A group of closely associated colleagues has made a disastrous diplomatic decision after a series of meetings marked ...

Ravi on May 23, 2019

@Shiyi-Zhang,

Happy to help.

The question says, "A group of closely associated colleagues has made
a disastrous diplomatic decision after a series of meetings marked by
disagreement over conflicting alternatives. It can be inferred from
the passage that the author would be most likely to say that this
scenario..."

(C) says, "provides no evidence that groupthink played a role in the
group’s decision"

We know the people are closely associated and colleagues with one
another. They're debating alternative decisions. From this, we can
infer that the people in this group are cohesive, as this type of
blatant disagreement does not occur in groups that are not cohesive
(lines 5-7). What else can we figure out about this group? Did they
act in a groupthink-like manner? We know from the passage that
groupthink happens when people aren't critical about group proposals
and don't raise their objections to them (lines 21-31). However, this
doesn't look to be the case with this group, as the group had heated
debates. Additionally, in looking at the author factors of groupthink
mentioned by the researchers in lines 40-52 (including overestimating
the group's correctness, closed-mindedness to alternative ideas, and
strong pressure to conform to the consensus), we have no evidence that
the group described in the stimulus is exhibiting any of these
characteristics. Thus, (C) says what the author would likely think
about this group—there's no evidence that they're committing
groupthink.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!