Write how GroupThink may have affected the Trump Administration’s early response to today’s COVID-19 outbreak. There are a great number of articles on this topic. Check nytimes.com, time.com, foxnews.com, and/or cnn.com. What kinds of decisions were being made when the outbreak was limited to just a few cases in the USA? Who was involved in making these decisions? What was the outcome?
Most importantly, try to determine how each of the following Groupthink indicators played into these decisions:
Illusion of invulnerability: excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks
Collective rationalization: members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions
Self-censorship: doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed
Illusion of unanimity: the majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous
Direct pressure on dissenters: members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views
This doesn’t need to be a formal paper. You may simply list each of the GroupThink indicators (bulleted list above) and write about how they seemed to have played out during early COVID-19 decision making. Be sure to cite your sources, however. You may do so informally, for example: (“The Poor are Harder Hit by the Spread of Disease,” NY Times, March 16, 2020) where you provide the title of the article, source, and date.
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