Homophily (from Ancient Greek: homoû, 'together' + philíē, 'friendship, love') is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others, as in the proverb "birds of a feather flock together." The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies: over 100 studies have observed homophily in some form or another, and they establish that similarity is associated with connection. The categories on which homophily occurs include age, gender, class, and organizational role.
The opposite of homophily is heterophily or intermingling. Individuals in homophilic relationships share common characteristics (beliefs, values, education, etc.) that make communication and relationship formation easier. Homophily between mated pairs in animals has been extensively studied in the field of evolutionary biology, where it is known as assortative mating. Homophily between mated pairs is common within natural animal mating populations.
Homophily has a variety of consequences for social and economic outcomes.
Types and dimensions
Baseline vs. inbreeding
To test the relevance of homophily, researchers have distinguished between two types:
Baseline homophily: simply the amount of homophily that
would be expected by chance given an existing uneven distribution of
people with varying characteristics; and
Inbreeding homophily: the amount of homophily over and above this expected value, typically due to personal preferences and choices.
Status vs. value
In their original formulation of homophily, Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton (1954) distinguished between status homophily and value homophily, find that individuals with similar social status characteristics are more likely to associate with each other than by chance:
Value homophily: involves association with others who think in similar ways, regardless of differences in status characteristics.
Dimensions
Race and ethnicity
Social networks in the United States today are strongly divided by race and ethnicity, which account for the greatest proportion of inbreeding homophily (though classification by these criteria can be problematic in sociology due to fuzzy boundaries and different definitions of race).
Smaller groups have lower diversity simply due to the number of members. This tends to give racial and ethnic minority groups a higher baseline homophily. Race and ethnicity also correlates with educational attainment and occupation, which further increase baseline homophily.
Sex and gender
In regard to sex and gender, baseline
homophily of networks is relatively low compared to race and ethnicity.
Men and women frequently live together, and are both large and
equally-sized populations. Most sex homophily is of the inbreeding type. Especially in schools, students tend to have a high gender homophily.
Age
Most age homophily is of the baseline type. An interesting pattern of inbreeding age homophily for groups of different ages was found by Marsden (1988).
It indicated a strong relationship between someone's age and the social
distance to other people with regard to confiding in someone. For
example, the larger age gap someone had, the smaller chances that they
were confided by others with lower ages to "discuss important matters."
Religion
Homophily based on religion is due to both baseline and inbreeding homophily.
Education, occupation and social class
Family of birth accounts for considerable baseline homophily with respect to education, occupation, and social class.
Interests
Homophily
occurs within groups of people that have similar interests as well. We
enjoy interacting more with individuals who share similarities with us,
so we tend to actively seek out these connections. Additionally, as more
users begin to rely on the Internet to find like minded communities for
themselves, many examples of niches within social media sites have
begun appearing to account for this need. This response has led to the
popularity of sites like Reddit in the 2010s, advertising itself as a "home to thousands of communities...and authentic human interaction."
Social media
As social networks are largely divided by race, social-networking websites like Facebook also foster homophilic atmospheres. When a Facebook user 'likes' or interacts with an article or post of a certain ideology,
Facebook continues to show that user posts of that similar ideology
(which Facebook believes they will be drawn to). In a research article,
McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook (2003) write that homogeneouspersonal networks
result in limited "social worlds in a way that has powerful
implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form,
and the interactions they experience." This homophily can foster divides and echo chambers on social networking sites, where people of similar ideologies only interact with each other.
Causes and effects
Causes
Geography: Baseline homophily often arises when the people who
are located nearby also have similar characteristics. People are more
likely to have contact with those who are geographically closer than
those who are distant. Technology such as the telephone, e-mail, and
social networks have reduced but not eliminated this effect.
Family ties: Family relationships
often produce relatively close, frequent contact among those who are at
great geographic distance. These ties tend to decay slowly, but can be
dramatically restructured when new marriages occur.
Organizations: School, work, and volunteer activities
provide the great majority of non-family ties. Many friendships,
confiding relations, and social support ties are formed within voluntary
groups. The social homogeneity of most organizations creates a strong
baseline homophily in networks that are formed there.
Isomorphic sources: The connections between people who
occupy equivalent roles will induce homophily in the system of network
ties. This is common in three domains: workplace (e.g., all heads of HR departments
will tend to associate with other HR heads), family (e.g., mothers tend
to associate with other mothers), and informal networks.
Cognitive processes: People who have demographic
similarity tend to own shared knowledge, and therefore they have a
greater ease of communication and share cultural tastes, which can also
generate homophily.
Effects
According to one study, perception of interpersonal
similarity improves coordination and increase the expected payoff of
interactions, above and beyond the effect of merely "liking others." Another study claims that homophily produces tolerance and cooperation in social spaces. However, homophilic patterns can also restrict access to information or inclusion for minorities.
Nowadays, the restrictive patterns of homophily can be widely
seen within social media. This selectiveness within social media
networks can be traced back to the origins of Facebook and the transition of users from MySpace to Facebook in the early 2000’s. One study of this shift in a network’s user base from danah boyd (2011) found that this perception of homophily impacted many individuals' preference of one site over another. Most users chose to be more active on the site their friends were on. However, along with the complexities of belongingness,
people of similar ages, economic class, and prospective futures (higher
education and/or career plans) shared similar reasons for favoring one
social media platform. The different features of homophily affected
their outlook of each respective site.
The effects of homophily on the diffusion of information and
behaviors are also complex. Some studies have claimed that homophily
facilitates access information, the diffusion of innovations and behaviors, and the formation of social norms. Other studies, however, highlight mechanisms through which homophily can maintain disagreement, exacerbate polarization of opinions, and lead to self segregation between groups.
As online users have a degree of power to form and dictate the environment, the effects of homophily continue to persist. On Twitter, terms such as “Stan Twitter”, “Black Twitter”, or “Local Twitter” have also been created and popularized by users to separate themselves based on specific dimensions.
Homophily is a cause of homogamy—marriage between people with similar characteristics. Homophily is a fertility factor; an increased fertility is seen in people with a tendency to seek acquaintance among those with common characteristics. Governmental family policies have a decreased influence on fertility rates in such populations.
Emotional contagion is a form of social contagion
involving the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviors.
Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a
larger group. Emotions
can be shared across individuals in many different ways both implicitly
or explicitly. For instance, conscious reasoning, analysis and
imagination have all been found to contribute to the phenomenon.The behaviour has been found in humans, other primates, dogs, and chickens.
Emotional contagion is important to personal relationships
because it fosters emotional synchrony between individuals. A broader
definition of the phenomenon suggested by Schoenewolf is "a process in
which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another
person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of
emotion states and behavioral attitudes". One view developed by Elaine Hatfield, et al., is that this can be done through automatic mimicry and synchronization of one's expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person.
When people unconsciously mirror their companions' expressions of
emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions' emotions.
Etymology
The phrase "emotional contagion" embodies the idea that humans
synchronize their own emotions with the emotions expressed by those
around them, whether consciously or unconsciously. James Balwin had addressed the phenomena in his 1897 work Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development,
though using the term 'contagion of feeling'. Various 20th scholars had
discussed the phenomena under the heading 'social contagion'. The
actual term 'emotional contagion' appeared in Reber's 1985 The Penguine Dictionary of Psychology.
In a 1993 paper, Psychologists Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and
Richard Rapson define it as "the tendency to automatically mimic and
synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with
those of another person's [sic] and, consequently, to converge emotionally" (p. 96).
Hatfield, et al., theorize emotional contagion as a two-step
process: Firstly, we imitate people, e.g., if someone smiles at you, you
smile back. Secondly, our own emotional experiences change based on the
non-verbal signals of emotion that we give off. For example, smiling
makes one feel happier and frowning making one feel worse. Mimicry seems to be one foundation of emotional movement between people.
Emotional contagion and empathy
have an interesting relationship, in that they share similar
characteristics, with the exception of the ability to differentiate
between personal and pre-personal experiences, a process known as individuation. In The Art of Loving (1956), social psychologist Erich Fromm explores these differences, suggesting that autonomy is necessary for empathy, which is not found in emotional contagion.
Influencing factors
There
are several factors that determine the rate and extent of emotional
convergence in a group. Some of these are: membership stability,
mood-regulation norms, task interdependence and social interdependence.
Besides these event-structure properties, there are personal properties
of the group's members, such as openness to receive and transmit
feelings, demographic characteristics and dispositional affect that
influence the intensity of emotional contagion.
Research
Research
regarding the concept of emotional contagion has been conducted from a
variety of perspectives, including organizational, social, familial,
developmental, and neurological contexts. While early research suggested
that conscious reasoning, analysis, and imagination accounted for the
idea of emotional contagion, it has been concluded that some forms of
more primitive emotional contagion are far more subtle, automatic, and
universal.
Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson's 1993 research into emotional
contagion reported that people's conscious assessments of others'
feelings were heavily influenced by what others said.
People's own emotions, however, were more influenced by others'
nonverbal clues as to what they were really feeling. Recognizing
emotions and acknowledging their origin can be one way to avoid
emotional contagion. Transference of emotions has been studied in a variety of situations and settings, with social and physiological causes being two of the largest areas of research.
In addition to the social contexts discussed above, emotional
contagion is a concept that has been studied within organizations.
Schrock, Leaf, and Rohr (2008) discuss that organizations, like
societies, have emotion cultures that consist of languages, rituals, and
meaning systems, including rules about the feelings workers should, and
should not, feel and display. They state that the concept of emotion
culture is quite similar to the notion of "emotion climate" (p. 46),
which has also been synonymously referred to as morale, organizational
morale, and corporate morale.
Furthermore, Worline, Wrzesniewski, and Rafaeli (2002) mention that
organizations have an overall "emotional capability" (p. 318), while
McColl-Kennedy and Smith (2006) examine the concept of "emotional
contagion" (p. 255) specifically in customer interactions. These terms
are arguably all attempting to describe a similar phenomenon; each term
is different from one another in subtle and somewhat indistinguishable
ways. Future research might consider where and how the meanings of these
terms intersect, as well as how they differ.
Controversy
A controversial experiment demonstrating emotional contagion using the social media platform Facebook was carried out in 2012 on 689,000 users by filtering positive or negative emotional content from their news feeds. The experiment sparked uproar among people who felt the study violated personal privacy.
The 2014 publication of a research paper resulting from this
experiment, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion
through social networks", a collaboration between Facebook and Cornell University, is described by Tony D. Sampson,
Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis (2018) as a "disquieting disclosure
that corporate social media and Cornell academics were so readily
engaged with unethical experiments of this kind."
Tony D. Sampson et al. criticize the notion that “academic researchers
can be insulated from ethical guidelines on the protection for human
research subjects because they are working with a social media business
that has ‘no obligation to conform’ to the principle of ‘obtaining
informed consent and allowing participants to opt out’.” A subsequent study confirmed the presence of emotional contagion on Twitter without manipulating users' timelines.
Beyond the ethical concerns, some scholars criticized the methods
and reporting of the Facebook findings. John Grohol, writing for Psych Central,
argued that despite its title and claims of "emotional contagion," this
study did not look at emotions at all. Instead, its authors used an
application (called "Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count" or LIWC 2007)
that simply counted positive and negative words in order to infer users'
sentiments. He wrote that a shortcoming of the LIWC tool is that it
does not understand negations. Hence, the tweet "I am not happy" would
be scored as positive: "Since the LIWC 2007 ignores these subtle
realities of informal human communication, so do the researchers."
Grohol concluded that given these subtleties, the effect size of the findings are little more than a "statistical blip."
Kramer et al. (2014) found a 0.07%—that's not 7 percent,
that's 1/15th of one percent!!—decrease in negative words in people's
status updates when the number of negative posts on their Facebook news
feed decreased. Do you know how many words you'd have to read or write
before you've written one less negative word due to this effect?
Probably thousands.
Types
Emotions
can be shared and mimicked in many different ways. Early investigators
of emotional contagion believed that "conscious reasoning, analysis and
imagination accounted for this phenomenon." However, it is known now
that some forms of emotional contagion are more subtle and automatic
than early theorists suggested.
Implicit
Unlike
cognitive contagion, emotional contagion is less conscious and more
automatic. It relies mainly on non-verbal communication, although it has
been demonstrated that emotional contagion can, and does, occur via
telecommunication. For example, people interacting through e-mails and
"chats" are affected by the other's emotions, without being able to
perceive the non-verbal cues.
One view, proposed by Hatfield and colleagues, describes the
emotional contagion process as a primitive, automatic and unconscious
behavior. According to this research group, it takes place through a
series of steps. When a receiver is interacting with a sender, he
perceives the emotional expressions of the sender. The receiver
automatically mimics those emotional expressions. Through the process of
afferent feedback, these new expressions are translated into feeling
the emotions the sender feels, thus leading to emotional convergence.
Another view, emanating from social comparison theories, sees
emotional contagion as demanding more cognitive effort and being more
conscious. According to this view, people engage in social comparison to
see if their emotional reaction is congruent with the persons around
them. In this case, the recipient uses the emotion as a type of social
information to understand how he or she should be feeling.
People respond differentially to positive and negative stimuli, and
negative events tend to elicit stronger and quicker emotional,
behavioral, and cognitive responses than neutral or positive events.
Thus, unpleasant emotions are more likely to lead to mood contagion than
are pleasant emotions. Another variable that needs to be taken into
account is the energy level at which the emotion is displayed. As higher
energy draws more attention to it, the prediction is that the same
emotional valence (pleasant or unpleasant) expressed with high energy
will lead to more contagion than if expressed with low energy.
Explicit
Contrary
to the automatic infection of feelings described above, there are times
when others' emotions are being manipulated by a person or a group in
order to achieve something. This can be a result of intentional
affective influence by a leader or team member. Suppose this person
wants to convince the others of something, he may do so by sweeping them
up in his enthusiasm. In such a case, his positive emotions are an act
with the purpose of "contaminating" the others' feelings. A different
kind of intentional mood contagion is by giving the group a reward, or
treat, in order to alleviate their feelings.
In the organizational psychology literature, a growing body of research is dedicated to the aspects of emotional labor.
In short, it deals with the need to manage emotions so that they are
consistent with organizational or occupational display rules, regardless
of whether they are discrepant with internal feelings. In regard to
emotional contagion, in work settings that require a certain display of
emotions, one finds himself obligated to display, and consequently feel,
these emotions. In a process where surface acting develops into deep acting, emotional contagion is the byproduct of intentional affective impression management.
In workplaces and organizations
Intra-group
Many
organizations and workplaces are currently encouraging team-work. This
is a move driven by studies conducted by organizational psychologists
that highlight the benefits of work-teams. Emotions come into play and a
group emotion is formed.
The group's emotional state has an influence on factors such as
cohesiveness, morale, rapport and the team's performance. For this
reason, organizations need to take into account the factors that shape
the emotional state of the work-teams, in order to harness the
beneficial sides and avoid the detrimental sides of the group's emotion.
Managers and team leaders should be even more cautious with their
behavior, since their emotional influence is greater than that of a
"regular" team member. It has been shown that leaders are more
emotionally "contagious" than others.
Employee/customer
The
interaction between service employees and customers is considered an
essential part of both customers' assessments of service quality and
their relationship with the service provider. Positive affective displays
in service interactions are positively associated with important
customer outcomes, such as intention to return and to recommend the
store to a friend.
It is the interest of organizations that their customers be happy,
since a happy customer is a satisfied one. Research has shown that the
emotional state of the customer is directly influenced by the emotions
displayed by the employee/service provider via emotional contagion.
But, this influence is dependent on the degree of authenticity of the
employee's emotional display, such that if the employee is only
surface-acting, the contagion of the customer is poor, in which case the
beneficial effects stated above will not occur.
Neurological basis
"Contagious" yawning has been observed in humans, chimpanzees, dogs, cats, birds, and reptiles, and can occur across species.
Vittorio Gallese posits that mirror neurons
are responsible for intentional attunement in relation to others.
Gallese and colleagues at the University of Parma found a class of
neurons in the premotor cortex
that discharge when macaque monkeys execute goal-related hand movements
or when they watch others doing the same action. One class of these
neurons fires with action execution and observation, and with sound
production of the same action. Research in humans shows an activation of
the premotor cortex and parietal area of the brain for action
perception and execution.
Gallese continues his dialogue to say humans understand emotions
through a simulated shared body state. The observers' neural activation
enables a direct experiential understanding. "Unmediated resonance" is a
similar theory by Goldman and Sripada (2004). Empathy can be a product
of the functional mechanism in our brain that creates embodied
simulation. The other we see or hear becomes the "other self" in our
minds. Other researchers have shown that observing someone else's
emotions recruits brain regions involved in (a) experiencing similar
emotions and (b) producing similar facial expressions.
This combination of activations indicates that the observer activates
(a) a representation of the emotional feeling of the other individual
which would lead to emotional contagion and (b) a motor representation
of the observed facial expression that could lead to facial mimicry. In
the brain, understanding and sharing other individuals' emotions would
thus be a combination of emotional contagion and facial mimicry.
Importantly, more empathic individuals experience more brain activation
in emotional regions while witnessing the emotions of other individuals.
Amygdala
The amygdala
is one part of the brain mechanism that underlies empathy and allows
for emotional attunement and creates the pathway for emotional
contagion. The basal areas including the brain stem
form a tight loop of biological connectedness, re-creating in one
person the physiological state of the other. Psychologist Howard
Friedman thinks this is why some people can move and inspire others. The
use of facial expressions, voices, gestures and body movements transmit
emotions to an audience from a speaker.
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making
outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may
produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
Groupthink is sometimes stated to occur (more broadly) within
natural groups within the community, for example to explain the lifelong
different mindsets of those with differing political views (such as "conservatism" and "liberalism" in the U.S. political context or the purported benefits of team work vs. work conducted in solitude. However, this conformity of viewpoints within a group does not mainly involve deliberate group decision-making, and might be better explained by the collective confirmation bias of the individual members of the group.
The term was coined in 1952 by William H. Whyte Jr.. Most of the initial research on groupthink was conducted by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University. Janis published an influential book in 1972, which was revised in 1982. Janis used the Bay of Pigs
disaster (the failed invasion of Castro's Cuba in 1961) and the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as his two prime case studies.
Later studies have evaluated and reformulated his groupthink model.
Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial
issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual
creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup"
produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that
the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly
overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly
underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup". Members of a group can often feel peer pressure
to "go along with the crowd" in fear of rocking the boat or of what
them speaking up will do to the overall to how their teammates perceive
them. Group interactions tend to favor clear and harmonious agreements
and it can be a cause for concern when little to no new innovations or
arguments for better policies, outcomes and structures are called to
question. (McLeod). Groupthink can often be referred to as a group of
“yes men” because group activities and group projects in general make it
extremely easy to pass on not offering constructive opinions.
Some methods that have been used to counteract group think in the
past is selecting teams from more diverse backgrounds, and even mixing
men and women for groups (Kamalnath). Groupthink can be considered by
many to be a detriment to companies, organizations and in any work
situations. Most positions that are senior level need individuals to be
independent in their thinking. There is a positive correlation found
between outstanding executives and decisiveness (Kelman). Groupthink
also prohibits an organization from moving forward and innovating if no
one ever speaks up and says something could be done differently.
Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness,
faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic)
play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the
decision-making process.
Groupthink being a coinage – and,
admittedly, a loaded one – a working definition is in order. We are not
talking about mere instinctive conformity – it is, after all, a
perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity – an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.
Irving Janis pioneered the initial research on the groupthink theory. He does not cite Whyte, but coined the term again by analogy with "doublethink" and similar terms that were part of the newspeak vocabulary in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. He initially defined groupthink as follows:
I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking
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 1984. In that context,
groupthink takes on an invidious connotation. 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.
He went on to write:
The main principle of groupthink, which I offer in the spirit of Parkinson's Law, is this: "The more amiability and esprit de corps
there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, 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 outgroups."
Janis set the foundation for the study of groupthink starting with
his research in the American Soldier Project where he studied the effect
of extreme stress on group cohesiveness. After this study he remained
interested in the ways in which people make decisions under external
threats. This interest led Janis to study a number of "disasters" in American foreign policy, such as failure to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941); the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco (1961); and the prosecution of the Vietnam War (1964–67) by President Lyndon Johnson.
He concluded that in each of these cases, the decisions occurred
largely because of groupthink, which prevented contradictory views from
being expressed and subsequently evaluated.
After the publication of Janis' book Victims of Groupthink in 1972, and a revised edition with the title Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes in 1982, the concept of groupthink was used to explain many other faulty decisions in history. These events included Nazi Germany's decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941, the Watergate scandal
and others. Despite the popularity of the concept of groupthink, fewer
than two dozen studies addressed the phenomenon itself following the
publication of Victims of Groupthink, between the years 1972 and 1998. This was surprising considering how many fields of interests it spans, which include political science, communications, organizational studies, social psychology,
management, strategy, counseling, and marketing. One can most likely
explain this lack of follow-up in that group research is difficult to
conduct, groupthink has many independent and dependent variables, and it
is unclear "how to translate [groupthink's] theoretical concepts into
observable and quantitative constructs".
Nevertheless, outside research psychology and sociology, wider
culture has come to detect groupthink in observable situations, for
example:
" [...] critics of Twitter point to the predominance of the hive
mind in such social media, the kind of groupthink that submerges
independent thinking in favor of conformity to the group, the
collective"
"[...] leaders often have beliefs which are very far from
matching reality and which can become more extreme as they are
encouraged by their followers. The predilection of many cult leaders for
abstract, ambiguous, and therefore unchallengeable ideas can further
reduce the likelihood of reality testing, while the intense milieu control
exerted by cults over their members means that most of the reality
available for testing is supplied by the group environment. This is seen
in the phenomenon of 'groupthink', alleged to have occurred,
notoriously, during the Bay of Pigs fiasco."
"Groupthink by Compulsion [...] [G]roupthink at least implies
voluntarism. When this fails, the organization is not above outright
intimidation. [...] In [a nationwide telecommunications company],
refusal by the new hires to cheer on command incurred consequences not
unlike the indoctrination and brainwashing techniques associated with a
Soviet-era gulag."
Symptoms
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink:
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Type II: Closed-mindedness
Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"
Mindguards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Causes
Janis prescribed three antecedent conditions to groupthink.
High group cohesiveness.
Janis emphasized that cohesiveness is the main factor that leads to
groupthink. Groups that lack cohesiveness can of course make bad
decisions, but they do not experience groupthink. In a cohesive group,
members avoid speaking out against decisions, avoid arguing with others,
and work towards maintaining friendly relationships in the group. If
cohesiveness gets to such a high level where there are no longer
disagreements between members, then the group is ripe for groupthink.
deindividuation: group cohesiveness becomes more important than individual freedom of expression
Structural faults. Cohesion is necessary for groupthink, but it
becomes even more likely when the group is organized in ways that
disrupt the communication of information, and when the group engages in
carelessness while making decisions.
insulation of the group: can promote the development of unique,
inaccurate perspectives on issues the group is dealing with, and can
then lead to faulty solutions to the problem.
lack of impartial leadership: leaders can completely control the
group discussion, by planning what will be discussed, only allowing
certain questions to be asked, and asking for opinions of only certain
people in the group. Closed style leadership is when leaders announce
their opinions on the issue before the group discusses the issue
together. Open style leadership is when leaders withhold their opinion
until a later time in the discussion. Groups with a closed style leader
have been found to be more biased in their judgments, especially when
members had a high degree for certainty.
lack of norms requiring methodological procedures
homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology
Situational context:
highly stressful external threats: High stake decisions can
create tension and anxiety, and group members then may cope with the
decisional stress in irrational ways. Group members may rationalize
their decision by exaggerating the positive consequences and minimizing
the possible negative consequences. In attempt to minimize the stressful
situation, the group will make a quick decision with little to no
discussion or disagreement about the decision. Studies have shown that
groups under high stress are more likely to make errors, lose focus of
the ultimate goal, and use procedures that members know have not been
effective in the past.
recent failures: can lead to low self-esteem, resulting in agreement with the group for fear of being seen as wrong
time pressures: group members are more concerned with efficiency and
quick results, instead of quality and accuracy. Additionally, time
pressures can lead to group members overlooking important information
regarding the issue of discussion.
Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these
factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is
occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most
important antecedent to producing groupthink and always present when
groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would
not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides to all group
norms; whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent
and alternative strategies to problem solving, it is likely that
groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means
that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the
other antecedents is present, situational context being slightly more
likely than structural faults to produce groupthink.
Prevention
As
observed by Aldag and Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to
rest on a set of unstated and generally restrictive assumptions:
The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision quality
Group problem solving is considered a rational process.
Benefits of group problem solving:
variety of perspectives
more information about possible alternatives
better decision reliability
dampening of biases
social presence effects
Groupthink prevents these benefits due to structural faults and provocative situational context
Groupthink prevention methods will produce better decisions
An illusion of well-being is presumed to be inherently dysfunctional.
Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies.
It has been thought that groups with the strong ability to work
together will be able to solve dilemmas in a quicker and more efficient
fashion than an individual. Groups have a greater amount of resources
which lead them to be able to store and retrieve information more
readily and come up with more alternative solutions to a problem. There
was a recognized downside to group problem solving
in that it takes groups more time to come to a decision and requires
that people make compromises with each other. However, it was not until
the research of Janis appeared that anyone really considered that a
highly cohesive group could impair the group's ability to generate
quality decisions. Tight-knit groups may appear to make decisions better
because they can come to a consensus quickly and at a low energy cost;
however, over time this process of decision-making may decrease the
members' ability to think critically. It is, therefore, considered by
many to be important to combat the effects of groupthink.
According to Janis, decision-making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised ways of preventing groupthink:
Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical evaluator". This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.
Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
Leaders should absent themselves from many of the group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the outcome.
The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same problem.
All effective alternatives should be examined.
Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members
should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
At least one group member should be assigned the role of devil's advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.
The devil's advocate in a group may provide questions and insight
which contradict the majority group in order to avoid groupthink
decisions. A study by Hartwig
insists that the devil's advocacy technique is very useful for group
problem-solving. It allows for conflict to be used in a way that is
most-effective for finding the best solution so that members will not
have to go back and find a different solution if the first one fails.
Hartwig also suggests that the devil's advocacy technique be
incorporated with other group decision-making models such as the functional theory
to find and evaluate alternative solutions. The main idea of the
devil's advocacy technique is that somewhat structured conflict can be
facilitated to not only reduce groupthink, but to also solve problems.
A similar term to groupthink is the Abilene paradox,
another phenomenon that is detrimental when working in groups. When
organizations fall into the Abilene paradox, they take actions in
contradiction to what their perceived goals may be and therefore defeat
the very purposes they are trying to achieve. Failure to communicate desires or beliefs can cause the Abilene paradox.
As explained in the Abilene paradox, the Watergate scandal is an
example of this. Before the scandal had occurred, a meeting took place
where they discussed the issue. One of Nixon's campaign aides was unsure
if he should speak up and give his input. If he had voiced his
disagreement with the group's decision, it is possible that the scandal
could have been avoided.
Other examples of how groupthink could be avoided or prevented:
After the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, President John F. Kennedy sought to avoid groupthink during the Cuban Missile Crisis using "vigilant appraisal".
During meetings, he invited outside experts to share their viewpoints,
and allowed group members to question them carefully. He also encouraged
group members to discuss possible solutions with trusted members within
their separate departments, and he even divided the group up into
various sub-groups, to partially break the group cohesion. Kennedy was
deliberately absent from the meetings, so as to avoid pressing his own
opinion.
Cass Sunstein reports that introverts can sometimes be silent in meetings with extroverts;
he recommends explicitly asking for each person's opinion, either
during the meeting or afterwards in one-on-one sessions. Sunstein points
to studies showing groups with a high level of internal socialization
and happy talk
are more prone to bad investment decisions due to groupthink, compared
with groups of investors who are relative strangers and more willing to
be argumentative. To avoid group polarization,
where discussion with like-minded people drives an outcome further to
an extreme than any of the individuals favored before the discussion, he
recommends creating heterogeneous groups which contain people with
different points of view. Sunstein also points out that people arguing a
side they do not sincerely believe (in the role of devil's advocate)
tend to be much less effective than a sincere argument. This can be
accomplished by dissenting individuals, or a group like a Red Team that is expected to pursue an alternative strategy or goal "for real".
Empirical findings and meta-analysis
Testing
groupthink in a laboratory is difficult because synthetic settings
remove groups from real social situations, which ultimately changes the
variables conducive or inhibitive to groupthink.
Because of its subjective nature, researchers have struggled to measure
groupthink as a complete phenomenon, instead frequently opting to
measure its particular factors. These factors range from causal to
effectual and focus on group and situational aspects.
Park (1990) found that "only 16 empirical studies have been
published on groupthink", and concluded that they "resulted in only
partial support of his [Janis's] hypotheses".
Park concludes, "despite Janis' claim that group cohesiveness is the
major necessary antecedent factor, no research has shown a significant
main effect of cohesiveness on groupthink."
Park also concludes that research on the interaction between group
cohesiveness and leadership style does not support Janis' claim that
cohesion and leadership style interact to produce groupthink symptoms.
Park presents a summary of the results of the studies analyzed.
According to Park, a study by Huseman and Drive (1979) indicates
groupthink occurs in both small and large decision-making groups within
businesses.
This results partly from group isolation within the business. Manz and
Sims (1982) conducted a study showing that autonomous work groups are
susceptible to groupthink symptoms in the same manner as decisions
making groups within businesses.
Fodor and Smith (1982) produced a study revealing that group leaders
with high power motivation create atmospheres more susceptible to
groupthink.
Leaders with high power motivation possess characteristics similar to
leaders with a "closed" leadership style—an unwillingness to respect
dissenting opinion. The same study indicates that level of group
cohesiveness is insignificant in predicting groupthink occurrence. Park
summarizes a study performed by Callaway, Marriott, and Esser (1985) in
which groups with highly dominant members "made higher quality
decisions, exhibited lowered state of anxiety, took more time to reach a
decision, and made more statements of disagreement/agreement".
Overall, groups with highly dominant members expressed characteristics
inhibitory to groupthink. If highly dominant members are considered
equivalent to leaders with high power motivation, the results of
Callaway, Marriott, and Esser contradict the results of Fodor and Smith.
A study by Leana (1985) indicates the interaction between level of
group cohesion and leadership style is completely insignificant in
predicting groupthink.
This finding refutes Janis' claim that the factors of cohesion and
leadership style interact to produce groupthink. Park summarizes a study
by McCauley (1989) in which structural conditions of the group were
found to predict groupthink while situational conditions did not.
The structural conditions included group insulation, group homogeneity,
and promotional leadership. The situational conditions included group
cohesion. These findings refute Janis' claim about group cohesiveness
predicting groupthink.
Overall, studies on groupthink have largely focused on the
factors (antecedents) that predict groupthink. Groupthink occurrence is
often measured by number of ideas/solutions generated within a group,
but there is no uniform, concrete standard by which researchers can
objectively conclude groupthink occurs.
The studies of groupthink and groupthink antecedents reveal a mixed
body of results. Some studies indicate group cohesion and leadership
style to be powerfully predictive of groupthink, while other studies
indicate the insignificance of these factors. Group homogeneity and
group insulation are generally supported as factors predictive of
groupthink.
Case studies
Politics and military
Groupthink
can have a strong hold on political decisions and military operations,
which may result in enormous wastage of human and material resources.
Highly qualified and experienced politicians and military commanders
sometimes make very poor decisions when in a suboptimal group setting.
Scholars such as Janis and Raven attribute political and military
fiascoes, such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal, to the effect of groupthink. More recently, Dina Badie argued that groupthink was largely responsible for the shift in the U.S. administration's view on Saddam Hussein that eventually led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. After the September 11 attacks, "stress, promotional leadership, and intergroup conflict" were all factors that gave rise to the occurrence of groupthink.
Political case studies of groupthink serve to illustrate the impact
that the occurrence of groupthink can have in today's political scene.
Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis
The United States Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 was the primary case study that Janis used to formulate his theory of groupthink. The invasion plan was initiated by the Eisenhower administration, but when the Kennedy administration took over, it "uncritically accepted" the plan of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When some people, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Senator J. William Fulbright,
attempted to present their objections to the plan, the Kennedy team as a
whole ignored these objections and kept believing in the morality of
their plan. Eventually Schlesinger minimized his own doubts, performing self-censorship. The Kennedy team stereotyped Fidel Castro and the Cubans by failing to question the CIA about its many false assumptions, including the ineffectiveness of Castro's air force, the weakness of Castro's army, and the inability of Castro to quell internal uprisings.
Janis argued the fiasco that ensued could have been prevented if
the Kennedy administration had followed the methods to preventing
groupthink adopted during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
which took place just one year later in October 1962. In the latter
crisis, essentially the same political leaders were involved in
decision-making, but this time they learned from their previous mistake
of seriously under-rating their opponents.
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941, is a prime example of groupthink. A number of
factors such as shared illusions and rationalizations contributed to the
lack of precaution taken by U.S. Navy officers based in Hawaii. The
United States had intercepted Japanese messages and they discovered that
Japan was arming itself for an offensive attack somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Washington took action by warning officers stationed at Pearl Harbor, but their warning was not taken seriously. They assumed that the Empire of Japan was taking measures in the event that their embassies and consulates in enemy territories were usurped.
The U.S. Navy and Army in Pearl Harbor also shared rationalizations about why an attack was unlikely. Some of them included:
"The Japanese would never dare attempt a full-scale surprise
assault against Hawaii because they would realize that it would
precipitate an all-out war, which the United States would surely win."
"The Pacific Fleet concentrated at Pearl Harbor was a major deterrent against air or naval attack."
"Even if the Japanese were foolhardy to send their carriers to
attack us [the United States], we could certainly detect and destroy
them in plenty of time."
"No warships anchored in the shallow water of Pearl Harbor could ever be sunk by torpedo bombs launched from enemy aircraft."
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
On January 28, 1986, the US launched the Space Shuttle Challenger. This was to be monumental for NASA,
as a high school teacher was among the crew and was to be the first
American civilian in space. NASA's engineering and launch teams rely on
group work, and in order to launch the shuttle the team members must
affirm each system is functioning nominally. The Thiokol
engineers who designed and built the Challenger's rocket boosters
warned that the temperature for the day of the launch could result in
total failure of the vehicles and deaths of the crew. The launch resulted in disaster and grounded space shuttle flights for nearly three years.
The Challenger case was subject to a more quantitatively oriented
test of Janis's groupthink model performed by Esser and Lindoerfer, who
found clear signs of positive antecedents to groupthink in the critical
decisions concerning the launch of the shuttle.
The day of the launch was rushed for publicity reasons. NASA wanted to
captivate and hold the attention of America. Having civilian teacher Christa McAuliffe
on board to broadcast a live lesson, and the possible mention by
president Ronald Reagan in the State of the Union address, were
opportunities NASA deemed critical to increasing interest in its
potential civilian space flight program. The schedule NASA set out to
meet was, however, self-imposed. It seemed incredible to many that an
organization with a perceived history of successful management would
have locked itself into a schedule it had no chance of meeting.
2016 United States presidential election
In the weeks and months preceding the 2016 United States presidential election, there was near-unanimity among news media outlets and polling organizations that Hillary Clinton's election was extremely likely. For example, on November 7, the day before the election, The New York Times opined that Clinton then had "a consistent and clear advantage in states worth at least 270 electoral votes". The Times estimated the probability of a Clinton win at 84%. Also on November 7, Reuters estimated the probability of Clinton defeating Donald Trump in the election at 90%, and The Huffington Post put Clinton's odds of winning at 98.2% based on "9.8 million simulations".
The disconnect between the election results and the pre-election
estimates, both from news media outlets and from pollsters, may have
been due to three factors: news and polling professionals couldn't imagine a candidate as unconventional as Trump becoming president; Trump supporters may have been under-sampled by surveys or may have lied to or misled pollsters out of fear of social ostracism; and polls may have been unable to account for Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Corporate world
In
the corporate world, ineffective and suboptimal group decision-making
can negatively affect the health of a company and cause a considerable
amount of monetary loss.
Swissair
Aaron Hermann and Hussain Rammal illustrate the detrimental role of groupthink in the collapse of Swissair, a Swiss airline company that was thought to be so financially stable that it earned the title the "Flying Bank".
The authors argue that, among other factors, Swissair carried two
symptoms of groupthink: the belief that the group is invulnerable and
the belief in the morality of the group.
In addition, before the fiasco, the size of the company board was
reduced, subsequently eliminating industrial expertise. This may have
further increased the likelihood of groupthink.
With the board members lacking expertise in the field and having
somewhat similar background, norms, and values, the pressure to conform
may have become more prominent.
This phenomenon is called group homogeneity, which is an antecedent to
groupthink. Together, these conditions may have contributed to the poor
decision-making process that eventually led to Swissair's collapse.
Marks & Spencer and British Airways
Another example of groupthink from the corporate world is illustrated in the United Kingdom-based companies Marks & Spencer and British Airways.
The negative impact of groupthink took place during the 1990s as both
companies released globalization expansion strategies. Researcher Jack
Eaton's content analysis of media press releases revealed that all eight
symptoms of groupthink were present during this period. The most
predominant symptom of groupthink was the illusion of invulnerability as
both companies underestimated potential failure due to years of
profitability and success during challenging markets. Up until the
consequence of groupthink erupted they were considered blue chips and darlings of the London Stock Exchange.
During 1998–1999 the price of Marks & Spencer shares fell from 590
to less than 300 and that of British Airways from 740 to 300. Both
companies had already featured prominently in the UK press and media for
more positive reasons to do with national pride in their undoubted
sector-wide performance.
Sports
Recent
literature of groupthink attempts to study the application of this
concept beyond the framework of business and politics. One particularly
relevant and popular arena in which groupthink is rarely studied is
sports. The lack of literature in this area prompted Charles Koerber and
Christopher Neck to begin a case-study investigation that examined the
effect of groupthink on the decision of the Major League Umpires Association (MLUA) to stage a mass resignation in 1999. The decision was a failed attempt to gain a stronger negotiating stance against Major League Baseball.
Koerber and Neck suggest that three groupthink symptoms can be found in
the decision-making process of the MLUA. First, the umpires
overestimated the power that they had over the baseball league and the
strength of their group's resolve. The union also exhibited some degree
of closed-mindedness with the notion that MLB is the enemy. Lastly,
there was the presence of self-censorship; some umpires who disagreed
with the decision to resign failed to voice their dissent. These factors, along with other decision-making defects, led to a decision that was suboptimal and ineffective.
Recent developments
Ubiquity model
Researcher
Robert Baron (2005) contends that the connection between certain
antecedents which Janis believed necessary has not been demonstrated by
the current collective body of research on groupthink. He believes that
Janis' antecedents for groupthink are incorrect, and argues that not
only are they "not necessary to provoke the symptoms of groupthink, but
that they often will not even amplify such symptoms".
As an alternative to Janis' model, Baron proposed a ubiquity model of
groupthink. This model provides a revised set of antecedents for
groupthink, including social identification, salient norms, and low self-efficacy.
General group problem-solving (GGPS) model
Aldag
and Fuller (1993) argue that the groupthink concept was based on a
"small and relatively restricted sample" that became too broadly
generalized.
Furthermore, the concept is too rigidly staged and deterministic.
Empirical support for it has also not been consistent. The authors
compare groupthink model to findings presented by Maslow and Piaget;
they argue that, in each case, the model incites great interest and
further research that, subsequently, invalidate the original concept.
Aldag and Fuller thus suggest a new model called the general group problem-solving (GGPS) model, which integrates new findings from groupthink literature and alters aspects of groupthink itself. The primary difference between the GGPS model and groupthink is that the former is more value neutral and more political.
Reexamination
OLater
scholars have re-assessed the merit of groupthink by reexamining case
studies that Janis originally used to buttress his model. Roderick
Kramer (1998) believed that, because scholars today have a more
sophisticated set of ideas about the general decision-making process and
because new and relevant information about the fiascos have surfaced
over the years, a reexamination of the case studies is appropriate and
necessary.
He argues that new evidence does not support Janis' view that
groupthink was largely responsible for President Kennedy's and President
Johnson's decisions in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and U.S. escalated
military involvement in the Vietnam War, respectively. Both presidents sought the advice of experts outside of their political groups more than Janis suggested.
Kramer also argues that the presidents were the final decision-makers
of the fiascos; while determining which course of action to take, they
relied more heavily on their own construals of the situations than on any group-consenting decision presented to them.
Kramer concludes that Janis' explanation of the two military issues is
flawed and that groupthink has much less influence on group
decision-making than is popularly believed.
Groupthink, while it is thought to be avoided, does have some positive effects. A case study by Choi and Kim shows that with group identity, group performance has a negative correlation
with defective decision making. This study also showed that the
relationship between groupthink and defective decision making was
insignificant. These findings mean that in the right circumstances,
groupthink does not always have negative outcomes. It also questions the
original theory of groupthink.
Reformulation
Whyte
(1998) suggests that collective efficacy plays a large unrecognised
role in groupthink because it causes groups to become less vigilant and
to favor risks, two particular factors that characterize groups affected
by groupthink.
McCauley recasts aspects of groupthink's preconditions by arguing that
the level of attractiveness of group members is the most prominent
factor in causing poor decision-making.
The results of Turner's and Pratkanis' (1991) study on social identity
maintenance perspective and groupthink conclude that groupthink can be
viewed as a "collective effort directed at warding off potentially
negative views of the group".
Together, the contributions of these scholars have brought about new
understandings of groupthink that help reformulate Janis' original
model.
Sociocognitive theory
According
to a new theory many of the basic characteristics of groupthink – e.g.,
strong cohesion, indulgent atmosphere, and exclusive ethos – are the
result of a special kind of mnemonic encoding (Tsoukalas, 2007). Members
of tightly knit groups have a tendency to represent significant aspects
of their community as episodic memories and this has a predictable influence on their group behavior and collective ideology.
In psychology, the false consensus effect, also known as consensus bias, is a pervasive cognitive bias
that causes people to “see their own behavioral choices and judgments
as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances”.
In other words, they assume that their personal qualities,
characteristics, beliefs, and actions are relatively widespread through
the general population.
This false consensus is significant because it increases self-esteem (overconfidence effect). It can be derived from a desire to conform and be liked by others in a social environment.
This bias is especially prevalent in group settings where one thinks
the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger
population. Since the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely
encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody
thinks the same way. The false-consensus effect is not restricted to
cases where people believe that their values are shared by the majority,
but it still manifests as an overestimate of the extent of their
belief.
Additionally, when confronted with evidence that a consensus does
not exist, people often assume that those who do not agree with them
are defective in some way. There is no single cause for this cognitive bias; the availability heuristic, self-serving bias, and naïve realism
have been suggested as at least partial underlying factors. The bias
may also result, at least in part, from non-social stimulus-reward
associations.
Maintenance of this cognitive bias may be related to the tendency to
make decisions with relatively little information. When faced with
uncertainty and a limited sample from which to make decisions, people
often "project" themselves onto the situation. When this personal
knowledge is used as input to make generalizations, it often results in
the false sense of being part of the majority.
The false consensus effect has been widely observed and supported
by empirical evidence. Previous research has suggested that cognitive
and perceptional factors (motivated projection, accessibility of
information, emotion, etc.) may contribute to the consensus bias, while
recent studies have focused on its neural mechanisms. One recent study
has shown that consensus bias may improve decisions about other people's
preferences.
Ross, Green and House first defined the false consensus effect in 1977
with emphasis on the relative commonness that people perceive about
their own responses; however, similar projection phenomena had already
caught attention in psychology. Specifically, concerns with respect to
connections between individual’s personal predispositions and their
estimates of peers appeared in the literature for a while. For
instances, Katz and Allport in 1931 illustrated that students’ estimates
of the amount of others on the frequency of cheating was positively
correlated to their own behavior. Later, around 1970, same phenomena
were found on political beliefs and prisoner’s dilemma
situation. In 2017, researchers identified a persistent egocentric bias
when participants learned about other people's snack-food preferences.
Moreover, recent studies suggest that the false consensus effect can
also affect professional decision makers; specifically, it has been
shown that even experienced marketing managers project their personal
product preferences onto consumers.
Major theoretical approaches
The false-consensus effect can be traced back to two parallel theories of social perception, "the study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people". The first is the idea of social comparison. The principal claim of Leon Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory was that individuals evaluate their thoughts and attitudes based on other people.
This may be motivated by a desire for confirmation and the need to feel
good about oneself. As an extension of this theory, people may use
others as sources of information to define social reality and guide
behavior. This is called informational social influence.
The problem, though, is that people are often unable to accurately
perceive the social norm and the actual attitudes of others. In other
words, research has shown that people are surprisingly poor "intuitive
psychologists" and that our social judgments are often inaccurate.
This finding helped to lay the groundwork for an understanding of
biased processing and inaccurate social perception. The false-consensus
effect is just one example of such an inaccuracy.
The second influential theory is projection, the idea that people project their own attitudes and beliefs onto others. This idea of projection is not a new concept. In fact, it can be found in Sigmund Freud's work on the defense mechanism of projection, D.S. Holmes' work on "attributive projection" (1968), and Gustav Ichheisser's work on social perception (1970).
D.S. Holmes, for example, described social projection as the process by
which people "attempt to validate their beliefs by projecting their own
characteristics onto other individuals".
Here a connection can be made between the two stated theories of
social comparison and projection. First, as social comparison theory
explains, individuals constantly look to peers as a reference group and
are motivated to do so in order to seek confirmation for their own
attitudes and beliefs.
In order to guarantee confirmation and a higher self-esteem, though, an
individual might unconsciously project their own beliefs onto the
others (the targets of their comparisons). This final outcome is the
false-consensus effect. To summarize, the false-consensus effect can be
seen as stemming from both social comparison theory and the concept of
projection.
The false-consensus effect, as defined by Ross,
Greene, and House in 1977, came to be the culmination of the many
related theories that preceded it. In their well-known series of four
studies, Ross and associates hypothesized and then demonstrated that
people tend to overestimate the popularity of their own beliefs and
preferences.
Studies were both conducted in hypothetical situations by questionnaire
surveys and in authentic conflict situations. For questionnaire
studies, participants were presented with hypothetical events and then
were not only asked to indicate their own behavioral choices and
characteristics under the provided circumstances, but also asked to rate
the responses and traits of their peers who referred as "actors". As
for real occasion studies, participants were actually confronted with
the conflict situations in which they were asked to choose behavioral
alternatives and to judge the traits as well as decisions of two
supposedly true individuals who had attended in the study. In general, the raters made more "extreme predictions" about the
personalities of the actors that did not share the raters' own
preference. In fact, the raters may have even thought that there was
something wrong with the people expressing the alternative response.
In the ten years after the influential Ross et al. study, close
to 50 papers were published with data on the false-consensus effect.
Theoretical approaches were also expanded. The theoretical perspectives
of this era can be divided into four categories: (a) selective exposure
and cognitive availability, (b) salience and focus of attention, (c)
logical information processing, and (d) motivational processes.
In general, the researchers and designers of these theories believe
that there is not a single right answer. Instead, they admit that there
is overlap among the theories and that the false-consensus effect is
most likely due to a combination of these factors.
Selective exposure and cognitive availability
This
theory is closely tied to the availability heuristic, which suggests
that perceptions of similarity (or difference) are affected by how
easily those characteristics can be recalled from memory.
And as one might expect, similarities between oneself and others are
more easily recalled than differences. This is in part because people
usually associate with those who are similar to themselves. This
selected exposure to similar people may bias or restrict the "sample of
information about the true diversity of opinion in the larger social
environment".
As a result of the selective exposure and availability heuristic, it is
natural for the similarities to prevail in one's thoughts.
Botvin et al. (1992)
did a popular study on the effects of the false-consensus effect among a
specific adolescent community in an effort to determine whether
students show a higher level of false-consensus effect among their
direct peers as opposed to society at large.
The participants of this experiment were 203 college students ranging
in age from 18 to 25 (with an average age of 18.5). The participants
were given a questionnaire and asked to answer questions regarding a
variety of social topics. For each social topic, they were asked to
answer how they felt about the topic and to estimate the percentage of
their peers who would agree with them. The results determined that the
false-consensus effect was extremely prevalent when participants were
describing the rest of their college community; out of twenty topics
considered, sixteen of them prominently demonstrated the false-consensus
effect. The high levels of false-consensus effect seen in this study
can be attributed to the group studied; because the participants were
asked to compare themselves to a group of peers that they are constantly
around (and view as very similar to themselves), the levels of
false-consensus effect increased.
Salience and focus of attention
This
theory suggests that when an individual focuses solely on their own
preferred position, they are more likely to overestimate its popularity,
thus falling victim to the false-consensus effect.
This is because that position is the only one in their immediate
consciousness. Performing an action that promotes the position will make
it more salient and may increase the false-consensus effect. If,
however, more positions are presented to the individual, the degree of
the false-consensus effect might decrease significantly.
Logical information processing
This theory assumes that active and seemingly rational thinking underlies an individual's estimates of similarity among others.
This is manifested in one's causal attributions. For instance, if an
individual makes an external attribution for their belief, the
individual will likely view his or her experience of the thing in
question as merely a matter of objective experience. For example, a few
movie-goers may falsely assume that the quality of the film is a purely
objective entity. To explain their dissatisfaction with it, the viewers
may say that it was simply a bad movie (an external attribution). Based
on this (perhaps erroneous) assumption of objectivity, it seems rational
or "logical" to assume that everyone else will have the same
experience; consensus should be high. On the other hand, someone in the
same situation who makes an internal attribution (perhaps a film
aficionado who is well-aware of his or her especially high standards)
will realize the subjectivity of the experience and will be drawn to the
opposite conclusion; their estimation of consensus with their
experience will be much lower. Although they result in two opposite
outcomes, both paths of attribution rely on an initial assumption which
then leads to a "logical" conclusion. By this logic, then, it can be
said that the false-consensus effect is really a reflection of the fundamental attribution error
(specifically the actor-observer bias), in which people prefer
external/situational attributions over internal/dispositional ones to
justify their own behaviors.
In a study done by Fox, Yinon, and Mayraz, researchers were
attempting to determine whether or not the levels of the false-consensus
effect changed in different age groups. In order to come to a
conclusion, it was necessary for the researchers to split their
participants into four different age groups. Two hundred participants
were used, and gender was not considered to be a factor. Just as in the
previous study mentioned, this study used a questionnaire as its main
source of information. The results showed that the false-consensus
effect was extremely prevalent in all groups, but was the most prevalent
in the oldest age group (the participants who were labeled as "old-age
home residents"). They showed the false-consensus effect in all 12 areas
that they were questioned about. The increase in false-consensus effect
seen in the oldest age group can be accredited to their high level of
"logical" reasoning behind their decisions; the oldest age group has
obviously lived the longest, and therefore feels that they can project
their beliefs onto all age groups due to their (seemingly objective)
past experiences and wisdom. The younger age groups cannot logically
relate to those older to them because they have not had that experience
and do not pretend to know these objective truths. These results
demonstrate a tendency for older people to rely more heavily on
situational attributions (life experience) as opposed to internal
attributions.
Motivational processes
This
theory stresses the benefits of the false-consensus effect: namely, the
perception of increased social validation, social support, and
self-esteem. It may also be useful to exaggerate similarities in social
situations in order to increase liking. It is possible that these benefits serve as positive reinforcement for false-consensus thinking.
Applications
The false-consensus effect is an important attribution bias to take
into consideration when conducting business and in everyday social
interactions. Essentially, people are inclined to believe that the
general population agrees with their opinions and judgments. Whether
this belief is accurate, it gives them a feeling of more assurance and
security in their decisions. This could be an important phenomenon to
either exploit or avoid in business dealings.
For example, if a man doubted whether he wanted to buy a new
tool, breaking down his notion that others agree with his doubt would be
an important step in persuading him to purchase it. By convincing the
customer that other people in fact do want to buy the appliance, the
seller could perhaps make a sale that he would not have made otherwise.
In this way, the false-consensus effect is closely related to conformity,
the effect in which an individual is influenced to match the beliefs or
behaviors of a group. There are two differences between the
false-consensus effect and conformity: most importantly, conformity is
matching the behaviors, beliefs, or attitudes of a real group, while the
false-consensus effect is perceiving that others share your behaviors,
beliefs, or attitudes, whether or not they really do. Making the
customer feel like the opinion of others (society) is to buy the
appliance will make the customer feel more confident about his purchase
and will make him believe that other people would have made the same
decision.
Similarly, any elements of society affected by public
opinion—e.g., elections, advertising, publicity—are very much influenced
by the false-consensus effect. This is partially because the way in
which people develop their perceptions involves "differential processes
of awareness".
That is to say, while some people are motivated to reach correct
conclusions, others may be motivated to reach preferred conclusions.
Members of the latter category will more often experience the
false-consensus effect, because the subject is likely to search actively
for like-minded supporters and may discount or ignore the opposition.
Belief in a favorable future
The concept of false consensus effect can also be extended to predictions about future others. Belief in a favorable future is the belief that future others will change their preferences and beliefs in alignment with one's own.
Belief in a favorable future suggests that people overestimate the
extent to which other people will come to agree with their preferences
and beliefs over time.
Rogers, Moore, and Norton (2017) find that belief in a favorable future is greater in magnitude than the false-consensus effect for two reasons:
It is based in future others whose beliefs are not directly observable, and
It is focused on future beliefs, which gives these future others time to “discover” the truth and change their beliefs.
Uncertainties
There
is ambiguity about several facets of the false-consensus effect and of
its study. First of all, it is unclear exactly which factors play the
largest role in the strength and prevalence of the false-consensus
effect in individuals. For example, two individuals in the same group
and with very similar social standing could have very different levels
of false-consensus effect, but it is unclear what social, personality,
or perceptual differences between them play the largest role in causing
this disparity.
Additionally, it can be difficult to obtain accurate survey data about
the false-consensus effect (as well as other psychological biases)
because the search for consistent, reliable groups to be surveyed (often
over an extended period of time) often leads to groups that might have
dynamics slightly different from those of the "real world". For example,
many of the referenced studies in this article examined college
students, who might have an especially high level of false-consensus
effect both because they are surrounded by their peers (and perhaps
experience the availability heuristic) and because they often assume
that they are similar to their peers. This may result in distorted data
from some studies of the false-consensus effect.
Relation to personality psychology
Within the realm of personality psychology,
the false-consensus effect does not have significant effects. This is
because the false-consensus effect relies heavily on the social
environment and how a person interprets this environment. Instead of
looking at situational attributions, personality psychology evaluates a
person with dispositional attributions, making the false-consensus
effect relatively irrelevant in that domain. Therefore, a person's
personality potentially could affect the degree to which the person relies on false-consensus effect, but not the existence
of such a trait. This should not, however, be interpreted as an
individual being the sole product of the social environment. In order
for the trait to "exist" in an organism's mind, there must be a
biological structure that underpins it. For an organism to visibly see
ultraviolet light, they must have genes (which then give rise to the
biological structure) that allows them to see the external environment.
Since the brain is a biological system, there must be an underlying
biological disposition that similarly allows an individual to register
and interpret the social environment, thus generating the
false-consensus effect. The brain's purpose is, after all, to extract
information from the environment and accordingly generate behaviour and
regulate physiology. There is no distinction between "innate" or
"learned", or "nature" versus "nurture" as the interaction of both are
needed; it does not sit along a dimension nor is it to be distinguished
from each other. Social and personality psychology are not separate
fields, but necessarily complementary fields, as demonstrated by the person-situation debate.
Contrasted with pluralistic ignorance
The false-consensus effect can be contrasted with pluralistic ignorance,
an error in which people privately disapprove but publicly support what
seems to be the majority view (regarding a norm or belief), when the
majority in fact shares their (private) disapproval. While the
false-consensus effect leads people to wrongly believe that the majority
agrees with them (when the majority, in fact, openly disagrees with
them), the pluralistic ignorance effect leads people to wrongly believe
that they disagree with the majority (when the majority, in fact,
covertly agrees with them). However, the false consensus effect does not
deny that pluralistic ignorance could result in biased estimates by
minority and majority as well. For example, the probability of intimate
partner violence occurred might be underestimated by abusing partner and
nonabusing partner alike. The false consensus effect would only reveal
that abusing partners perceive intimate partner violence to be more
common than do nonabusing partners.
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