Groupthink In The Lottery

Groupthink, the joining of individual rationals in an effort to arrive at a functional decision making strategy within a faction. “In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinion of the rest of the group”, Many seem to believe that this concept is the source of all solutions, others refer to it as a source of controversy. The “Lottery” a story written by Shirley Jackson and a movie entitled The Village portray different interpretations of groupthink and readers/viewers are exposed to its meaning and its effects on people whether involved or uninvolved. Its pros and cons, its moral and immoralities, and lastly its outcomes whether good or bad.

To begin with, The term groupthink itself is simply defined as

The people of a small village in New england practiced a very deadly tradition. Every year they would participate in what was called the lottery, Every adult would randomly select a white piece of paper from an old black box and hope that it was not marked with a black dot, for there was no money at the end of this lottery rather death awaited the unlucky drawer. The victim would be stoned by everyone in the village until they died. This tradition had been carried out for years, generation after generation countless people would be wrongfully stoned to death and the only explanation for this inhumane activity was “It 's what we’ve always done”. “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago … no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (Jackson), It was almost as if the people of this village were afraid of change, afraid that is would somehow disturbed the atmosphere and upset their great ancestors, it was almost as if the lottery was their sacrificial offering to maintain peace within themselves. The idea of groupthink was missing in the story, no form of communication was made concerning this absurd tradition, those who tried to bring it were disregarded, this supports the dictatorship side of groupthink, the one where only one person (the mayor) would speak and everyone else would obey without