The Columbia Disaster

"Instead of making people wiser, being in a group can actually make them dumber"

I found this exert from the reading especially interesting. This is of course referring to small groups. The article goes on to state that much of our lives are spent in small groups and consequently many important decisions made. Afterall, as the article reminds us, Juries are small groups of people who decide if people will go to prison. When a group is small, like the MMT group was, the influence of one member on the entire group is inevitable. This can be seen in any situation where a small group has formed. This is due mostly to the size of the group. When a group is small each member has a ability to have a distinct voice and there is not enough diversity for any voices to be quieted. We can see from the example of the Columbia's fate and how the small group at MMT was influenced that when one member of a small group makes a claim the rest of the group often readily takes this claim as fact. When McCormack decided to act as if the problem with the piece of foam was inconsequential, it became inconsequential for the entire group. The group took her claims to be fact.

I think that the idea that a group may make you "dumber" may actually be bad word choice. A group doesn't make someone dumber but it does make them behave dumbly. By this I mean often times, especially with small groups, people are persuaded to do things they would normally stand opposed to, or accept something they would normally question. When someone is a part of a large group they feel more comfortable speaking out because they think there has to be at least one other person who thinks that way too, where as in a small group that kind of diversity often times does not exist.