3900 podcast audio

This week's episode of "What's on Your Mind" discusses social identity theory and group polarization, specifically in relation to political identification and affiliation. Social identity theory states that individuals define their identities in relation to social groups, leading to an "us versus them" mentality. Group polarization occurs when discussing issues with an in-group leads to more extreme positions for all members. This can be influenced by persuasive arguments, social comparison, and social categorization. The consequences of polarization were evident during the Capitol insurrection in 2021. A study by Ryan Strickler found that polarization makes honest discussion harder and that people are more likely to consider arguments from in-group members. It is important to be educated and do research to uncover unbiased facts in order to navigate polarization. Psychology can provide answers to real-world problems and help detect and treat warning signs of destructive behavior. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this week's episode of What's on Your Mind. As always, I'm your host, Anna Hillman, and I have a very exciting episode for you all today. This week, we're going to talk about the social identity theory and group polarization, a topic I've been wanting to talk about for a long time. I'm mainly going to talk about these two topics in respect to political identification and affiliation. This is my show, so I may bring my personal opinions into some examples and side topics, but I'm still going to do my best to deliver the facts straight up. This is still a psychology podcast, after all. Let's dive right in, starting with social identity theory. It's important that you guys understand this concept as it sets the stage for the topic on group polarization. Social identity theory states that individuals define their own identities with regard to social groups and that such identifications work to protect and bolster self-identity. We briefly talked about in and out groups last week, so we're going to go a bit more in depth about them today. We talked about the identity and categorization processes last week, so I don't want to review too much. As a reminder, it's common for the I and we pronouns to be used interchangeably when talking about your in group, similar to how the you and they pronouns are interchangeable for out groups. Because of this us versus them mentality that stems from in and out groups, we can see common social comparisons between the two. The differences between the two groups are magnetized, and your motivations differ depending on if you're referencing your in or the out group. For example, you're more motivated to see your own in group as better and even take action to make it so. The opposite can be said about how you see an out group. You're motivated to see an out group as worse and to even take action to make this perception true. The idea that you want your in group to do well can lead to more interaction and discussion within your group as a way to do so. This brings us into the topic of group polarization. Group polarization is the idea that discussing any issue with an in group leads to more extreme positions of all members. Although there are many processes of group polarization, I'm going to talk about three main ones. The first is persuasive arguments. This is when hearing strong arguments that you didn't think of validates your own attitudes. Whenever you have an opinion about something, you generally have reasons as to why your opinion is correct. Right. Well, when you're making an argument for your opinion and hear someone else say an alternate reason as to why it's correct. With the same opinion, it kind of fires you up in a way. You notice that there's other people who share this opinion and you're not alone. Power seemingly comes in numbers. So when there are more people that agree with you, your opinion is validated and therefore feels strengthened. Another process is social comparison. In terms of group polarization, social comparison is when you move to more extreme positions to gain social validation and approval from the group. This is commonly done via risky behaviors. Third, social categorization relates to the idea that less extreme group members are, quote unquote, closer to the out group. Because of this, people move to more extreme positions to further establish and embed themselves in the in group. All of these processes of group polarization have been shown to lead to effective polarization, which is increasingly extreme negative feeling towards outgroup political members. Polarization and its consequences were evident during the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol building in January of 2021. Donald Trump, the United States president from 2017 until 2021, was not reelected for a second term. He was and still is known for his extreme conservative ideologies. In early January of 2021, after he lost the election, he held a rally in Washington, D.C., to speak out against this loss. Supporters were so extreme in backing Trump's claims that they attacked, vandalized and occupied the Capitol building in an attempt to keep him in power. This example particularly relates to the risky behaviors associated with social comparison. In 2018, a study by Ryan Strickler looked at the relation between social identity discussion and polarization through telephone based and online service. It's no secret that there's been an extreme political polarization within the U.S. in recent years, with a Trump supporter even being quoted saying, There's nothing short of Trump shooting my daughter in the street and my grandchildren. There's nothing and nobody that's going to dissuade me from voting for Trump. Because of this, Strickler wanted to look at how this extreme polarization impacts political deliberation. The results suggest polarization is making honest discussion harder to achieve and that people are more likely to find an argument worth considering if it comes from another member of the in group versus if it came from a member of the out group. In summation, another person's membership to a group as an in versus out group can make you more or less likely to simply discuss a particular topic. This study is absolutely wild to me. Again, it's just talking about discussing a topic, not actually coming to an agreement about it or anything like it. So why should you care about this? What does it mean for you? There's no shortage of reasonings as to why you should care about this study. But there's a particular application that I can't not bring up. This year, 2024 in the United States is an election year. It is so important to be educated on what's currently being debated and decided on here in the US and everywhere else. Because of polarization and the biases associated with discussing these topics, as seen in the study, it's important for everyone to do their own research and figure out the unbiased facts of each argument. Psychology can be applied to and used to solve many real world problems. Many problems today result from the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of others. The very things that psychology studies due to the nature of psychology, it helps provide answers to why questions. There are many examples as to how psychology can be used, but I'm going to share a story from just this past week. If you've been a longtime listener to the show, you know that one of my favorite subtopics of psychology is criminal psychology. Although it doesn't inherently relate to politics and the content from today's episode, I still find this to be a great example on how psychology can be used. A few days ago, I was watching a true crime documentary when I started thinking about the psychology behind everything the offender did. Why did they do this? Was it preventable? Were there any signs? I later learned they struggled with many mental health problems that were never detected or treated. Thanks to current psychology, we're able to better detect and treat warning signs of deviant behavior before it can actually turn into any harm or crime. This applies to most other destructive behaviors as well, as we're able to be more proactive instead of reactive as a society. That's all I have for you guys today. Thanks for joining me on What's on Your Mind. Be sure to click the like and subscribe button if you enjoyed this week's episode, and feel free to comment on any other topics you'd like me to cover. See you next week!