Penn State Cover-Up: Groupthink in Action is an article that I found that discusses how groupthink was an influence in the Sandusky scandal and the coverup that occurred in order to try to not bring light to the events. The article brings up a good point that certain groups and organizations, such as greek life and sports, especially in a college setting would be more prone to groupthink. Especially at larger schools, it seems that these organizations “encourages the conformity of opinion, often around the wrong decision”. Within this specific situation, there was an inside group (Penn State officials) and an outside group (poor children who were the victims). They thought it would be “more ‘humane’ to cover up the allegations” for the victims if it were actually true. This groupthink decision was obviously a bad one, for the truth did come out. At the end of the article, it brings in another example of how groupthink at schools happens in more than one situation. I would not have thought of this scandal in terms of groupthink before, but since we learned and understand the topic of groupthink, it makes sense to think of it in that way now. This brings up questions about what other scandals, at other schools, are also related to groupthink and how certain situations are handled vs. how they should be handled.
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