3) Discussion among those of like mind often produces “group polarization.”
In one of my own early experiments, George Bishop and I discovered that when highly prejudiced students discussed racial issues, they became more prejudiced. When less prejudiced students talked among themselves, they became even more accepting. In other words, ideological separation plus conversation equaled greater polarization between the two groups.
So it goes in real life too. Analysis of terrorist organizations, for instance, has revealed that the terrorist mentality does not erupt suddenly, on a whim. It begins slowly, among people who share a grievance. As they interact in isolation, their views grow more and more extreme.
By connecting like-minded people, the Internet’s virtual groups often harness group polarization for good purposes, as when connecting and strengthening fellow peacemakers, cancer survivors and rights advocates. But the Internet echo chamber also enables climate-change skeptics and conspiracy theorists to amplify their shared ideas and suspicions. White supremacists become more racist. Militia members become more hostile. For good or ill, socially networked birds of a feather gain support for their shared beliefs, suspicions and inclinations.
4) Group solidarity soars when facing a common enemy.
From laboratory experiments to America immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, shared threats foster unity. During conflict, we-feeling rises. During wars, patriotism surges.
In one of psychology’s famous experiments, the psychologist Muzafer Sherif, in 1954, randomly split Oklahoma City boy campers into two groups for a series of competitive activities, with prizes for the victors. Over the ensuing two weeks, ingroup pride and outgroup hostility increased—marked by food wars, fistfights and ransacked cabins. Intergroup contacts yielded more threats—and stronger feelings of ingroup unity—until Sherif engaged the boys in cooperative efforts toward shared goals, such as moving a stuck truck or restoring the camp water supply.
In more playful ways, these group dynamics also fuel sports rivalries. Think Yankees–Red Sox, March Madness and World Cup soccer. For an ardent Cubs fan, it’s a good day if the Cubs win—or the White Sox lose. Here in West Michigan, America’s biggest small-college sports rivalry plays out whenever my school, Hope College, plays Calvin College, pitting the Dutch-heritage Reformed Church in America tradition against the Dutch-heritage Christian Reformed Church tradition—extending the two churches’ 1857 split over what now seem like minor matters. It’s all in good fun, an intense competition with no fundamental hate.
But when the social dynamics are writ large, people will not only cheer for their groups—they may also kill and die for them. Turning today’s closed fists into tomorrow’s open arms requires recognizing the relative modesty of our differences, finding our deeper commonalities, defining a larger “us,” communicating across group lines and discovering transcendent goals.
Such conflict resolution is most needed, yet most difficult, in times of crisis. When conflicts intensify, images become more stereotyped, judgments more rigid, communication more difficult. Both sides are prone to threaten, coerce or retaliate. The challenge is for cultures to discover what social psychologist Fathali Moghaddam calls an “omnicultural” perspective that both recognizes commonalities and respects differences. From Iraq to Northern Ireland, the Koreas to the Sudans, this is the great challenge in times of conflict—to embrace “diversity within unity.” E pluribus unum.