ABSTRACT
The psychological drive for consensus tends to suppress both dissent and the appraisal of alternatives in small decision-making groups. Groupthink tends to occur when individuals value membership in the group and identify strongly with their colleagues. This chapter details Irvin L. Janis's views about groupthink and then emphasizes several elaborations of his basic model. Janis might well distinguish several types or kinds of groupthink. Strategic possibilities include at least three kinds of "crises of agreement", which could be included under the rubric "groupthink": the crisis of agreement among the "best and the brightest", the crisis of agreement resting on an authoritarian cohesiveness and the crisis of agreement existing among persons having strong affective ties. These three types differ in important ways. Relatedly, different interventions seem appropriate for each of the three types of crises of agreement.
