Dominic J. Packer

Who they are

Packer is the sole author of Avoiding groupthink: Whereas weakly identified members remain silent, strongly identified members dissent about collective problems, published in Psychological Science in 2009 (volume 20, issue 5, 546-548). The paper takes the groupthink question and asks it from the side of the individual member: does attachment to a group make people keep quiet about its problems?

Key papers

Packer, D. J. (2009). Avoiding groupthink: Whereas weakly identified members remain silent, strongly identified members dissent about collective problems. Psychological Science, 20(5), 546-548. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02333.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02333.x

Key ideas

The study measured how strongly 78 undergraduates identified with their university, using a six-item scale. The students named campus problems themselves. Each rated how harmful they privately judged the problems to be and estimated how harmful other students judged them. They then rated how concerned they were as an online discussion with three fellow students began, and that public rating was treated as the expression of dissent.

Weakly identified students voiced concern in the discussion mainly when they believed others shared it, and their public concern dropped when they believed others did not. That pattern fits what is called a spiral of silence. Strongly identified students voiced concern about the problems they judged harmful whether or not they believed others agreed.

Identification was measured and not manipulated, so the pattern is a correlation. Packer presents the result as grounds for cautious optimism: members who care about a group are not necessarily silenced by the fear of disagreement, and they may be willing to speak about collective problems.

The article What is groupthink? uses the study as the third of three tests of the ingredients of Janis's theory. The first two concern threat and cohesion, and one-sided information search in groups that already agree. The concept page on group identification covers the measure itself.

---