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Groupthink Case Study

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The groupthink phenomenon is one of the biased group decision making process that occurs when conformity is a norm with no alternate options being raised, hence, preventing the strengths of an individual to be seen (Janis). For the purpose of this essay, the case study I will be using is the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis that took place in 1962, as we can see the difference in results and actions, despite have the same group of people on the board for decision making for both events. This will better allow us to see how to avoid the pitfalls of groupthink. There are a total of eight symptoms for the groupthink phenomenon. They are the illusion of not being vulnerable, rationalising of their assumptions as a collective …show more content…

Actions taken based on such decisions are more likely to fail, as seen through the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Members are less likely to voice out alternative opinions and these results in the group thinking that they are not vulnerable and that an unanimous consensus was reached, which is highly unlikely to be the case most of the time as the decision is made by the strongest leader and the lack of opposition within the group creates such illusions (Holmes, Singh). This results in a biased and incomplete evaluation of choices for the group (Holmes, Singh). As seen in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the obvious flaws of the strategy were never brought up as seen earlier in the essay and hence resulting in a failure. Leaning from this, Kennedy reduced the impact of groupthink by discussing his decisions with his committee for Cuban Missile Crisis, this reverted the impact of the groupthink phenomenon and produced much stronger results. This is also seen widely in the articles that I have chosen for this essay as both articles, demonstrate how the mistakes made during the Bay of Pigs Invasion was not repeated during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, the article by Dobbs focused more on the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and expects us to further look into the reasons behind the events and decisions made and how the groupthink phenomenon is present or absent from the article. On the other hand, the journal by Whyte,

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