Group think and surveillance, Transactive memory and online gaming

Group think is a decision making process characterized by the agreement on a solution reached by a group of individuals with the least amount of conflict possible. Often times in group think each individual does not need to postulate at his full capacity, or disclose all of his ideas to the entire group, as he relies on other group members to contribute and does not wish to express a minority opinion that may cause conflict within the group. Group think can be applied to the concept of surveillance, particularly a historical example. During the Cold War U.S. intelligence struggled to determine whether the USSR was harboring nuclear weapons both in their own nation and in Cuba, as they threatened they had. The presidential administrations at this time were very muched focused on the containment of communism; therefore many high profile officials and politicians would "go with the group" as they did not want people to think that they themselves were communist sympathizers. Therefore we flew spy planes, unauthorized, over the USSR and Cuba, and there was a huge scandal when the Soviets discovered our surveillance. This is one example in which group think may be ineffective, as it allows fear to drive a lot of decision making.

Transactive memory is also a group process, but each member only remembers a certain amount of important information pertaining to the problem, so the group all together can remember everything needed to solve the problem because each person brings his or her own knowledge to the table. This concept applies to online gaming in that each player brings a specialty or set of knowledge in playing the game. When players can communicate with one another via audio or text (like in World of Warcraft, Command and Conquer, etc.) they can share tips, strategies, troubleshoot, or even share cheat codes with one another to play the game more effectively. Each person does not have to be an expert player to receive expert player results because of transactive memory.