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Group Minds By Doris Lessing: Article Analysis

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In Doris Lessing’s article “Group MInds,” Lessing is describing that we may not be as individual as we may feel, and how we conform to the group’s opinion. Lessing states that “When we’re in a group, we tend to think as that group does: we may even have joined the group to find ‘like-minded’ people” (595). By evaluating this statement, we understand that Lessing believes that we don’t feel comfortable unless we are in a group setting. In “The Milgram Experience” Saul McLeod explains that “Ordinary people are likely to follow orders … to the extent of killing an innocent human being” (587). This statement shows that even though people know that it’s the wrong thing to do, they still do it to stay in good standing with the group. This confirms
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In “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror”, Crispin Sartwell argues that the average citizen can be convinced to commit atrocious crimes under the right circumstances from the premise that the traits to become a genocidal killer are not that uncommon, using examples from recent history such as the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the Rwandan Genocide. Sartwell clarifies that although most people delude themselves into thinking that they wouldn’t partake in genocide if they were placed in a similar situation as many have before, it would take a “moral hero” (Sartwell 118) to refuse the opportunity given the circumstances. On the other hand, in “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You”, author Theodore Dalrymple claims that people's response to authority in respect to their obedience is what leads the average man to kill countless others. While both authors address the fact that it doesn’t take a malicious person to engage in genocide, Sartwell focuses more on the qualities that people who commit genocide commonly share, Dalrymple seems more concerned on how people react to authority in

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Ian Parker, author of “Obedience”, provides accurate depictions of the immediate and long-term effects of Dr. Stanley Milgram’s Experiment. In addition, he includes that under complex situations, individuals are easily induced to react through a destructive manner (Parker103). Americans commonly underestimate the influences of a situation; however, Parker thoroughly delineates the consequences behind blind obedience (Parker 104). Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton, authors of “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” construe the atrocity of blind obedience committed by the United States Military. In March of 1968, crimes of obedience occurred due to an elusive order commanded by a higher ranked officer (Kelman&Hamilton 131).

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This is how groupthink is displayed because as said in the text, it was impossible to not join in. The way people were supposed to act was already somehow planned into their brains. They weren’t

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Group think According to Janis, who coined the term; groupthink “occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (1972, p. 9) further group think often leads to a decrease in the mental efficacy perception of reality and moral judgement, as personages find themselves in a group system that seeks high cohesion and unanimity which delimits the motivation of the individual to realistically appraise alternate courses of action (Janis, 1972). A common trait of a collective experiencing this phenomenon, is an inclination to take irrational decision making in addition to members of the group being similar in background and further being insulated from external insight. Comparably the singularity of groupthink is present in the film 12 Angry Men, and appears anecdotally, early on the film, present in the expected unanimous vote of ‘guilty,’ that will send the defendant to the electric chair. Invulnerability Literature surrounding the concept of group think is greatly rooted in the writings of Janis.

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