Groupthinks

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A phenomenon where individuals in a cohesive group prioritize consensus over critical evaluation, leading to flawed decision-making
2. A psychological occurrence in which the desire for harmony within a group suppresses dissenting viewpoints, resulting in poor choices
3. A collective mindset that discourages independent thinking and encourages conformity, often resulting in irrational or dysfunctional outcomes

Etymology: William H. Whyte, a journalist for Fortune magazine, coined "groupthink" in 1952, and the word was a deliberate echo of an earlier invention. It was modelled on "doublethink," the term George Orwell created for his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where citizens are trained to hold two contradictory beliefs at once. Whyte took that pattern of pairing a concrete everyday word with a mental act and applied it to the way small groups of people settle on a shared view and suppress dissent. The word is simply a compound of "group" and "think," so its meaning comes straight from the two parts. What the coinage added was a name for a pattern that had been observed but not labelled, the tendency of cohesive groups to value agreement over honest evaluation of alternatives. "Groupthinks" is the third-person singular present of the verb "groupthink," which the source lists as a noun and verb. It follows the same pattern as any verb ending in a consonant, so it takes the -s form when the subject is "he," "she," or "it."

Synonyms: conforms, consensus pressures, herd mentalities

Antonyms: individualities, independent thoughts