What classic fairy tale reminds us of the human tendency toward opting for harmony and conformity rather than telling the truth?
Subject: Groupthink - “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Event: Birthday of Hans Christian Anderson, 1805
“The Little Match Girl,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina”: these stories are so familiar and so frequently adapted that many people fail to realize that they even have an author; many would probably be even more surprised to learn that they all have the same author: Hans Christian Anderson, who was born on this day in Denmark in 1805. Anderson's name is so synonymous with fairy tales that his birthday is annually recognized as International Children’s Book Day.
Anderson was born into poverty; his mother was a washerwoman and his father was a cobbler. He left home at age fourteen, hoping to work in theater, but he soon discovered that his talent for poetry and storytelling was his ticket to success.
Of his over 150 fairy tales, one stands out for its psychological and sociological insights: “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a tale that has been translated into over 100 languages.
The story is about an Emperor who is hoodwinked by two hucksters posing as weavers. They tell the Emperor that they can weave him a beautiful new suit of clothes, but that the clothes are invisible to anyone who is stupid, incompetent, or unfit. When the “sewing” is finished, the Emperor holds a procession to show off his new clothes. None of the adults dares to admit that the Emperor is parading naked in public for fear of being labeled stupid or unfit. There is one child in the crowd, however, who is not afraid to proclaim the truth; he cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
More than a hundred years after Anderson wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a research psychologist gave the story's main theme a name: groupthink.
Irving Janis, from Yale, researched group decision-making rather than fairy tales, but he discovered the same psychological phenomenon found in Anderson’s story. Groupthink occurs when adult groups opt for harmony or conformity over telling the truth. This often leads to irrational and poor decision-making.
One specific historical case study analyzed by Janis was the poor group decision-making and thinking in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The plan, put together by John F. Kennedy’s administration, was to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. Even though President Kennedy involved some of the brightest people in the world in his planning process, the invasion of Cuba failed miserably. This puzzled the president, but once he began to examine what happened, he realized his error. Instead of encouraging his subordinates to scrutinize and question the invasion plan, he had allowed his men to simply go along with the plan, telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. The lesson learned from the Bay of Pigs debacle was that to avoid groupthink the individuals in a group need to feel free to speak their minds. They also should be encouraged to scrutinize the weaknesses of a plan as well as its strengths. When we work in groups, we are often too quick to try to maintain harmony and to establish consensus. Kennedy was able to capitalize on the lessons learned in 1961 when the Soviet Union secretly deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba in October 1962. After discovering the missiles, Kennedy made sure that he heard multiple points of view and that everyone involved was encouraged to debate, to argue, and to disagree. This time, instead of failure, Kennedy achieved success. The Soviets agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba, and nuclear conflict was averted (1).
Recall, Recite, Retrieve, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: How does the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” reveal Groupthink? How did the lessons learned from the failure of the Bay of Pigs help Kennedy overcome Groupthink?
Challenge - Philosophy For Kids: What is another story that you know from your childhood that contains the same kind of philosophical or psychological insights found in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? Summarize the story and its insights.
ALSO ON THIS DAY:
-April 2, 1951: On this day, Jack Kerouac began a 21-day writing marathon, producing a 120-foot typewritten scroll that would become his best-known work, On The Road. In a letter to his friend, Neal Cassady, Kerouac described the process and product: “Went fast because the road is fast… wrote whole thing on strip of paper 120 foot long (tracing paper that belonged to Cannastra.)–just rolled it through typewriter and in fact no paragraphs… rolled it out on floor and it looks like a road.” The scroll contained 125,000 words, which means that Kerouac averaged approximately 6,000 words per day. On The Road was officially published in 1957. The original scroll was purchased for $2.43 million by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, in 2002.
Sources:
1-Williams, Kelly. “Groupthink and the Emperor’s New Clothes.” Medium.com 8 August 2017.
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