DISSENT:
AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE
David N. Berg
Berg, D. N. (2011). Dissent. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 63, 50-65.
In 1968, helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson flew into the thick of what he thought was a fierce
battle in South Vietnam and discovered instead, that a massacre was going on—of women,
children and elderly men at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Horrified, he landed his helicopter
between the soldiers and the civilians, ordered his crew to fire on any American who
continued shooting, called for backup and rescued victims, digging through corpses to
rescue one child. An instant hero? He was made a pariah. For years when he walked into
officers clubs they emptied out. He got threatening phone messages. Dead animals were left
on his porch. When he was called to give closed congressional testimony, a senior lawmaker
said that if anyone deserved to be court-martialed, it was him.
—USA Today editorial (January 13, 2006)
I have been impressed by the way the Army’s professional journals allow some of our
brightest and most innovative officers to critique—sometimes bluntly—the way the service
does business, to include judgments about senior leadership. I encourage you to take on the
mantle of fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent when the situation calls for it. And, agree
with articles or not, senior officers should embrace such dissent as healthy dialogue and
protect and advance those considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle.
—Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, in a speech at West Point on April 21, 2008
The two quotations above illustrate an important but often ignored reality about
organizational life. Dissent plays a crucial role in the vitality of all human groups. These
quotations are drawn concerning the United States military precisely because the military
is a seemingly unlikely place to discover this reality. Many of us have come to believe that
the military, perhaps more than any other organization, would be endangered by active
dissent, that its mission would be undermined by any tolerance for, no less acceptance of
dissent. Yet even here we find actions and words testifying to the need for dissent.
Separated by almost 40 years, the My Lai massacre and the speech by Secretary Gates at
West Point share a deep connection. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military
took a long hard look at itself, an examination that included, ironically, an assessment of its
ability to be self-critical. Without a mechanism for critically reviewing military missions,
the army risked losing its ability to improve its effectiveness. Almost as important, without
a capacity to be openly self-critical (of failed strategies and tactics) the army made it more
likely that soldiers would enact their dissent in ways that undermined their fighting units
(e.g., AWOL, discipline breaches, “fragging”). This examination led directly to changes
inside the military (e.g., After Action Reviews) and, indirectly, to Secretary Gates’ speech in
2006.
The United States military is hardly alone in its struggle to bring dissent into its ranks.
Organizations of all types, public, private and not-for-profit train and socialize their
members to “align” themselves with the goals and objectives, programs and practices of the
institution. Subordinates and bosses are rarely educated in the tricky business of
expressing and handling dissent. They are much more likely to be schooled in discipline,
loyalty and dependability. In some organizations, members learn how to handle the
talented but rebellious individual, but managing dissent in relationships is hard to learn
when it is infrequently observed.
This paper will provide an intergroup view of dissent, distinct from the emphasis on
individual and intragroup perspectives most often found in social and organizational
psychology. The first section defines dissent in intergroup terms and describes the
experience of risk it entails. The second section gives three examples of dissent in different
social systems and examines them from an intergroup perspective. The final section, offers
a set of principles for managing the expression and productive use of dissent aimed at
those working in and with organizations.
DISSENT: AN INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVE
In the early days of the field, social psychologists studied conformity and deviance (Asch,
1951; Schachter, 1951; Milgram, 1963, 1974; Jackson, 1966; Janis, 1982). The early
“conformity” experiments demonstrated the power of groups to influence individual
perception and judgment (Asch, 1951). Schachter’s (1951) work on deviance focused on
the ways groups attempt to make the individual comply with the group norms or, failing
this, the ways they marginalize the deviant so as to preserve these norms. Later work on
norms in groups examined the ways in which groups doled out positive and negative
reinforcement to channel behavior into acceptable ranges (Jackson, 1966).
Milgram’s now famous studies of obedience (Milgram, 1963, 1974) were a landmark effort
to understand why individuals went along with authority when asked to produce pain and
discomfort in other human beings. Working in the decades following the Second World
War, Milgram was interested in obedience because the memory of how destructive
apparently blind obedience could be was fresh in everyone’s minds. A decade later, Janis’
(1982) work on “groupthink” analyzed political decision making at high levels in the United
States government to identify the mechanisms groups used to restrict “critical thinking”
and enforce consensus. His work focused on the problems members of highly cohesive
groups faced when “strivings for unanimity overrode their motivation to realistically
appraise alternative courses of action.”
One striking feature of this work was the relative inattention to dissent. Social
psychologists were interested in the group’s influence on the individual and, in some cases,
the individual’s role in creating and maintaining group norms. They were not, however,
particularly interested in the complexity of authority relations and especially in actions in
groups and organizations aimed at changing the nature of these authority relations
(Argyris, 1968). Even Milgram (1974), who did investigate the circumstances under which
individuals would stop following directions from an authority figure (e.g., when someone
else in their group stopped), did not explore if and when individuals tried to alter the
behavior of the authority figure. He was interested in the dynamics of obedience and
disobedience, not in the conditions in which group members challenged authority in order
to effect change.
In organizational psychology this relative disinterest in dissent is also apparent. Most
textbooks on groups and organizations devote significant attention to research on
conformity, norms and obedience but little to a discussion of dissent in groups. Behavior in
Organizations (Porter, Lawler, & Hackman, 1975), an organizational textbook published in
the same era, has much to say about conformity and norms, but nothing about dissent.
Thirty years later, Reframing Organizations (Bolman & Deal, 2008) revealed a similar
disinterest. It included no discussion of dissent.
I believe there is much to be gained from paying attention to the process of dissent in
organizations because dissent in groups and social systems is a normal, nonpathological
process that along with conformity contributes to the healthy functioning of these
organizations (Deutsch, 1973; Coser, 1956). Conformity and dissent are complementary
processes in social systems. Conformity allows for the development of reliable, consistent
behavior, the necessary foundation for roles and coordination among roles. Dissent can
provide the corrective feedback that allows a group or organization to adapt and innovate.
Specifically, dissent is an explicit or implicit critique of how those in authority have been
exercising that authority.
Human beings are social animals by nature and upbringing. We learn about the world
around us from direct experience and from knowledge passed on to us from the groups to
which we belong. The language, meaning systems and historical lenses of these groups,
mediate even our direct experience (Geertz, 1973). Each of us belongs to many groups,
some we are born into (sex, nationality, race, ethnicity, family) others we choose at some
stage of our lives (religion, organization, vocation) (Alderfer, 1987). If we view the
individual as both a unique personality and a representative of multiple groups (Rice, 1969;
Alderfer & Smith, 1982; Berg, 2005) then our view of dissent changes from an exclusively
individual expression of opposition to one that includes a component of intergroup
communication. In the terms used above, while dissent can be an intragroup protest by one
or more individuals about the group’s behavior or norms (Asch, 1952), it can also be
viewed as a critique of one group (those with primary authority) by another (those without
primary authority).
For purposes of this examination of dissent, I am most concerned with groups and
organizations that tend toward being what Alderfer (2012) calls overbounded, social
systems with a single defining goal, detailed roles and most important, a dominant and well
defined hierarchy. These systems are often ethnocentric (Sumner, 1906; Le Vine &
Campbell, 1972) regarding people and information within the group favorably and
denigrating the people and information outside the group (usually in other groups). Top
groups are especially susceptible to developing ethnocentric views because their journey to
the top of the organization convinces them that they know more than those below them.
Many have inhabited roles and groups below them in the organization at a different point
in time. Moreover, their responsibilities in the organization provide them with access to a
range of information that both expands their perspective and complicates their analyses.
The result is what Smith (1982) calls “structural encasements” and Oshry (2007) refers to
as “blind reflex.” The boundaries around a top group can become so restrictive that
important information about individuals and about the top group as a whole does not get in.
This group (similar to other groups but possessing greater formal authority and
responsibility) develops a view of the organization (and the world outside) that is
somewhat different from the experiences of other groups in its organization, and (also like
other ethnocentric groups) has the belief that its view is more accurate than the views of
others. Put in other words, the natural evolution of all groups in overbounded
organizations is to develop a world-view constrained by the restrictions (on people and
information) of its boundaries without adequate awareness of its own limitations in this
regard.
When a group, especially one with power and authority, comes to believe that its
perspective on the world is the only valid or right one, its relationships with other groups
change. Something has been lost. The groups with less formal power and authority can lose
confidence that the top group is aware of its “groupness,” aware that its view of reality is
circumscribed by its boundaries. Here arises the foundation of dissent.
Dissent is the assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to
believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. Dissenters
believe that the isolation of the upper group represents either a threat to the core mission
of the organization or a threat to the well-being of the dissenting group. Dissent is not
primarily a substantive disagreement about tactics or approaches. It is a protest against the
upper group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its environment, groups
on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it. Put in slightly different words, dissent
says, “You, the responsible authority, have cut yourself off from other groups and have
come to the belief that your group views, constrained and limited by your experience,
background, roles and goals, are universal views, accurate and right. We have come to
demonstrate that your views are limited by expressing ours which we hold to be just as
accurate and right as yours.” If the dissenting group were aware of and could speak about
the effects of its own “groupness” it might add, “We too are unaware of the ways in which
our substantive views are constrained by our experience, background, roles and goals. But
we see your limitations more clearly.”
Dissent can be the antidote to the natural tendency for groups to see only one view of the
social, political, and economic world around them. It is one of the few “corrective”
mechanisms to a process of ethnocentric estrangement, the separation that grows between
groups as each begins to believe in the universality of its experience. This estrangement
imperils the ability of groups to work together, to create or produce together, and to exist
in proximity to each other. Dissent can provide an opportunity to recognize and respond to
this estrangement. It is also important to note that this conceptualization of dissent does
not imply that the dissenting group is always “right” or accurate. This remains to be
determined. Rather, an intergroup perspective views the occurrence of dissent as a piece of
data about the state of the relationship between two groups with different authority and
power. And the expression of dissent provides an opportunity to test the validity of beliefs,
assumptions, and theories that might lead the top group in counterproductive directions.
But dissent carries with it significant risk. The critique of authority is a dangerous activity
especially in overbounded organizations because the legitimate right to exercise power is
vested in those with formal authority. At a minimum, dissent puts one’s relationship with
those in authority at risk. It can also put at risk one’s future, one’s career, one’s livelihood,
and in extreme cases, one’s family. When any person or group expresses criticism of those
who have authority the degree of risk they face is what distinguishes dissent from milder
substantive, specific, content-related disagreement. Dissent challenges the fundamental
legitimacy of an upper group’s authority; disagreement expresses a difference with an
upper group while accepting the premises on which its authority rests.
Returning to the speech on dissent that opened this paper, one could interpret the content
of the speech as a tacit acknowledgment by Secretary Gates that even after the lessons of
Vietnam and the implementation of recommended changes in military planning and review,
dissent is still risky in the military. Why else would the Secretary of Defense include a
pointed directive to the cadets’ superiors to “protect and advance” those who choose to
play a dissenting role in the military? Kaplan (2006) reported that one year before the
Gates speech, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling published a widely read article in the Armed
Forces Journal that was critical of the U.S. general officer corps. What was Yingling’s reward
for his dissenting views? His Iraq based battalion was assigned to prison-guard detail and
Yingling himself was tasked with rehabilitating Iraqi detainees. As Kaplan wrote, “it’s
hardly the center of things and it’s the very opposite of a career enhancer” (p. 2).
CASE EXAMPLES
Although the language of conformity and dissent may conjure up images of nation-states
and demagoguery, the expression of dissent is natural and necessary, especially in
organizations that are becoming overbounded. We will examine three very different kinds
of groups, a family, a health care team and combat units in the United States military.
Though concretely different, these three cases have in common a tendency toward being
overbounded and the presence of significant dissent.
Family
The Olam family has a longstanding practice of sitting down to dinner together at 6 p.m.
each evening. Ever since the two children in the family were able to sit at the table, the
parents felt it was important for the family to convene at the dinner hour to share a meal.
Both parents went to considerable lengths to make this possible by arranging their work
schedules to allow them to be home, and, for one of them, to be home in time to prepare the
meal. The two children are now teenagers in high school and being on time for dinner has
become a problem.
Robert, the first-born, is a serious student and a responsible young man. He is almost
always on time for dinner and when he isn’t, his explanation elicits empathy from his
parents and easy forgiveness. Robert has talked to his parents about the dinner hour rule
and the challenges it poses for him, especially in his senior year in high school. The
conversation has sometimes been intense, though respectful, but the outcome is always the
same. Robert’s parents reiterate their view of the importance of the family dinner,
including its role in providing time for the family to remain “connected.” The conversation
ends with talk about continuing this family tradition and Robert vows to continue to do his
best to be home on time.
His sister Beth, a sophomore, is often late for dinner. It is not unusual for her to be half an
hour late or to miss most of dinner altogether. This is very upsetting to her parents, but
when they express their displeasure to Beth the confrontation escalates quickly. She
screams that they do not understand the hardship this “dinner thing” imposes on her and
her relationships with others. In the worst moments of these confrontations, Beth’s parents
tell her that they don’t care what other people think and do or what impact this family
commitment has on others. Eating dinner together during the week is for their family. And
it is important. When Beth’s parents try to discipline her for her tardiness, the tension
mounts and the effect is minimal. Beth continues to come late.
This familiar family drama can be understood in many ways. Many readers with children
will recognize the “first child, second child” explanation for these events. This view holds
that first children are more attuned to their parents’ expectations and aspirations, tethered
more closely to parental wishes and values during adolescence and more likely to be the
“good” child. The second child in this picture is more rebellious, testing the limits her older
sibling seems willing to accept. This “theory” can be relatively simple (e.g., second children
are rebellious), more complex (e.g., because of their position in the family, second children
are more free to express the individuation that all children feel during adolescence) or
quite sophisticated (e.g., the rebellious child is acting on behalf of the other children in the
family, gets more than her fair share of parental sanctions thereby sparing her siblings and
making it easier for both their older and younger siblings to navigate the constraints of the
family and the liberating desires of adolescence).
An intergroup perspective on Beth’s dissent adds another layer to our understanding of
what is happening in this family. Beth is certainly expressing her wish to be freed from the
constraints of six o’clock family dinner. This particular norm has become a burden to her.
She wants out. When her parents refuse she starts to “act out,” expressing her dissent by
absenting herself from dinner with an apparent willingness to suffer the disciplinary
consequences. If we treat Beth as a representative of the adolescent group (and accept the
fact that this is a familiar family event or that Robert encourages his sister in her dissent)
we seek to understand what message she is sending to the parental group. Is it simply that
she wants to abolish the family dinner? Or is she trying to convey that her parents have lost
any insight into the realities that adolescents face or any empathy for those realities,
preferring the realities of the parental group and allowing those realities alone to guide
their use of authority in a family that includes adolescents and parents? This second
interpretation acknowledges that both groups are encased in a worldview born of their
place in that world. But the power difference between the two groups means that while the
children might wish to construct family rules that serve an adolescent view of the world,
they do not have the power and authority to do so. The parents have the power (and, some
might argue, the responsibility) to construct family rules that serve their possibly more
mature parental worldview. This power together with their worldview and their inevitable
separation from the adolescent perspective (including their own from years past) provides
the impetus for the dissent.
Health Care Team
A third year surgical resident told of the time she was doing hospital rounds and came to
see an 80-year-old man with severe dementia suffering from a gangrenous leg and who had
recently experienced a stroke that had rendered him unable to communicate (Berman,
2010). The blood flow to his leg was so poor that there was no detectable pulse up to his
groin. He was in and out of consciousness. The resident had discussed the patient’s
situation with his son, the man’s surrogate decision maker. The only surgical option was a
major intervention and would leave the man bed-bound for the rest of his life. The son had
decided that his father would not want to live under these physical and mental conditions.
The resident left “orders” to provide comfort care only for the patient.
While “rounding” with her team (consisting of a junior resident, an intern, and a medical
student), the resident described the course of the disease, the discussions with the patient’s
family, and the course of treatment. In this case, no extraordinary measures would be taken
and the team would work hard to make the patient as comfortable and pain free as possible.
Before they left the patient’s room, the resident removed the oxygen feed from the patient’s
nose and turned off the vital signs monitor.
A few moments later as the team passed in the hallway to another room, the resident
noticed that the oxygen had been replaced. She stepped into the room, assuming there had
been a misunderstanding of the physician orders written on the chart, and once again
removed the oxygen and turned off the monitor in accordance with the family’s wishes and
her instructions. As she was leaving the patient’s room she saw a nurse slip out. It was then
that the doctor realized there had been no misunderstanding; the nurse was disobeying her
orders. When she found the nurse later that morning, he had assembled a group of nurses
to support his position, yet it was clear to the resident that the nurse was petrified of the
looming confrontation.
When the resident observed that the nurse’s behavior made clear that he was not in
support of the doctor’s orders and asked his thoughts, he replied “If you want to kill this
patient that’s fine, but I’m not going to help you!” Later the resident began to reflect on the
situation. The unit on which this occurred was a “step down” unit known for its heroic
efforts on behalf of patients. In the world- view of this unit, the nurses were the patients’
staunch advocates for any and all measures to promote patient health. The nurse did not
understand the new treatment plan for this patient (he had not talked with the family or
been included in the discussions about the patient’s care) and even if he had, there is
reason to believe, given the intense norms on the unit, that he would not have agreed with
it. He saw the health care world differently from his position in it. Similarly, the resident
was looking at this patient through the lens of her knowledge of the medical options, her
conversation with the patient’s legal health care surrogate and her role as the senior
medical person on this case.
Faced with the legitimate authority of the resident, filled with the professional
responsibility of nurses on the unit, and believing that the doctor had set her mind on the
wrong course of action that she believed to be right because of her professional group
membership, the nurse felt he had no choice but to enact his dissent. Upon reflection, the
resident was glad the nurse had expressed his concerns, even to the point of disobedience.
She realized that in a hospital, where the doctor’s orders are rarely questioned, even when
flawed, it was important for her to hear from the nurses. Furthermore, she might not have
heard the power and intensity of their views in a conversation involving words alone. The
dissent did not change her views of what to do for this patient in this situation, but it did
alert her to the fact that the relationship between the three groups, doctors, nurses, and the
family on this step down unit had broken down. Each group had lost an under- standing of
the other’s view of the work at hand and replaced it with the certainty of its own.
In this case, as in many cases in organizations, the possible intergroup issues at play are
highly complex. The fact that the nurse was a man and the resident doctor was a woman
probably contributed to each believing that the other group did not understand its
perspective. I am not certain what role gender played in this event; the possibilities are
instructive.
The individual who expresses dissenting views on behalf of a group can often be someone
who, by virtue of his historical relationship to his own group, feels acutely the need to
prove himself by upholding one of the cardinal norms of the group. A male in a female and
lower status profession (i.e., nursing) might therefore be more susceptible to expressing
the intensely heroic norms of the unit in the face of apparent physician disregard. Similarly,
women in medicine, a higher status, comparatively gender integrated profession, face
stereotypes. It is possible that this surgeon’s “failure” to involve the nurses in the treatment
plan, in spite of her personal belief in the value of their contribution may have been
influenced by a belief that consulting nurses is not what the surgeon group does.
My Lai
The quotation at the start of this article refers to a massacre by American forces in Vietnam
in March of 1968. The Vietnam War was a complicated military and political war. On March
16, 1968, Lt. William Calley, saying he believed he was carrying out a superior’s orders to
“kill the enemy,” presided over and participated in the murder of over 300 civilians in the
village of My Lai.
This event in itself is a remarkable example of the power of group norms, especially norms
developed in times of intense conflict with other groups. It is also remarkable that few in Lt.
Calley’s unit disobeyed his orders to kill civilians (or what he might have called
“nonmilitary combatants”) and those who did disobey were unable or unwilling to stop the
killing. Of the 105 soldiers under his direct command, only a handful disobeyed. This is all
the more noteworthy in light of the subsequent report that many of his men believed Lt.
Calley was not a competent officer and had considered “fragging” him before the events of
March 16.
Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson was flying a support helicopter on the day of the My
Lai massacre. He was not under Lt. Calley’s direct command though he was junior to Calley
in the military hierarchy. Upon seeing the massacre unfold on the ground beneath him,
Thompson landed his helicopter between the American troops and the Vietnamese
civilians and demanded to know what was going on. When no answer justified the killing of
women and children, Thompson ordered his men to collect survivors from a ditch in which
dozens had been killed and flew them out of the hamlet to safety. Thompson returned a
second time to rescue a small child. When his mission was over, he reported what he had
seen and done to his superiors.
Ronald Ridenhour was in the same locale as Hugh Thompson at the end of 1967 and the
beginning of 1968. He was not at My Lai on the day of the massacre, but he was familiar
with the village from having flown helicopter reconnaissance in the area. In the weeks
following the massacre, Ridenhour began hearing stories about the massacre at My Lai
from soldiers who had trained with him in Hawaii. At first he was horrified by what the
men who had served under Lt. Calley at My Lai on the day of the massacre were telling him.
He had no doubt they were telling the truth to a fellow draftee and army grunt. While in
Vietnam he resolved to do what he could to prompt an investigation into the massacre.
When he was discharged he gathered as many of the “facts” as he could. Nearly everyone to
whom he spoke, military personnel as well as family and friends, told him not to pursue his
efforts to bring the massacre to light.
The official version of that day had already been written into the Army’s account of the war,
that 128 Vietcong had been killed at My Lai with only one American wounded. Ridenhour
knew this was a lie. Only one draft age Vietnamese man had been seen that day, running
(with a weapon) away from the village as the helicopters began to arrive. No weapons had
been seen or discovered in the village. In the face of official lies and countless first hand
accounts of a massacre at My Lai, Ronald Ridenhour wrote to then President Nixon and 30
Congressmen to request an investigation. Morris Udall, a Congressman from Arizona, took
up the cause.
William Calley was the only man convicted of wrongdoing by a military court, and he
testified that he was merely following orders. Calley spent one weekend in the stockade
and three years under house arrest before being pardoned in 1974. Some have argued that
Calley was made a scapegoat for the atrocities at My Lai. There were, after all, others higher
in the chain of command who were present that day either on the ground or in the air.
William Calley was put in command when many around him believed he was unfit to wield
authority in the military. But the Army was under intense pressure to find bodies to fight,
bodies to command, and bodies to count.
One of the back-stories to the dissent by Thompson and Ridenhour involves the behavior of
the Pentagon leadership in the months prior to the My Lai massacre. The war in Vietnam
was not going well from the perspective of the military and civilian leadership. In an effort
to convince the public that this messy war, in which “winning” was hard to define, when
hilltops were taken one day and then abandoned weeks later, was indeed being handled
successfully, the Pentagon began to measure military success by the number of enemy
combatants killed. The metric to assess the war became these body counts. Every combat
unit was responsible for reporting the number of enemy combatants killed during an
operation. It was often impossible to verify the “combat status” of a dead body, but the
pressure to produce tangible evidence of military success was clear and strong.
It was apparent to Ridenhour (Linder, 1999) in his initial tour on the reconnaissance
helicopter that something was awry. “Now we would pop up over a tree line or a hedge row
and there’d be two or three guys standing out in the rice field with guns. We’d engage them
and usually we’d kill one or two of them, but they were well trained and they’d all run in
different directions. Usually some would get away and some wouldn’t, but in that entire 4month time we only killed 36 people, I believe, in that neighborhood. We replaced a unit in
that same area which was doing exactly the same thing, and had only been there for eight
months before we arrived, and they killed over seven hundred people in eight months.
What that said to me, since we were out doing the same thing, exactly the same thing in
exactly the same area, is that they were killing—they were just out there killing a lot of
people, folks. They were being a lot less discriminating than we were about who we were
engaging. We were looking for people with guns, which is what we were supposed to be
doing” (p. 1). This occurred before the My Lai events and suggests that the context in which
the massacre occurred included significant pressure from above simply to increase body
counts.
There are a number of important implications of the My Lai experience for the discussion
of dissent. First, it is clear that this individual act of dissent was not simply an individual act.
Thompson’s crew, as a group, followed his directive to obstruct the local commanding
officer’s orders to kill the hamlet’s civilians. More important, the process of dissent
involved Ridenhour, and a significant number of other soldiers who had been on the
ground during the operation, testifying to what they had seen and heard. In the face of
persistent pressure not to bring forward a picture of events at My Lai that contradicted the
Army’s official history, one man alone might not have succeeded. (In fact, Hugh Thompson
wrote up what he saw at My Lai and submitted his account through channels, but he was
not the instigator of the letter to Congress that initiated the subsequent investigation.) This
suggests that the dissent was an intergroup communication from the military rank and file
to the higher-ranking command structure.
Second, the dissent concerning My Lai in the field and later in the form of Ridenhour’s
personal investigation together with the letter to Congress appears to be an outgrowth of a
long simmering tension between combat soldiers in Vietnam and those in the field who
represented the command structure in Washington. The men in Calley’s unit were
wondering about his selection to officer rank by the Army brass before the My Lai incident.
Ridenhour began to wonder what was happening on the ground in Vietnam when it
became clear to him and his helicopter crew that noncombatants were being killed despite
formal orders to the contrary.
There was no doubt that political leaders in Washington were frustrated with the way the
Vietnam War was unfolding. Defining success in terms of dead bodies was a measure of last
resort, especially when it was clear on the ground long before it was acceptable in
Washington that the Vietnam War could not be won with any conventional military
strategy available to the United States Army. What was known by those lower ranking men
fighting the war “in the trenches” could not be “heard” by those higher-ranking officials in
charge of the war in the Pentagon. These higher-ranking officials included the Secretary of
Defense and the President of the United States.
Finally, despite the impression that the dissent was expressed by those outside Lt. Calley’s
unit (Thompson, Ridenhour), the testimonials that Ridenhour collected and the testimony
that was compelled in Lt. Calley’s court martial came from the same men who had carried
out the orders to kill civilians. In the language of group and intergroup relations, the
conformity and the dissent came from within the unit. Both processes were present in the
unit, often in the same individuals, as they struggled both to follow orders and to protest
the decision-making that led to those orders. Only after the massacre did the dissenting
voices, except for Hugh Thompson’s, find expression.
LEARNING TO WORK WITH DISSENT
The relative lack of attention to dissent in textbooks devoted to organizational behavior is
matched by the relative lack of attention to helping organization members learn about
dissent. Yet dissent, as the three cases show, can be an important corrective process in
groups and organizations. The ability of a group or organization both to express and to
work with dissent can affect its capacity to adapt and change. Without a productive way of
managing dissent, groups and organizations increase their risk that any goals they set, any
strategies they adopt, or any decisions they make will be constructed from a partial
understanding of the issues they face. As discussed earlier, dissent is a protest against the
authority group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its environment, groups
on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it. This isolation and its consequences
argue for the importance of equipping organizational members, both those at the top and
those below, with a set of principles for working with dissent.
The Group Membership Principle
The Group Membership Principle is defined as follows: Group memberships affect all of us.
No one is exempt. We can come to understand what those effects are, on ourselves and to a
lesser extent on others, and this can help us make choices about how to act in groups and
organizations, how to collect and evaluate information, how to make decisions and how to
take action.
An understanding of dissent starts with intergroup relations. As discussed previously, the
groups to which we belong powerfully influence our experiences, how we interpret them,
and what actions we take as a result. The newspapers we read, the opinions we pay
attention to, the counsel we most often seek as well as the way we feel about what we see
and hear are mediated through our group memberships. And yet this observation about
human behavior, cognition and affect is rarely integrated into how we take up our roles in
groups and organizations. Once inside these roles we may very well acknowledge that
others are influenced by their group affiliations, but act as if we are not.
This principle is more difficult to live by than is apparent, for it suggests that continuous
inquiry into the divergence of various group-based worldviews is better preparation for
acting in this world than is a static confidence in our broader view. Indeed, one might argue
that confidence in one’s broad or universal understanding is an effect of group membership.
One implication of this principle is that it is important to seek out the limitations of our
group-based awareness. We must solicit from those who belong to different groups, their
views on the issues facing the social system we both inhabit. We may not “know” these
other groups or not have easy access to them (nor they to us) but creating settings in which
groups, both organizational and identity, can learn about each other’s experiences is crucial.
This is not an easy task, but it is possible (Alderfer, Tucker, Alderfer, & Tucker, 1988).
The Hierarchy Principle
The Hierarchy Principle is defined as follows: Top groups in organizations are likely to be
encased in their views of the world by the withholding of negative feedback from groups
below that feel vulnerable to the displeasure of these more powerful groups.
The particular challenges of relationships between groups with differential power and
authority are well known (Oshry, 2007; Smith, 1982). Yet knowledge does not often
translate into effective ways of handling these challenges. Ineffective methods often include
efforts to stifle and coopt (as opposed to listen to and consider) dissent. Although all
groups develop a view of the world that is circumscribed by the role and function of the
group accompanied by a lack of awareness of these limitations, groups with organizational
authority, that is, those at the top of organizational hierarchies, often have significantly
greater power to act on these limited world views in ways that affect the whole
organization. These limitations are compounded by the ways information is filtered as it
goes up any hierarchy (Vogel, 1967; Roberts & O’Reilly, 1974). Information that has not
been well received in the past tends, over time, to lead members of lower power groups to
remove similar types of information from subsequent communications up the organization.
The special encasement of groups at the top is often perceived as a more serious threat to
the organization’s well being than similar encasements of other groups.
Most members of top groups in organizations understand this principle but do not know
what to do about it. In their frustration, they will walk into a lower group and ask for
feedback, or “buttonhole” a member of a lower group to ask how things are going. This is
not an effective means of getting critical feedback (though it can look and even feel good)
because in both cases the question is asked across an intergroup boundary and is subject to
all the filters and cognitive interpretations that characterize any cross-group
communication, especially communication across hierarchical groups. Other times, top
group members may hope that one or two “trusted” members of a lower power group will
compensate for the effects of hierarchy. This is unlikely (even while the idea is comforting).
In hierarchical intergroup relations, the structural power differences between groups
usually trump the personal relations between individuals. When it does not, we may call it
betrayal or dissent (depending upon which group we are in).
The implication of this principle is that when a top group seeks information from a lower
power group it must first convene the group (or a substantial number of representatives
from this group), providing it with safe and anonymous space in which to consider and
respond to a request for information. Soliciting information, especially negative or critical
information from individuals is unlikely to produce much insight.
The Complementarity Principle
The Complementarity Principle is defined as follows: Differentiation or specialization
among groups means that these groups need each other to piece together an accurate
understanding of their shared circumstance. The different views of specialized groups (by
function, role, authority, purpose) are complementary. Dissent can be an effort by one group
to alert one or more groups to the loss of the awareness of this fundamental complementarity.
As we have discussed, all groups have a limited or imperfect view of the world in which
they exist. The imperfections arise from the “specialization” that attends the creation of
boundaries around any group (Oshry, 2007). If you are trained as an engineer you spend
your time learning about engineering and not marketing. If you have spent your life in
marketing, you probably know little about engineering. The longer you have been out of the
infantry (in general command, e.g.) the less likely you are to be able to execute an infantry
maneuver, a maneuver that uses entirely different equipment than it did 20 years ago.
Similarly, the infantry grunt would be in no position to handle the strategy and politics of
general command.
The fact that all groups have a limited view of their world is accompanied by the
observation that in most cases these limitations are complementary, and each contributes
something to a deeper and more developed understanding of the task, the situation at hand.
The reason most manufacturing organizations have both engineering and marketing
departments is because they would not survive without both. An approach to a military
campaign that relied solely on command information or solely on reports from the field
would be severely endangered. The specialization that creates groups with different tasks
simultaneously attests to the complementarity among them and requires a coordinating
function to realize that complementarity.
When groups share the same context the specialization that evolves (explicitly or
implicitly) both estranges these groups from each other and allows them to be more
effective than any one of them could be alone if they can coordinate their complementarity.
Without specialization, the depth or expertise of any group is constrained, but the
specialization inevitably limits the groups’ perspectives. As a result, without some
awareness and coordination of their complementary contributions, their shared
effectiveness is endangered. Oshry (2007) calls this the process of differentiating and
dedifferentiating, specializing and then integrating. The problem is that one of the
consequences of intergroup estrangement is the belief that other groups have little to offer
that would enhance one’s own group’s perspective.
The implication of this principle is that one important act of routine maintenance for all
groups is a mapping of the areas in which they depend on the efforts, perspectives or
expertise of other groups (Johnson, 1996). This mapping requires periodic assessments of
one’s own group’s strengths and weaknesses along with a parallel assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses of the other groups in its organizational environment. This
process often requires consultative help since the ethnocentric estrangement may make it
hard for groups to see their own weaknesses and other groups’ strengths.
The Focal Dissenter Principle
The Focal Dissenter Principle is defined as follows: Dissent is almost always an intergroup
event with the dissenter implicitly or explicitly representing a group (or subgroup) in his or
her actions or words. The more visible the group behind the focal dissenter can be, the more
likely the substance of the dissent will be taken seriously by the authority group and the less
likely the focal dissenter will end up a scapegoat.
The image of the lone dissenter, though the stuff of legends, is rarely an accurate picture of
the development of dissent. This paper has treated dissent as primarily an intergroup event,
a communication from one group to another in which individuals play roles in both the
sending and receiving of this communication. The focal dissenter, for example, undoubtedly
“volunteers” for the role because of a predisposition (e.g., against authoritarian processes
or for participatory ones), but he or she also acts with the support of others (Wells, 1985).
In the three examples described above such support was present. The sister who comes
late to dinner enacts her brother’s wish for more flexibility as well as her own. The other
nurses on the unit flank the nurse who reattaches the oxygen mask when the senior
resident comes to inquire about why her orders were not followed. His helicopter crew
backs Hugh Thompson at the moment of his verbal and physical dissent, but his dissent is
also supported by Ridenhour’s actions later in the year and by the testimony of other
soldiers during the courts martial.
The reason why dissent appears to be a consequence of individual action is because dissent
is risky. If a vulnerable group can enlist one of its members to express collective distress
about its relationship with a more powerful group, the rest of the group is protected
against possible retaliation. In most cases the dissenting group is trying to express a
broadly shared protest while simultaneously isolating the protest in one person as a way of
protecting the group. Involving more individuals in the group’s dissent increases the power
of the dissent and provides some protection for the group’s spokesperson, and may put
more individuals at risk.
The selection of a focal dissenter is not always explicit. Sometimes it is the residue of many
conversations and activities over a long period of time after which it seems right for a
particular individual to take the lead. Other times individuals feel that they have no choice
but to express their dissent. They are impelled to act. The question here is what (or who)
impels them? From an intergroup perspective the answer is a meaningful group in their
lives. For some of these individuals the meaningful group is the one around them—their
siblings, professional group, fellow employees, or crewmembers. For others, the
meaningful group may be one that is carried with them, in the mind, with deep historical
roots. “It was the moral thing to do” is a familiar description of the motivation behind
dissenters. Morality is something we learn, from our families and cultural groups. What
compels us to act morally is our fidelity to a set of group norms. When each of us acts as an
individual we are also acting as a representative of the groups that taught us moral
guidelines shared by the members of these groups.
The implication of this principle is to always look at the groups to which a dissenting
individual belongs as a potential explanation for the source of the dissent. It may not
always be clear to what groups the individual belongs or which of those the individual is
representing (Berg, 2005) but without considering which group is behind the individual it
is impossible to convene that group (cf. The Hierarchy Principle) to solicit information from
it. The Focal Dissenter Principle asserts that there is always a group behind the individual
dissenter. When managing dissent we must seek to identify that group.
The Engagement Principle
The Engagement Principle is defined as follows: Dissenters struggle with the paradoxical
need to stay engaged with an authority with which it experiences a loss of connection. Dissent
is a communication between two groups about what one group believes is happening to the
relationship between them. It is not an act or set of acts intended to destroy that relationship.
The most effective way to stay engaged with a flawed authority group is to work at
recognizing one’s own limitations as a group. This self-critique creates a collective empathy
(or in the boundary terms used earlier, an openness in the other group’s perspective) that
allows the dissenters to see aspects of themselves in the authority group and to identify
with them. While it is possible to conceptualize destroying a relationship as a form of
dissent, this view requires that an “audience” watching both groups (dissenters and
authority) is engaged enough in the dissent and meaningful enough to the authority group
such that the audience reaction to the termination of the relationship will have an impact
on the authority (Hirschman, 1970). (The so-called Saturday Night Massacre in which Elliot
Richardson resigned as Attorney General rather than carry out President Nixon’s order to
fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox is an example of when the destruction of a
relationship functions as dissent.) More common is the form of dissent in which the
dissenters’ engagement with the authority is crucial to the potential success of the dissent
(“you need to change your relationship to us”). The temptation to withdraw while
expressing dissent can be very strong; giving in to this temptation marks the end of the
dissent.
For those who are in the group that is the object of dissent the goal is to recognize, respond
to, and revisit the dissent in ways that increase the authority group’s learning about itself.
Since dissent is a communication from the dissenters to the authority group that the latter
has begun acting as if it has a complete and correct understanding of the organizational
world both groups inhabit, the statement to the authority group is to seek ways of
discovering its own blind spots and to create relationships with groups whose perspectives
will reduce the severity of its own limitations. The last three principles apply specifically to
authority groups seeking to work with dissent and to stay engaged with the dissenters.
The Recognition Principle
The Recognition Principle is defined as follows: Since dissent is often expressed through a
focal individual it is easily misdiagnosed as a personal issue or interpersonal grievance. There
are instances of individual behavior in organized settings in which the person is acting solely
on his or her own, but these are rare. Persistent dissent is a product of a group sentiment.
Even when the support for the focal individual is not public, it exists, for if it did not, the lower
power group itself would ultimately suppress or overtly disassociate itself from the focal
individual.
The implication of this principle is that authority groups must learn to recognize the group
level dissent in the actions of an individual rather than assume, in a way that serves the
authority group’s sense of its own “complete” understanding, that a sentiment expressed
by an individual is merely that individual’s sentiment. In the United States especially, this
recognition problem can be acute. We tend to explain most organizational events by
reference to individual characteristics (e.g., personality) or interpersonal differences (e.g.,
personality conflicts). In so doing we make it more difficult to recognize the intergroup
dimensions of dissent (Wells, 1985).
When faced with a dissenting individual, the diagnostic questions that can aid in
recognizing the collective phenomenon that is often the essence of dissent is: What does
the group with which this individual identifies gain from this person’s behavior? Why has
he or she been “put up” to this activity? What might be disturbing the group that it is afraid
to convey but that needs expression? Merely asking these questions and struggling to
formulate possible (and meaningful) answers can shift the focus from the individual to the
broader system.
The Response Principle
The Response Principle is defined as follows: The response by authority groups to dissent
needs to involve opening the group’s boundary if the group is to have a chance of taking in the
communication about the dissenting group’s perspective. It is quite natural for all groups, but
especially groups with significant power and authority, to close down their boundaries in
response to dissent from outside. Especially if a group believes its views to be accurate, right
and well informed, dissent from other groups can be experienced as potentially dangerous or
corrupting since it follows logically that outside perspectives will be inaccurate, wrong and
poorly informed. Yet it is precisely this belief that the dissenting group is challenging.
The challenge of opening up a group’s boundary in the face of dissent cannot be overstated.
It is arguably the most difficult aspect of responding to dissent even though decisions about
how to treat the dissenters may stir more intense emotions. One of the most robust
findings in the field of intergroup relations is the closing down of boundaries around
groups that are in conflict with each other (Coser, 1956; Le Vine and Campbell, 1972).
Dissent is a strong statement of conflicting views between groups. We should expect both
groups to close down their boundaries in the face of what they expect will be toxic
emanations (words and actions) from the other group. This reaction merely intensifies the
conflict, as each group feels increasingly estranged and unheard.
Opening up an authority group’s boundaries starts with taking the dissenting group
seriously. The first response to dissent is often dismissive, especially if there is a focal
individual (a daughter, a male nurse, a helicopter pilot). The characteristics of the focal
individual that make him or her unrepresentative are emphasized and the possibility that
the dissent is widely shared ridiculed. Counterintuitively, taking the dissenter seriously
involves examining the meaning and merit of the dissent within the authority group. This
can be done by asking some in the authority group to make a serious case for the dissenters
or by asking members of the authority group to use examples from their own experience
that support one or more aspects of the dissent. Simply asking for these activities (in
intergroup terms, asking the group to find and explore inside themselves that which has
been historically noticed or kept outside the group) is not enough to ensure that they are
undertaken in a meaningful way, but asking is the first step. The higher the person in
authority who asks, the more likely the activity will be done seriously.
It is also possible for an authority group to open up other boundaries in an effort to
improve its ability to understand the dissenters’ message. In the face of dissent, many
authority groups reduce their communication to other groups or restrict their
communication to formulaic responses. This is especially true with regard to any public
communication where an audience is involved. Some organizations and governments,
however, realize that this results in less understanding of the basis of the dissent and so
will open up “back channels” that enable more “frank exchanges of views.” It is possible to
create mechanisms for frank exchanges when dissent occurs (e.g., ad hoc task forces, joint
committees) and many organizations do. When the groups involved authorize these
mechanisms they can create deeper understanding of the problems in the relationship
between the groups. Too often, however, these mechanisms are used to defuse or coopt the
dissent rather than to understand and to engage it.
The Revisiting Principle
The Revisiting Principle is defined as follows: Revisiting dissent after the initial shock of
protest involves a commitment to further data collection. Since dissent is a communication
that the authority group has become ethnocentrically estranged from the lower power group,
the consequences of that estrangement may not be readily apparent. Dissent conveys the
message that while the authority group believes itself to be perfect in its understanding of the
organizational world around it, the specific nature of its imperfect understanding remains to
be discovered.
Ultimately the purpose of dissent is to reform the authority group’s understanding of itself,
a reformation that includes an assessment and incorporation of the group’s limitations as
well as its assets. (The dissenting group may also need some reforming of its selfunderstanding, but this paper has focused on dissent upward.) For most groups, this
assessment has both an internal and an external component. The internal component,
accessing the self-critical assessments of the top group made by lower groups, can be a
challenge because one of the consequences of ethnocentrism in groups is a suppression of
internal criticism (Le Vine and Campbell, 1972). The first step in collecting data is
systematically to conduct the authority group’s own self-evaluation. The external
component recognizes that any internal assessment, however rigorous, must be incomplete.
Other groups’ perceptions of the limitations and incompleteness of the authority group are
also important and comprise the second step in the data collection process (Blake, Shepard,
& Mouton, 1964). Both steps may require a careful and rather extensive commitment to a
process that guarantees confidentiality, uses professional consultants from outside the
organization operating within a developed code of professional ethics, and unfolds
transparently within the constraints of individual anonymity.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Dissent can be understood as an expression of the ethnocentric estrangement between an
authority subgroup and other subgroups within an organization. The vitality, adaptability,
and in some cases survival, of a group can depend upon reducing this estrangement.
Sunstein (2003, p. 217) quotes John Stuart Mill: “the peculiar evil of silencing the
expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the
existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.
If they are right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if
wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier
impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” Dissenters are not always or
completely on the side of “good.” Neither, of course, are those to whom the dissent is aimed.
Both groups have partial understandings of their shared world, either group may be wrong,
misinformed, corrupt. But acknowledging and responding to dissent has the potential to
bring what is partial, wrong, misinformed or corrupt to light, no matter in which group. Just
as important, acknowledging and responding to dissent has the potential for diminishing
the ethnocentric estrangement that may be at the core of the dissenting process.
Unfortunately, although dissent may be a crucially important part of group life, it is not an
easy part. Those in positions of authority often do not know what to do with dissent. They
are often surprised by it. Even when they hire, select, work with people who are different
from them, they do not expect expression of disagreement or the expression of frustration
over a broken or damaged hierarchical relationship. When dissent is encountered it often is
experienced as a betrayal for even when the role of dissent is understood intellectually,
there may also exist a wish that it did not have to exist (dissent may make those in
positions of authority appear weak or ineffective to other members of the organization). As
a result, dealing with dissent is painful, an observation which suggests that members of top
groups must develop the capacity to tolerate discomfort if they are to be effective.
Those in positions of being dissenters likewise do not always know what to do with dissent.
What is effective dissent? What is responsible dissent? Are we prepared to live with the
consequences of dissent? Is there a difference between disagreeing on an issue and
dissenting in a relationship? I believe we in the behavioral sciences need to devote more
energy to developing the capacity for effective dissent and effective responses to dissent. If
we do not focus our attention on the dynamics of dissent, we run the risk of evolving into a
society that will not have the means for reforming its authority relations without massive
bloodshed and destruction. We can smell such an evolutionary trend in the wind. We have
been through it in the past.
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