Avoiding groupthink: whereas weakly identified members remain silent, strongly identified members dissent about collective problems.

Collective decision-making failures are often attributed to group members’ unwillingness to express unpopular opinions, and incident investigations frequently name lack of dissent as a causal factor (Sunstein, 2006). The investigation following the Columbia space-shuttle explosion, for instance, cited a culture at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in which ‘‘it is difficult for minority and dissenting opinions to percolate up through the agency’s hierarchy’’ (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003, p. 183). Long-standing psychological explanations refer to ‘‘groupthink’’ (Janis, 1972) and a ‘‘spiral of silence’’ (Noelle-Neumann, 1974), positing that group members are reluctant to publicly express private concerns about collective problems if they believe that other members are likely to disagree with them. Combined with social identity research that finds positive relationships between members’ identification with groups and conformity to collective norms (e.g., Terry & Hogg, 1996), these accounts paint a pessimistic picture: Fearing the social costs of dissent, group members with alternative opinions are expected to remain silent, and when dissent is expressed, it is expected to come from those who care the least. However, recent research highlights a second perspective suggesting that such pessimism may not be fully warranted. The normative conflict model (Packer, 2008) posits that strongly identified members are attentive to group-related problems, and perceptions that the status quo is harmful to the collective may trigger expression of dissenting opinions. Strongly identified members may be willing to bear social costs associated with dissent in order to improve group outcomes. Initial studies have shown that strongly identified members do challenge group norms when they are perceived as collectively harmful (Packer & Chasteen, 2008). METHOD