Irving Lester Janis

Groupthink - the psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses disagreement and prevents the appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups. In the first edition (Victims of groupthink), Iriving L. Janis showed how this phenomenon contributed to some of the major U.S. foreign policy fiascos of recent decades: the Korean War stalemate, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the failure to be prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Bay of Pigs blunder. He also examined cases, such as the handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the formulation of the Marshall Plan, where groupthink was avoided. Here, in this revised and expanded edition, Janis applies his hypothesis to the Watergate cover-up, portraying in detail how groupthink helped to put the participants on a disastrous couurse and keep them there. In addition, he presents some fresh ideas on how and why groupthink occurs and offers suggestions for avoiding it.

Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes

Groupthink

Harold H. Kelley

Carl Iver Hovland

Psychological Studies of Opinion Change

Communication and Persuasion

Janis identifies the causes and fateful consequences of groupthink, the process that takes over when decision-making bodies agree for the sake of agreeing to abandon their critical judgment.

A Psychological Study of Foreign-policy Decisions and Fiascoes

Victims of Groupthink

Brings together all of the published observational material on reactions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the purpose of arriving at a comprehensive view of the psychological effects of the A-bomb attacks. -- p. i.

Irving Lester Janis

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