Thoughts About Bias
1. Group thinking is a phenomenon that impacts the effectiveness of decision-making process (Peterson, 5). Jerry Sandusky, a football coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions, has been involved in a sex abuse scandal. He was incriminated in the multiple counts of sexual abuse of children (Cohen, 2012). The illusion of invulnerability and unanimity has led to the situation when the leadership took risks by protecting Sandusky because of optimism. They considered Sandusky as a part of their system that could be vulnerable without him. That is why the majority of unanimous judgments were not assumed to be true. The leadership protected Sandusky also because of the direct pressure on dissenters. They were not able to express arguments against one of the group’s views. However, this may lead leadership decisions to failure because every member of a particular group should have his or her own view (Peterson, 4). Moreover, collective rationalization has led to discounting of warnings. As a result, the members of the team were not able to reconsider their assumptions. Finally, self-censorship blocks the ability to express doubts regarding the issue. That is how group thinking impacted the decision-making process in the Sandusky’s case.
2. According to the fact, that abuse at the highest levels of Penn State‘s leadership has been parsed many times, I think that if the leadership at Penn State were less homogeneous Penn State cover-up has not been possible. The main problem of leadership that should be solved in order to achieve effective decision-making process is overcoming the homogeneous 'in-group' mindset (Eskridge, 14). Moreover, it is important to ensure that a leadership group has small differences in experience (Eskridge, 3). When a group consists of members with similar experience group thinking impact their ability to take right decisions. I think that if the members of Penn State Cover-Up have some differentiation they will not be so blind justifying Sandusky.
References
Cohen L. J, DeBenedet A. T. 2012. Penn State Cover-Up: Groupthink in Action. Time Magazine.
Peterson R. 2012. Group Thinking. London Business School.
Eskridge B. 2015. Emergence of Leadership within a Homogeneous Group. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0134222. …
