Revisiting the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam Decisions 25 Years Later: How Well Has the Groupthink Hypothesis Stood the Test of Time?

Even after a quarter of a century, the groupthink hypothesis remains an influential framework for understanding the origins of group decision making fiascoes. Much of the original empirical evidence for this hypothesis was derived from a series of incisive qualitative studies of major policy fiascoes, including the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion and U.S. military escalation of the Vietnam War. In the 25 years since the groupthink hypothesis was first formulated, new evidence, including recently declassified documents, rich oral histories, and informative memoirs by key participants in these decisions have become available to scholars, casting new light on the decision making process behind both the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam. Much of this new evidence does not support Janis's original characterization of these processes. In particular, it suggests that dysfunctional group dynamics stemming from group members' strivings to maintain group cohesiveness were not as prominent a causal factor in the deliberation process as Janis argued. Instead, the evidence suggests that the decision making process was heavily influenced by how Presidents Kennedy and Johnson construed their options. Both Kennedy and Johnson tended to evaluate their alternatives primarily in terms of their political consequences, especially the desire to avoid what they construed as unacceptable political losses and potential damage to their reputations. Viewed in aggregate, this new evidence suggests that the groupthink hypothesis overstates the influence of small group dynamics, while understating the role political considerations played in these decisions. Thus, although both decisions may have been seriously flawed, the logic of this failure should be attributed to political psychological rather than social psychological processes.     

Exploring Nonlinear Models in Personality Assessment: Development and Preliminary Validation of a Negative Emotionality Scale

ABSTRACT In this article we discuss the applicability of several new measurement models to the construction of personality scales, and we contrast these models with more traditional approaches in common usage, such as the principal factor analysis model. Our goal is to illustrate how nonlinear item-response models can be profitably used in personality research. We describe the development of a 30-item Negative Emotionality scale that was constructed using nonlinear factor analysis and item-response theory. We also show how traditional (linear) factor analysis can produce misleading results when it is applied to personality items with dichotomous response formats (e.g., true/false, agree/disagree). No formal training in modern measurement theory is assumed of the reader as we describe the nonlinear models that are used in this study in nontechnical language with a minimum of mathematics.     

Infantile handling and the facilitation of discrimination and reversal learning

One group of rats was removed from their home cage and received daily handling from Days 3-21, while the control group of litter mates remained in the cage and did not receive any treatment. On Day 22 all rats were weaned and they were housed in individual cages until they were 60 days old. After two pretraining days, subjects were given daily blocks of one free and three forced trials in the T-maze and were rewarded with food after making the correct response. Following 20 days of training and testing on black-white discrimination, subjects were given 10 days of reversal training with four daily trials. Results indicate that the handled animals showed faster running and a greater number of correct choices than the control rats during both the acquisition and reversal learning phases of the experiment.     

Outpatient groups for chronic psychiatric patients

Long-term support groups have been utilized at the University of Alberta Hospitals since 1977 in order to meet the needs of chronic psychiatric patients who are unwilling or unable to commit to insight-oriented therapy. These groups meet once weekly for one hour and are intended to be drop-in groups, which patients can use regularly or only while in crisis. It is hypothesized that the institution or style of therapy practiced at an institution, rather than the specific therapists, provides a source of stability and support to these patients. Our experience suggests these groups are beneficial and cost-efficient, but research is necesssary to evaluate them to determine components of therapeutic effectiveness.Linda McAuley, M.A., was a staff therapist at the Psychiatric Walk-in Clinic and is currently in private practice.An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association in Banff, Alberta, October, 1987.     

A scale-invariant treatment for recursive path models

A reparameterization is formulated that yields estimates of scale-invariant parameters in recursive path models with latent variables, and (asymptotically) correct standard errors, without the use of constrained optimization. The method is based on the logical structure of the reticular action model.     

Both group peer counselling and individual counselling reduce anxiety and depression,and increase self-esteem and overall life satisfaction in palliative cancer care

This study compared group peer counselling and individual counselling in relation to quality of life, well-being and perceived control in individuals receiving palliative cancer care. The study utilized a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design to assess the effectiveness of counselling type, in a sample of individuals diagnosed with breast, bowel or lung cancer. Nine females underwent group peer counselling and nine underwent individual counselling. Individuals were administered self-report questionnaires which included standardized subscales that measure quality of life in terms of psychological well-being and perceived locus of control before and after counselling. Both group peer counselling and individual counselling significantly increased self-esteem, self-reported levels of overall life satisfaction, and reduced anxiety and depression. Self-esteem, overall life satisfaction, and anxiety and depression were comparable in the two counselling types, both at outset and after counselling, however, individuals with internal locii of control scored higher for self-esteem on post-test, and lower for depression and anxiety, irrespective of type of counselling.     

Performance of Dyslexic Children on Cerebellar and Cognitive Tests

In a previous study (A. J. Fawcett, R. I. Nicolson, & P. Dean, 1996), the authors had found strong behavioral evidence for cerebellar deficit in a panel of children with dyslexia. In the present study, the generality of those results was assessed. A battery of clinical tests for cerebellar dysfunction was administered, together with selected cognitive tests, to a further 59 dyslexic and 67 control children. The dyslexic children showed highly significant impairments on the cerebellar tests, with deficits on postural stability and muscle tone comparable in magnitude with their reading and spelling deficits. Furthermore, over 95% of the dyslexic children showed clear evidence of deficit on muscle tone or stability. The findings provide further evidence of the generality of cerebellar impairment in dyslexia. The implications of the cerebellar tests for screening in dyslexia are discussed.     

Politeness and social signals

In the literature, politeness has been researched within many disciplines. Although Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness (1978, 1987) is often cited, it is primarily a linguistic theory and has been criticized for its lack of generalizability to all cultures. Consequently, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to understand and explain politeness. We suggest applying a social signal framework that considers politeness as a communicative state. By doing so, we aim to unify and explain politeness and its corresponding research and identify further research needed in this area.     

Evangelism as Discipleship

This article gives attention to the challenges that the missional and conversational relationship of the church poses in the intercourse between evangelism, discipleship, theological education and leadership formation in its ministry and mission. This multi‐faceted and complex process brings together competing interests with different agendas that, in a number of contexts, have resulted in mis‐evangelization. This has called into question issues about human dignity and respect and the need for reciprocity to inform all missional response of the churches. The article argues that an appropriate model of theological education is needed to equip leaders for effective witness to the gospel. This necessitates the recruitment and mentoring of emerging leaders who have had a life‐changing encounter with the life‐giving Spirit of Jesus that controls their identity, vocation and witness. Some experiences of formal and informal theological education and formation within the Anglo‐Caribbean context were identified that disconnected and disorientated leaders from the Church's missional task of bearing effective witness to the gospel. This article calls for an overhaul of seminary‐ and university‐based theological education careerism, because they serve as an encumbrance to nurturing effective contextual witness of churches. The article argues that if Jesus calls and makes us into his disciples, then faithfulness in discipleship necessitates that (1) authentic evangelism must be grounded in humility and respect for all, (2) leadership formation must be infectiously relational, and (3) the gospel must be communicated through genuine interpersonal and community‐affirming relationships. The article ends with an invitation to all churches to embrace a missional model of witnessing that invests in living with, learning from and sharing with people in communities depending on the Spirit of God in Christ to lead and bear fruit in God's time.