Picture the last time you were at a party or social gathering. You’re with individuals you
consider yourself close or comfortable with like friends and family. The topic of the recent
2016 presidential elections comes up and everyone around you starts trash talking Donald
Trump, one of the candidates running for the presidency. They all begin discussing how
immature he is and how the plans he has for the country will drives us back in time instead
of moving forward. As you listen closely, you find yourself disagreeing with everyone
around you. You think Donald Trump would make a phenomenal president if he were
elected and you even voted for him. Do you let everyone know your opinion of him or do
you just agree with them and move on? To avoid conflict and just the pressure of having a
different thought on this subject than the individuals around you, you decide to agree with
everyone. Whether it is the right decision to conform with the rest of crowd or state your
own individual opinion, this not-so-rare phenomenon is known as groupthink (Hart, 1991).
The circumstance where an individual who is part of a group cares more about the group
and having the sense that they belong to the group, according to Hart (1991), is what
groupthink is. Groupthink happens more often and more publicly than expected, especially
when it comes to politics. As Hart analyzes the work of Irving Janis—the man who first
studied groupthink—he summarizes three characteristics of groupthink: (1) individuals
