Conformity and Deviance Option 1
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Conformity and deviance Option 1
Groupthink involves the process where affiliates of a cohesive group make a decision that many individual members privately believe is unwise. In other words, it happens when a collection of people makes unanimity without serious assessment or calculation of the implication or options. The concept is grounded on a mutual desire not to distraught the stability of a collection of individuals (Reed & Daehnke, 2021). The desire establishes a dynamic within the group where individuality and creativity are stifled to avoid conflicts. In some instances, groupthink is not problematic as it allows the group to make choices, complete responsibilities, and finish ventures efficiently and on time. In the worst instances, it can lead to pitiable decision-making and unproductive problem-resolving approaches. Groupthink shows conformity as it involves a decision-making process where individuals change their actions to fit into a certain group.
When reading about groupthink, the idea of a cult comes to mind. Specifically, this involves the Heaven's Gate Group, where 39 affiliates committed suicide in California in 1997. The historical incident involved 21 women, and 18 men of different ages found dead. They lay peaceably in matching dark garments and Nike sneakers without any trace of blood or trauma (Farrell, 2020). The investigation revealed that the deceased belonged to the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ spiritual cult. The cult frontrunners expounded that suicide was a means to allow the follower's soul to vacate their human 'containers' and go into an extra-terrestrial spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
The group was led by a music professor identified as Marshall Applewhite. The leader had survived near-demise experiences in 1972 and was enrolled into the trendy by Bonnie Nettles, one of his nurtures. In 1975, the two convinced 20 individuals from Oregon to leave their relatives and possessions and settle in Colorado, where an interplanetary spaceship would take them to the realm of heaven. The frontrunners established that the human physique is simply a container that can be abandoned because of its greater physical being. The early 1990s saw a resurface of the cult and the recruitment of new affiliates. The unearthing of the comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 convinced the followers that the outlandish craft was coming to earth and was concealed behind a comet that people could not detect (Farrell, 2020). Applewhite preached issues like sexual abstinence, where various male followers lived through this example and underwent castration operations. In 1997, Hale-Bopp was closer to the earth; hence the cult followers drank a lethal mixture that led to their deaths. They hoped their bodies would leave the bodily containers, enter the spacecraft, and go into a higher existence.
The provided example shows how groupthink impacts an individual's psychological and social processes, mainly in group extremism. It shows the member's willful engagement in collective behavior that significantly violates the norms of expected conduct in a given scenario. The collective behavior of taking a lethal mixture leading to suicide shows that the group shared a common identity, pursued collective objectives, exerted influence over one another, engaged under various constraints of roles, norms, and status systems, and is codependent through their actions and outcomes (Levine & Kruglanski, 2022). The engagement in the cult that leads to an individual’s death because of a leader’s belief goes against the norms of expected conduct hence deviating from descriptive norms. It explains the group's engagement in an act that disregards the injunctive norms. The Heaven's Gate group suicides serve as a great mystery that dwells more on the background of the cult, fiction, and millennial impact on the beliefs and the group's connection to cyberculture leading to mass suicide.
References
Farrell, M. (2020). Mass Suicide Using Poison. Criminology of Poisoning Contexts, pp. 147–170.
Levine, J. M., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2022). The extreme group. In A. W. Kruglanski, C. Kopetz, & E. Szumowska (Eds.), The psychology of extremism: A motivational perspective (pp. 96–139). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Reed, S., & Daehnke, H. (2021). Groupthink. In Encyclopedia of Sport Management (pp. 223-225). Edward Elgar Publishing.