Groupthink

“Be careful when you follow the masses. Sometimes the M is silent.” — Anonymous

It’s often standard practice to start a book chapter or a blog post with a witty, profound, snarky, catchy quote to get people’s attention. So I thought, “who am I to break with tradition?” And then I realized the irony in that statement, as this particular post is all about being wary of going along with the group.

So then I thought that maybe instead of breaking with tradition I would double down. Here are a couple more quotes…

“When we all think alike, no one thinks very much.” — Albert Einstein

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” — George S. Patton

I must admit that how two such different people could be quoted as saying pretty much the same thing is its own form of irony. And I do love irony. Seems we’re onto something here. So let’s talk about how to avoid thinking like everybody else.

My wife has a degree in horticulture. She has often impressed me with her knowledge of plants, especially how she still knows the Latin names for so many of them.

She also knows more about basic biology than I do. For instance, she once haphazardly tossed out the biological trivia that a substance that attracts water is called hydrophilic. Salt is hydrophilic, for instance. If you put a bead of water next to a small pile of salt, they will likely find each other, and the salt will happily dissolve in the water. Water is itself hydrophilic.

A substance that repels water is called hydrophobic. Oils and fats tend to be hydrophobic.

I believe that we are all “philic” and “phobic” to certain kinds of thoughts.

Conservatives tend to be “rightophilic” and “leftophobic.’

Liberals tend to be “leftophilic” and “rightophobic.”

If liberals and conservatives tend to attack their own kind and repel the other, the logical tendency is toward Groupthink.

Psychology Today says, “Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible.”

Groupthink is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Leaders of all kinds have leveraged it for better and for worse ever since, well… groups, and thinking. But it has become a more and more common subject of conversation in today’s world, which is heavily influenced by 24-hour news cycles, the internet, social media, and constant access to all of it via mobile devices. Grouthink is arguably at the root of, if not synonymous with, the polarization we see in politics.

Side note: I find it odd and interesting that most people think of Groupthink in terms of how other people think. It’s a little like how we all have gotten stuck in traffic and wondered, “where the hell did all these people come from?” — while all those people think the same of us.

Grouthink is related to Cognitive Mass.

Biology is rich with examples of how living entities have characteristics and behaviors of the smaller living entities that make them up. These characteristics include organization and structure, sensitivity or response to stimuli, inputs and outputs, growth, reproduction, adaptation and evolution, and regulation.

Likewise, the field of Sociology is rich with studies of how groups of people can behave like individuals.

Putting these two concepts together, it’s not too much of a stretch to account for the phenomenon of Groupthink. Individuals and smaller groups tend to join larger groups to form larger and larger entities. Like beads of water on a pane of glass.

This is full of grandiose possibilities from one perspective: “...just imagine what we could do if we work/think together!”

But, from a different perspective, Groupthink can be fraught with everything from harmless delusion to outright catastrophe: “…it must be true because everyone thinks it.”

A “group” could be a club, an organization, a political party, a corporation, or even an entire nation. For the moment, let’s think in terms of political parties. It’s not too difficult to deduce and observe the effects of Cognitive Mass. It takes years for a political party to form a cohesive platform. Once it’s formed, it’s very difficult to change, and once headed in a specific direction, the tendency is for a party’s platform and influence to accelerate in that direction.

Currently, our level of political polarization seems to be at an all-time high in the US. Democrats and Republicans seem to not only disagree, but also seem to hate each other actively. Presidential elections seem to be won by a few percentage points, indicating a form of entropic balance — maximum disorder. Stasis is inevitable, and we have achieved it. It will take conscious, organized energy to bring order and fluidity back to the system.

Politically, each side acts like a living entity whose enemy is the other. Each tends to protect and bolster its views while attacking those of the other side. We have become each other’s “Tiger in the grass.”

Cognitive Inertia, Cognitive Momentum, and Groupthink come together to cause our judgments of each other to separate over time.

Inevitably, “their” side gets worse, and ours gets better. We see the worst in ourselves as anomalies, and the worst in others as the norm. When challenged, rather than being open to possibilities, we feel threatened and we dig in further. We double down. We actively evade, distort, and even fabricate our version of the truth in the interest of our own political and ideological survival, rather than seeing deeper, larger, more holistic opportunities to move forward in the absence of enemies that might not even exist. In fact, in the chaos, we miss the enemies that do.

We see the worst in ourselves as anomalies, and the worst in others as the norm.

In the end, just as water is itself hydrophilic — attracted to itself — so are we, because we are what we think. By our thoughts, we are Egophilic — attracted to others just like us.

Vinegar and Oil are a classic pair of substances that do not mix well together. Yet nobody puts only oil or vinegar on their salad — this is Groupthink, and it makes horrible salad dressing. We need both oil and vinegar, vigorously shaken and ideally infused with spices and herbs.

Belief and Faith

“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”

— Gerry Spence

(I know, right? Another quote.)

My brother and I have had many debates on the nature of belief and faith. It’s worth noting that he is a devout Christian, and I am rather devoutly non-religious. The two words — belief and faith — have long traditions and deep meaning in these contexts; lots of cognitive mass.

For the longest time, we would argue whether belief was a choice or simply the “natural product of experiences and environment.”

But let’s start with faith.

Imagine a rather ordinary chair. We have sat in chairs many times in life. We no longer inspect them, or wonder at their origin, or even test them, before sitting in them. We have good reason to “believe” the chair will hold our weight. In fact, we act as if it will. I will call this “acting as if,” Faith.

Belief is the idea that the chair will hold our weight. Faith is acting as if it will.

Now, imagine a less ordinary chair. Something that is artistic and purposely intended to look unstable, perhaps. Or maybe an ordinary chair that looks like it’s seen better days; old and worn, that creaks a little when we test it, or has a loose support bracket. Or even a perfectly robust-looking chair that someone we don’t trust is rather eager for us to sit in.

In any of these examples, we might not “believe” the chair will hold us. We will likely not sit in it, because we don’t have “faith” that we won’t come crashing to the floor.

On the other hand, perhaps a friend we trust very deeply tells us, “Don’t worry — trust me — the chair will hold your weight.” We might still not “believe” it in our hearts, but we might nonetheless sit in the chair, because we have “faith” — if not in the chair itself, then at least in our trusted friend.

All of this is a way of postulating that thinking that ultimately results in a “belief” becomes something we take action on. Beliefs relate to faith, and both dictate the way we act in the world. Thinking —> Belief —> Faith —> Action.

Now let’s make that chair an analogy for other beliefs we have in life, and give it incrementally more meaning.

We believe the Chiefs will beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl. We have faith enough that we place a bet on it.

We believe that a particular stock will increase in value. We have faith enough to buy it.

We believe that a college degree will mean better earnings over the course of our lives. We invest time and money.

We believe one candidate will be a better president than the other one. We vote.

We believe our son or daughter will make wise choices and drive safely. We give them the keys to the car.

We believe that God will provide. We devote ourselves to studying the Bible, and try to live accordingly.

The stakes involved in these roughly escalating cases inform the actions we are willing to take as a consequence, AND (this is important!) will also direct how much it will take to get us to believe something different.

Someone could give us a key piece of statistical data that could change our minds on the Super Bowl or the stock market — perhaps not even enough to change the way we bet, but enough to change how much money we put on the line.

But no single piece of information, logical argument, or even preponderance of spiritual debate is likely to get us to change our beliefs about God, for instance. Not very quickly, anyway. A change of mind like that usually takes some sort of spiritual awakening or traumatic event. We describe such events as “life-changing.” We might even use the word “epiphany.” This kind of event is a really big deal — (only) arguably bigger than changing our politics, it seems.

Now think of how it feels to have debates on any of these topics.

Arguing about the Super Bowl is considered part of the fun.

Arguing about religion — or politics — comes from a much deeper place. It can lead to the end of friendships. It can tear families apart — even countries.

Furthermore, the higher the stakes, the more people are likely to “dig in” and defend their point of view, precisely because it could mean changing a core belief.

The higher the stakes, the more we dig in.

Let’s circle back to Belief.

Recently the debate between my brother and me took a turn towards agreement, I think. It turns out that perhaps we were never really arguing about belief being a choice — it was more about the suspension of disbelief being a choice. This immediately felt much more accessible to me, since belief is the weightiest of thoughts we can have. In fact, I’d almost say that when a thought becomes a belief, it goes from being something we “think” to something we “feel.”

If we suspend our disbelief that something is true, it’s almost the same as believing it’s true. But not quite. It’s a little more accessible.

I believe the earth is spherical. I do not believe it is flat.

In a conversation, a flat-earther tries to convince me that the Earth is flat. He explains himself passionately. He says my mind is closed on the subject, that I’ve been brainwashed, drank the Kool-Aid, and challenges me to have an open mind. He wants me to believe the Earth is flat — if only for the sake of argument. So I try to be a good disciple of the principles of my own book.

But, for me, “simply believing” that the Earth is flat is nearly impossible. I can’t even seem to come close enough “for the sake of argument.”

But suspending my disbelief for a bit... I feel like can go there, intellectually. Perhaps I’m wrong — I can allow for the possibility. I suspend my disbelief that the Earth is flat, at least temporarily.

It seems a lot easier than actually believing it’s flat.

Believing is a really sacred thing — it does not come easily.

It might be slightly easier to suspend your disbelief.

In the end, I advocate for holding beliefs at arm’s length in an open hand, rather than close to our chest in a closed fist. As soon as we identify too much with a particular thought or conclusion, we should beware.

I believe that very strongly.