Group Cognition - Prejudices Against The Concept of Group Cognition

Prejudices Against The Concept of Group Cognition

Social psychologists have occasionally referred to group cognition. However, the discipline has generally rejected the notion for fear of conjuring up images of trans-personal "metaphysical" phenomena. Sociologists emphasized the negative possibilities of "group think" or "mass psychology", whereby members of a group are persuaded by peer pressure to forsake their own individual rationality. Psychology is focused on the individual as the unit of analysis. Twentieth century psychology reacts against popularized readings of earlier idealist philosophy and tends to reduce social phenomena to individual psychology or rational calculation.

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