Leaders can achieve a sense of order by providing all members of the reference group with a social milieu which distorts their cognitive world toward acceptance of the status quo. Being inversely proportional to the size of the group, the strength of this general phenomenon of misdirecting thinking by social support becomes most intense in a leader's own tightly knit coterie. The result is groupthink, which in its pure form is characterized by cognitive complacence and promoted by blissful ignorance. Actually, groupthinkers are only half ignorant—they ignore only contradictory information. Confirming data get all the attention which can be lavished upon them by sycophants, who have surrendered their independence of thought to the group karma. The reluctance of members of the clique to voice objections to approved policies usually leads to an illusion of unanimity and a false consensus. Both of these are built less on raw data than on misinterpretations by members committed to the appearance of group perfection.

Whether in the concentrated form of groupthink or in the more diffuse forms of general stupidity, misinterpretation of data inhibits effective adjustment to problem situations. All situations are not created equal: one may invite a favorable interpretation while another begs to be ignored. Situations which demand that the perceivers make psychic adjustments may be considered "Problems". These are solved if the adjustment is anticipated as being to the advantage of the adjustors.

One of the main problems people have is that a schema which functions in solving a problem may hinder the solving of problems created by the initial solution. Thus, the very human catch phrase, "If you think we have a problem now, just wait until we solve it". This goes a long way toward explaining the dysfunctional attitude of America's mighty corporations toward pollution: the companies formed to exploit our natural resources are basically indifferent to the mess they create for everyone to live in because there really is no profit in cleaning it up.

This type of problem creating belies the basic assumption of behavioral scientists that behavior is adaptive. Maladaptive behavior is thought to be anomalous—some kind of breakdown of the normal adaptive mechanism. Along with the inevitability of death and the impressive predominance of extinction in the fossil record, the record of failure of human civilizations confronts us with an unsettling question: how can any

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