So, what we hope when we form a team is that people
will come together and share perspectives and
information with hope that they might actually change or
shift their perspective based on new information or better information.
But what we're going to see is in fact,
people just sort of become more mindlessly extreme in their point of view rather than
become thoughtful in the way they think about a particular issue.
So, if we're going to be creative in groups,
we have to share our perspectives with other people.
Right. And then you know somebody
has got to take a different point of view than they started with.
Ideally right. But again we see groups work against that from happening in any part of
the reason is that we actually look for opportunities to
collaborate with people who already share our point of view.
Exactly.
Right. because it just feels nice, right?
I support you.
It's more fun interacting.
I'm with you.
Yeah, with people who confirm our point of view.
The problem is that once you get like minded people
together rather than be thoughtful and,
you know, be open to the potential of changing perspectives.
You end up getting polarization and people
become more and more extreme in their point of view,
not because they've thought about it carefully or because they have, you know,
arrived at that conclusion through some careful process
but only because they're around like minded people who just bolster their opinion.
You confirm what I think and I confront what you
think therefore we're probably even more right than we knew.
Right.
And we can be even more extreme.
Yeah.
At the beginning.
And the problem is this happens in
so many different kinds of groups that are really consequential groups,
like juries where you want careful deliberation with evidence right.
Yeah.
What you find is that, a jury that's a punishment at
the beginning ends up being more punishment oriented in
sentencing not because of anything to do with the evidence
but just because they started off that way and they became more extreme.
And so, you see this in politics of course you know,
anyone who's written a newspaper has seen this but it occurs across
so many different contexts and
so many consequential kinds of teams we really expect careful deliberation.
But what you get is just mindless polarization.
Yeah, I'm going to build on and build on and build.
Right.
What we hear or think.
Yeah.
To the point where we're not hearing the opposite view.
Let alone the creative view.
We end up in a bubble.
So let's break down the reasons for why groups do polarize.
Right. I think it's important to look at the steps that
lead to us rushing towards that extreme.
These are highly consequential decisions that make us the most polarized.
Yeah. So why does it happen. What's the process.
I mean one reason is that when you get into a group of like minded people you
hear novel arguments in favor of what you already think is true.
So it's not only that you agree with me but you have reasons, why I'm right.
I've never heard of before.
So that becomes incredibly self-reinforcing.
It's really an echo chamber in which we're all reinforcing
each other's point of view with different kinds of arguments.
So, I want to believe this.
And you're giving me even more reasons to believe it.
So, rather than changing perspectives I'm even more locked into my own.
Yeah. So it turns out I'm even more right than I thought I was.
And yeah isn't that great.
There's another process that happens through social comparison.
So, a lot of times groups are thinking
about or deliberating about things that have a moral value to them.
And we all want to think that we're the most moral right on any given dimension.
So for example if I'm discussing, you know,
the environment with a particular group and
I like to think of myself as really pro environment,
I'm really green kind of guy, right.
Sure.
And it turns out that I meet you and you're even more green than I am,
then I'm going to want to match you.
Yeah.
And become more extreme.
And because I value that sort of point of view.
And if everybody does that,
what happens through the discussion is that right.
Everybody starts to polarize in a more extreme direction.
And pretty soon, you may have started
off with moderates and you end up with the extremes.
Extremists and that's how that process unfolds.
But at any rate, it really works against again,
seriously rethinking your point of view.
That doesn't happen in many groups.
It's really just, you start somewhere and you end up more extreme, but more thoughtful.
Yeah. So it sounds actually like a pretty mindless process, rather than mindful.
Yeah.
And you would think that, if we're trying to
engage on a serious topic that would encourage us to be more thoughtful.
And what you're saying is actually what we tend to do is,
latch onto these social pressures that encourages in fact to be relatively mindless.
Right. And so that is again an emerging theme, isn't it?
That you take a group of independent minded motivated people and groups turn them lazy,
stupid, and unreflective. That's where we're headed for.
It's tough.
And we're not done yet.
And we're not done yet.
