[4] The Culture Of Strong Social Cohesion In The SFL Community

The origin of strong social bonds within the SFL community can be traced back to the early general exclusion of SFL Theory from linguistic departments and linguistic publications, due to the once overwhelming popularity of Chomskyan Formal Linguistics.

This helped to induce a general 'siege mentality' in the early SFL community: a collective state of mind in which a group of people believe themselves constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated in the face of the negative intentions of the rest of the world, among the consequences of which are social conformity, and a strong sense of social cohesion.

This strong sense of social cohesion has remained ever since, despite SFL Theory becoming less excluded from linguistic departments and linguistic publications.

One intellectually debilitating consequence of a culture of strong social cohesion is the increased likelihood of 'groupthink'. Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when the desire for group consensus overrides people's common sense desire to present alternatives, critique a position, or express an unpopular opinion. Here, the desire for group cohesion effectively drives out good decision-making and problem solving.