of groupthink. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Closed-mindedness and insulation in groupthink: their effects and the devil’s advocacy as a preventive measure

“…Assumptions on the group closed-mindedness and the group insulation have been simulated and validated. Simulation results show groupthink results in the decrease in the number of explored solution, decision fitness, and the time needed to reach a consensus which is consistent with previous findings [21,22]. Besides that, the simulation results also show the outcome of devil's advocacy operation to prevent groupthink.…”

Sticking to our guns: social identity as a basis for the maintenance of commitment to faltering organizational projects

“…However, an important difference between this study and Experiment 1 was that here there was clear evidence that the greater willingness of participants in the group condition to maintain commitment to the organizational project was underpinned by an enhanced sense of social identification (see Figures 3 and 6). While related patterns have been identified in previous correlational research (Dietz-Uhler, 1996;Hogg & Hains, 1998) and in experimental studies using different independent variables (Turner & Pratkanis, 1994), to the best of our knowledge this is the first study to provide experimental evidence to support the view that social identity salience plays a role in maintenance of commitment of the form typically implicated in groupthink phenomena. Moreover, the fact that the study produced clear evidence of the success of the experimental manipulation allowed us to use structural equation modeling to establish that the increased social identification produced by assignment to the group condition partially mediated the impact of that manipulation on participants' ultimate commitment to the project.…”

“…In particular, research by Dietz-Uhler (1996) showed that individuals placed in small policy-making groups were willing to commit more money to a failing project and generated more arguments in its favor to the extent that they identified with the group as a whole. Along similar lines, Hogg and Hains (1998) showed that groupthink symptoms were associated with attraction among people as group members rather than as individuals. Experimental evidence reported by Turner and Pratkanis (1994) also supported their argument that the groupthink syndrome-marrying poor performance with perceptions of high self-worth-was an interactive product of high identification and high threat (see also Turner & Pratkanis, 1998a;Turner, Pratkanis, Probasco, & Leve, 1992;Turner, Pratkanis, & Samuels, 2003).…”

How do team cohesion and psychological safety impact knowledge sharing in software development projects?

“…However, Hypothesis 2 was not supported. The findings of the study showed that Studies have shown that groupthink is prevalent in highly cohesive teams (Hogg & Hains, 1998;Janis, 1982;Kim, 2001;Manz & Neck, 1995).…”