Course Description

We want to help people improve their response to crises at every level in their lives, political, social – even personal - by examining a misunderstood key piece of the puzzle: mass groupthink.

When mass groupthink takes hold, there is an inability to take in dissenting views and a tendency to devalue any opposition. There is no pause to reflect so as to reach for the bigger context. Instead people favour making rapid, appearance-oriented, and emotionally driven, theatrical decisions laced in rhetoric, and deal with destructive consequences later. It's almost as if it’s not the cause that matters but the emotional states that come with it. All is fuelled by the digital realm abetted by noise, opinion and media reporting pretending to be knowledge.

This behaviour has various names (“mass groupthink”, “mass hypnosis”, “cult behaviour”). Whatever you call it, this perilous tendency is built-in to all group behaviour and increasingly exhibited in a modern interconnected world. Innate needs underlie this group behaviour, but we are largely ignorant of their presence and role as well.

If we are to lessen this dangerous trend, what is required is greater knowledge about it: what it is, how it comes about, and, above all, how to manage it better, as well as about what lies behind, innate needs. This knowledge exists and our aim is to disseminate it as broadly as possible.

The Workshops

We aim to tackle this issue through the following 3-part virtual workshop in Spring 2024:

1. THE CRITICAL EFFECT OF MASS GROUPTHINK IN A TECHNOLOGICALLY INTERCONNECTED WORLD (Pre-recorded April 2024) – What is ‘mass groupthink’? How does it function? Where and how do we see it operating?

2. CASE STUDIES (May 25, 2024) – Based on the ideas in the first workshop, participants will investigate several case studies. This workshop will practically demonstrate how mass groupthink operates.

3. BEYOND GROUPTHINK (June 22, 2024) – Can there be some wisdom in politics especially by managing mass groupthink and laying down new foundations? With your input, this course will investigate what's needed for a healthier future.

Each workshop will be virtual and run from 2pm-5pm GMT. There will be preparatory material distributed beforehand.

Learn with us how to take our political behaviour up a notch, diminish the polarizing effects of mass groupthink in crises, including by understanding innate needs better, and bring some humanity back into politics: an essential step today if we are to have any hope of navigating the chaos around us.

Those who enrol will receive a downloadable document with a VIMEO link to the first pre-recorded course, and two Zoom meeting links for the next workshops.