4 15 13 Goal of GroupThink to understand the nature of decision making in small groups Boundary Conditions Decision making or task oriented groups Groups under pressure to make decisions Theorist Irving Janis 1972 Social Psychologist Groupthink Defined the inability of a group to realistically appraise alternative courses of action due to High Cohesiveness how much the members of the group want to be a part of the group how stuck together are members of the group in general high cohesiveness is a good thing it becomes bad when our desire to get along overrides our desire for a good decision Desire for Unanimity everybody needs to agree Conditions that might promote groupthink 1 High cohesiveness 2 Group insulation they stand alone as a group decision no one is putting pressure on them 3 No impartial leadership leader is part of decision making 4 Homogeneity of group members all group members are the same similar levels of education same job etc 5 No decision making procedures 6 High stress Symptoms of Groupthink Overestimation of the Group illusions of invulnerability belief in the inherent morality of the group a lot of people believe the group is out for the greater good Closed Mindedness out group stereotypes collective rationalizations they rationalize why this information is inaccurate or not important the group does this as a whole Pressures Toward Uniformity self censorship illusion of unanimity self appointed mindguards people in the group take on the role of either letting information in or not letting it in pressures on dissenters If certain conditions exist the group might experience groupthink and if the group experiences groupthink that can lead to faulty decision making Preventing Group Think Require oversight an control of group decision making Change culture regarding decision making embrace whistle blowing within the group Allow for conscientious objectors Balance consensus and majority rule consensus everyone has to agree and the majority rules Evaluation of Groupthink Pros Heuristic Adequate Scope Cons Underdeveloped Poorly conceptualized Lacks empirical backing more of a hypothesis than a theory 4 17 13 ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION THEORY Karl Weick 1969 organizational psychologist not a communications scholar Goal to describe how organizations collect manage and use the information they receive Essentially the theory is describing the plans organizations develop to manage the endless amount of information that comes in to the organizations Theoretical Influences on OIT General Systems Theory the interrelationship among organizational units all units are dependent upon each other Feed back the different units need to communicate with one another and there must be feedback to occur b w the different units of organizations in order to be successful Theory of Socio cultural Evolution Survival of the fittest Weick believes that the organizations with PLANS are the ones that succeed for with plans you are most likely to meet your goals if you meet your goals you will survive Assumptions of OIT Organizations exist in an information environment information is limitless The information an organization receives differs in its equivocality or in other words ambiguity when info comes into an organization it varies how ambiguous it is to that organization ambiguity varies Information processing how we make the information less ambiguous or in other words communication reduces equivocality communication reduces ambiguity Key Concepts Information environment all the information that comes into the organization and must be managed Equivocality the ambiguity how confusing that information is to us Rules Guidelines an organization has for dealing with information Ex When picking a job candidate must find a way to sort through all applications and chose 4 Types of Rules Duration rules that allow them to do things in the quickest way possible Ex if applications are mailed into organization the rule is that the production department takes the applications and brings it DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY to human resources Another example emailing applications Personnel rules that determine WHO information must be sent to Success companies will do what has worked in the past so they develop the rule based off of past success Effort organizations don t want to waste resources so they develop rules that take the least amount of effort for example money Cycles A series of communication behaviors used by members of an organization to reduce the ambiguity of information Three Stages to a cycle Act the message or communication behavior indicating that something is ambiguous Response the message or the communication behavior that is designed in response to the act its purpose is to reduce the ambiguity of the act Adjustment the response to the response the communication behavior that lets the person who sent the response know whether or not that actually worked actually reduced the ambiguity of the information Ex Can t log onto a site to do work which is the ambiguity so the Act is contacting the help desk service the help desk responds are you using the new login procedures this is the response so the adjustment is sending a quick email back saying that you weren t using the new login procedures If you were using the login procedures there would be another cycle saying I am using them what is wrong help desk would respond with a new response and then a new adjustment and see if that works if not the cycle continues Double interact loops doesn t mean two cycles necessarily its as many as we need to reduce ambiguity Principles of Equivocality Reduction of equivocality depends on Amount of equivocality Number of rules in place Number of cycles needed Few rules in place more cycles will be needed to reduce equivocality The more cycles used the less equivocality remains 3 Stages to reducing Equivocality Enactment discovering if there are rules in place to use Selection select a rule to use select whom to contact for example Retention once you use a rule and it works you must retain it Utility if you work in an organization you can see this stuff happening it is useful Focus on communication process resonates with communication scholars Heurism helped develop Four models of Public Relations Logical Consistency do people really follow the rules professor doesn t think its warranted Intentional we can intentionally follow rules we think about what rule to select Correspondence whole purpose is to reduce
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