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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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Location: Germany - The Nederlands
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scpg02
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: Junkfood science - way to go, Sandy! |
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Have to look at them later but maybe this will be good for reposting at 4um. I'll ping robin. LOL! Actually she is on my ping list already.
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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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Location: Germany - The Nederlands
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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So I have been using Sandies essays in several forums. I don't know it helps. Anybody around wit some psychologic insights? How can you demonstrate people that they are into groupthink.
What is required to open those eyes? The hard way, the gentle way?
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scpg02
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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You will rarely convert those you are having conversations with on forums. You will only be able to reach those reading from the outside.
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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Well I have been part of two groupthink hypes, the cold war and the Y2K bug.
I decided to become a warrior to defend the mother land against the red danger, (and for the fun flying). Intelligence told us about the awfull expansionist threat of communism, which in itself was a strong groupthink hype, and about the enormous amount of war hardware facing us from behind the iron curtain. Their industries were supposed to generate a new air force about every month and the number of divisions was so large that there was not enough land at the border to fit it all on. We were terrified and we loved it. Everybody was friend with everybody because we had a mutual enemy. It was sometimes after the "wall fell" that that both opposing sides discovered that the mutually projected danger was some X-fold overrated. That generated a both incredible relief and a terrible hangover. In hindsight, communism collapsed due to it self generated groupthink.
The Y2K bug was taken very seriously in our country and air force. The world was going to get to a grinding halt on 1-1-2000 when all computers would crash and all systems were to collapse if not the software was cleaned in time. The only deadline that was not to be moved and time was running out rapidly. Some countries seemed to care less, those were obviously doomed and I urged my sister not to move to that particular country where almost nothing was done to prevent the disaster. She did move anyway, without a worry in the world. So 1-1-2000 came and almost nothing happened, including in those countries that for some reason did not clean out all their software. My sister was fine. It was just the positive feedback spiral up of groupthink.
I keep wondering, what would have convinced me in those times what we were victims of groupthink. needless to say, I will never again fall for it.
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scpg02
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It was just the positive feedback spiral up of groupthink. |
Global warming/environmentalism. There is no changing it. Like with you, the only thing to stop it is for it to play itself out. When disaster doesn't happen they will feel foolish or worse deceive themselves into believing that they somehow stopped it.
I'm worn out from the battles. I have no fight left in me.
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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Posts: 298
Location: Germany - The Nederlands
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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Well dunno, at least it's our duty and try it.
Anyway the groupthink thinghy which could have been a razor sharp analyses of the global warming hype is written in ...1972!
http://www.psysr.org/groupthink%20overview.htm
this is curious:
| Quote: | | Examples of groupthink “fiascoes” studied by Janis include US failures to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of Vietnam war, and the ill-fated hostage rescue in Iran. Current examples of groupthink can be found in the decisions of the Bush administration and Congress to pursue an invasion of Iraq based on a policy of “preemptive use of military force against terrorists and rogue nations”. The decision to rush to war in Iraq before a broad-based coalition of allies could be built has placed the US in an unenviable military situation in Iraq that is costly in terms of military deaths and casualties, diplomatic standing in the world, and economically |
You name anything is groupthink but not global warming!! yet you can tick off each and every symptom.
One thing easily overlooked is the scientific acceptance of a new idea. Back in the 1970s we were expecting an ice age, then in the mid 1980s somebody mentioned global warming and as leaf on a tree, everybody swapped and fell for it. Why? Normally, a scientific paradigm shift takes a generation. Remember Galilei and the Earth not being the centre of the universe. Getting rid of the faulthy Phlogiston theory about what makes flames, took a fierce fight of decades, similar like the continental drift of Alfred Wegener, which found so much resistance that acceptance took decades and it was the incentive for Thomas Kuhn to analyse the resistance to revolution in the scientific world.
That alone would one make wonder why could the scientific paradigm change from impending ice ages to catastrophic global warming happen so quickly without the usual fights, if it wasn't for groupthink: Hurray we have an enemy again.
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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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So I tried the blunt confrontation here. As can be observed, the result is remarkable. It's an inspiration for a little publication.
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Andre
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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The publication is about testing AGW behavior against the criteria of Janis:
| Quote: | Irving L. Janis, "Victims of Groupthink," 1972; Houghton Mifflin Company; ISBN: 0-395-14044-7 (P. 197-204)
The groupthink syndrome: Review of the major symptoms
In order to test generalization about the conditions that increase the chances of groupthink, we must operationalize the concept of groupthink by describing the symptoms to which it refers. Eight main symptoms run through the case studies of historic fiascoes. Each symptom can be identified by a variety of indicators, derived from historical records, observer's accounts of conversations, and participants' memoirs. The eight symptoms of groupthink are:
1. an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks;
2. collective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warnings which might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions;
3. an unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions;
4. stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purposes;
5. direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members;
6. self-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member's inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counterarguments;
7. a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view (partly resulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent);
8. the emergence of self-appointed mindguards - members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.
When a policy-making group displays most or all of these symptoms, the members perform their collective tasks ineffectively and are likely to fail to attain their collective objectives. |
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scpg02
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:58 am Post subject: |
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Now I have seen it all. In AGW debate on political forums, I'm used to being accused of speaking for "big oil". The latest was pretty funny even though it was quite anti Semitic.
Link
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John L
Joined: 03 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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Great article about GroupThink. I partucilarly liked the quote at the end, and have added it to my Signature over at Jane. 
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