Parsimony: economy of explanation in conformity with Occam’s razor. The scientific law of parsimony dictates that any example of human behavior should be interpreted at its simplest, most immediate level. As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is B. Occam’s Razor: If there are two or more explanations for an occurrence, the simplest one is usually better. In other words, the more assumptions you must make, the more unlikely an explanation is. If one strips away all extraneous issues, what remains is likely true --no matter how implausible that may seem. One of the more famous fictional characters to apply Occam’s razor to solving his cases was Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The explanations for the other terms in the options are as follows:

Analyzing the characteristics of individual leaders is another approach to individual-level analysis. This is idiosyncratic analysis: how did an individual’s personal traits influence or shape his or her decisions?

Interdependence began to be examined in earnest in the early 1970s. To many theorists of interdependence, the crude power politics of the cold war years appeared to be giving way to a more cooperative and rule-governed world. It is important to understand that the theorists of interdependence were not just talking about increased interconnectedness in a variety of issue areas. The shift was also qualitative. The world was changing. The realist view that states were independently pursuing their national interests did not seem to present an accurate picture of the way states acted under conditions of what Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye called “complex interdependence” (Griffiths and O’Callaghan, 2002, 157-158).

Groupthink: a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972). It occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.” Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making (Janis, 1972, 9).