Irving Lester Janis

Irving Lester Janis (May 26, 1918 – November 15, 1990) was a research psychologist at Yale University and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley most famous for his theory of "groupthink" which described the systematic errors made by groups when making collective decisions. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Janis as the 79th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Biography：
Irving Janis was born on May 26, 1918 in Buffalo, New York.[2] He received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Chicago in 1939, then received a doctorate from Columbia University. Janis was married to Marjorie Janis, with whom he had two daughters. He died of lung cancer on November 15, 1990 in Santa Rosa, California.

Main contributions：
group dynamics
Janis made important contributions to the study of group dynamics. He did extensive work in the area of “groupthink,” which describes the tendency of groups to try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without sufficiently testing, analyzing, and evaluating their ideas. His work suggested that pressures for conformity restrict the thinking of the group, bias its analysis, promote simplistic and stereotyped thinking, and stifle individual creative and independent thought.
Janis wrote or co-wrote more than a dozen books, including Psychological Stress (1958), Victims of Groupthink (1972), Decision Making (1977), Groupthink (1982), and Crucial Decisions (1989).

Selected works by Irving Janis
Janis, Irving L. (1958). Psychological stress; psychoanalytic and behavioral studies of surgical patients. New York: Wiley. OCLC 14620125.
Janis, Irving L. (1959). Personality and persuasibility. New Haven: Yale University Press. OCLC 224637.
Janis, Irving L. (1969). Personality: dynamics, development, and assessment. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. ISBN 978-0-15-569585-6.
Janis, Irving L. (1972). Victims of groupthink; a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-14002-4.
Janis, Irving L.; Mann, Leon (1977). Decision making: a psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-02-916160-9.

Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Janis