Fact Check.
‘Groupthink’ is defined by Wiki as:
“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.”
The consequences of this can be very dangerous, and my sense is that the desire by increasing numbers of people to be more PC/Woke, results in the unintended consequence of the ‘elephant in the room’ being ignored more frequently.
However, there’s an even more dangerous collective thought process becoming prevalent.
‘Pluralistic (or Group) Ignorance’.
Wiki describes this as:
“The minority position on a given topic is wrongly perceived to be the majority position or where the majority position is wrongly perceived to be the minority position. This can be more simply described as “an individual who does not believe, but that individual thinks that everyone believes”.
This condition is well illustrated by Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and I fear it’s on the rapid increase.
Almost daily, I have conversations with people who tell me that others are better than them, achieve more, expend less effort, have a stress-free life, compared with themselves.
And yet when I probe deeper with them to find out why they believe these things, they often acknowledge that they don’t really, “but surely it must be true, look at what they’ve achieved”, referring to social media posts and other online sources of BS.
My suggestion to combat these harmful mindsets is to do three simple things when being presented with opinions dressed up as facts:
- Ask: “says who?”
- Check the sources – is the data corroborated by someone reliable?
- Consider what the proponent’s agenda is or might be.
In a world full of falsehoods and fake news, be more like the child in Hans Christian Anderson’s tale:
“But he has nothing on at all,” said a little child at last. “Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But he has nothing on at all,” cried at last the whole people.”
However, remain wary, even if everyone can eventually see something; remember the tale’s ending:
“That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as they carried the train which did not exist.”
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