Tribalism

Culture . . . (Rieff, 2006)

"Culture is the form of fighting before the firing actually begins." Phillip Rieff (2006), My Life Among the Deathworks

us vs. them mentality

A perspective sometimes taken by a group in which people who are not members of the group are conceptually distinguished as removed from the ingroup. Can result in the belief that the ingroup is entitled to available resources in preference of outgroups. May also be used as justification for the persecution of outgroups.

ideological conflict

A type of conflict involving ideas or identity, e.g. nationalism, religion, ethnicity.

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), Sigmund Freud

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (German: Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse) is a 1921 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. A mass, according to Freud, is a "temporary entity, consisting of heterogeneous elements that have joined together for a moment." He refers heavily to the writings of sociologist and psychologist Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), summarizing his work at the beginning of the book in the chapter Le Bons Schilderung der Massenseele ("Le Bon's description of the group mind"). Like Le Bon, Freud says that as part of the mass, the individual acquires a sense of infinite power which allows him to act on impulses that he would otherwise have to curb as an isolated individual. These feelings of power and security allow the individual not only to act as part of the mass, but also to feel safety in numbers. This is accompanied, however, by a loss of conscious personality and a tendency of the individual to be infected by any emotion within the mass, and to amplify the emotion, in turn, by "mutual induction". Overall, the mass is "impulsive, changeable, and irritable. It is controlled almost exclusively by the unconscious." Freud distinguishes between two types of masses. One is the short-lived kind, characterized by a rapidly transient interest, such as trends. The other kind consists of more permanent and enduring masses, which are highly organized, such as the Church or the military. "The masses of the former type, so to speak, ride on the latter, like the short but high waves on the long swell of the sea." However, the same basic mental processes operate in both kinds of masses. Freud refers back to his theory of instincts and believes that masses are held together by libidinal bonds. Each individual in the mass acts on impulses of love that are diverted from their original objectives. They pursue no direct sexual goal, but "do not therefore work less vigorously". Freud initially called the (largely unconscious) identification with the other individuals of the mass, all of whom are drawn in the same way to the leader, a binding element. The ego perceives a significant similarity with others in the group and identifies with them. In addition, admiration and idealization of the leader of the group takes place through the process of idealization. The narcissistic libido is displaced to the object which is "loved because of its perfection which the individual has sought for his own ego". Also, a process of identification with the aggressor can take place, for example, as happens in regression. Thus, Freud came to the conclusion: "A primary mass is a number of individuals who have put one and the same object in place of their ego ideal and consequently identify with each other."

ingroup

"Us"—people with whom we share a common identity.

group solidarity

A strong sense of fellowship between officers derived from a common work environment.

Elite Theory (Elitism)

A theory of American democracy contending that an upper-class elite holds the power and makes policy, regardless of the formal governmental organization.

Abilene Paradox

The Abilene paradox, a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many or all of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating to the Abilene paradox is a desire not to "rock the boat". This differs from groupthink in that the Abilene paradox is characterized by an inability to manage agreement. The term was introduced by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in his 1974 article "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement". The name of the phenomenon comes from an anecdote that Harvey uses in the article to elucidate the paradox: On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles (85 km) north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time." The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon. Ronald Sims writes that the Abilene paradox is similar to groupthink, but differs in significant ways, including that in groupthink individuals are not acting contrary to their conscious wishes and generally feel good about the decisions the group has reached. According to Sims, in the Abilene paradox, the individuals acting contrary to their own wishes are more likely to have negative feelings about the outcome. In Sims' view, groupthink is a psychological phenomenon affecting clarity of thought, where in the Abilene paradox thought is unaffected. Like groupthink theories, the Abilene paradox theory is used to illustrate that groups not only have problems managing disagreements, but that agreements may also be a problem in a poorly functioning group.

Moral Psychology

the study of moral beliefs.

Fanatics . . . (Hoffer)

"A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of actions." Eric Hoffer The True Believer

The Professionally Obtuse (Pierce, 2009)

Charles P. Pierce's term for talk radio hosts and other demagogues who appeal to the idiocy of the masses by telling them what they want hear--and already believe--and who intentionally obfuscate facts to further their personal agendas. Pierce, Charles P. (2009). Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis

Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, perceivers must know what they are looking at before they can make an affective judgment about it.

Four B's of Self-evaluation

Four B's of Self-evaluation: -Being - Belonging - Believing - Benevolence

Social Norm Deviance

Going against norms of society.

Idols of the Tribe

Idola tribus (singular Idolum tribus) is a category of logical fallacy, normally translated as "Idols of the Tribe", which refers to a tendency of human nature to prefer certain types of incorrect conclusions. It is a Latin term, coined by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the methodical approach of modern science. The term is one of four such "idols" which represent "idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults. Besides idola tribus, there are also idola specus, (Idols of the Cave, caused by one's personal peculiarities and experiences) idola fori (Idols of the Market Place, caused by language) and idola theatri (Idols of the Theatre, caused by philosophers). "The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it." — Novum Organum, Aphorism XLI And so in this category are cases of people being misled by anthropomorphism. In more detail, Bacon enumerated several specific such barriers to science which are part of human nature, coming into this category: "The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds." "The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it." "The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded." "The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond." Bacon gives as example the Aristotelian doctrine of final cause, which he says has "relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe; and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy." "The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would.' For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes." "But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important." "The human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things which are fleeting." Bacon said that the Idols of the Tribe "take their rise either from the homogeneity of the substance of the human spirit, or from its preoccupation, or from its narrowness, or from its restless motion, or from an infusion of the affections, or from the incompetency of the senses, or from the mode of impression." Francis Bacon Novum Organum (1620)

Big Lie Technique

Repeating a lie, slogan, or deceptive half-truth over and over until people believe it without further proof or evidence.

Rules for Institutions: Mutuality Levels (Becker, 1998)

Mutuality Levels: extent to which individuals recognize themselves and each other as participants, make and recognize reciprocal contributions to each others' lives, have a common understanding of the nature of the group, and have univalent responses to it and each other. Reference Becker, L.C. (1998). A New Stoicism

evolutionary legacy hypothesis

The evolutionary legacy hypothesis ( evolutionary mismatch, savanna principle) posits that the human brain evolved in ancestral conditions that differed radically from those in modern environments, leading to evolutionary mismatch where traits adapted for humans ancestral past are no longer effective and, sometimes, actually are harmful.

moral exhibitionism (signaling)

The ostentatious public display of self-avowed moral certainty meant to impress others with one's fealty to the group and it's ideology, whether factitious or sincerely believed.

socialization

The process by which people learn customs and values of their culture.

moral community

The set of those beings whose interests are intrinsically important. Membership signifies that you are owed respect, that you have moral rights, that others owe you moral duties for your own sake. The term "moral community" in ethics does not mean a community of people who act morally or ethically. This could be a meaning of the term, but it is not the meaning used here. In ethics, one's moral community consists of all those beings that one holds in moral regard. ie., those beings that you need to think "but is this right" before you do something that could affect them.

intergroup conflict

conflict that occurs between two or more groups.

ethnic cleansing

a euphemism for genocide that occurs based on ethnic or racial bases.

social intelligence theory

primate cognition is due to social competition.

cognitive flexibility

refers to the brain's ability to transition from thinking about one concept to another. The quicker you are able to switch or "shift" your thinking from one dimension (e.g. color of an object) to another (e.g. shape of an object), the greater your level of cognitive flexibility.

group polarization

the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

ingroup favoritism

the tendency for people to evaluate favorably and privilege members of the ingroup more than members of the outgroup.

bridging social capital

those aspects of social interaction that facilitate trust between groups.

bonding social capital

those aspects of sociality that enhance trust within groups.

tribal literacy (deLaplante)

tribal literacy is the extent to which someone understands and appreciates the tribal mentality of humans.

informational social influence

the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

social alienation

Social alienation is "a condition in social relationships reflected by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment". It is a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists. The concept has many discipline-specific uses, and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively).

"enemy other" argument

a tactic often used by group leaders and members of groups to rally the group. Identifying another group as the enemy tends to consolidate group loyalty and allow group leaders to compel compliance with often reprehensible demands.

reasoned skepticism

the balance of open-mindedness and critical attitude needed when evaluating others' messages.

self-defining value

some attribute, perceived or actual, that influences a person's self-perception. Seen in a negative sense in stereotype threat, where individuals are anxious that their ascribed status may impact their real-world experience.

ideological purity

strict adherence to the doctrines, policies, beliefs, or ideology of a group to which one belongs or processes membership.

cognitive rigidity

stubbornness or lack of willingness to consider alternative ways of doing things. Difficulty changing mental sets." Simply put, this means switching from thinking about things one way, to thinking about them a different way. (People who can do this easily are said to have "cognitive flexibility" - the opposite of cognitive rigidity.)

out group bias

tendency to view all individuals outside our group as highly similar.

social influence

the ability to control another person's behavior.

moral identity

the aspect of personality that is present when individuals have moral notions and commitments that are central to their lives. Moral identity is the degree to which being a moral person is important to a person's identity.

group tribalism

the behaviors of an identified or implicit group that reinforce group solidarity, often to the exclusion of other groups.

Group Cohesiveness: Causes

the bonds that link group members to one another and to their group as a whole are not believed to develop spontaneously. Over the years, social scientists have explained the phenomenon of group cohesiveness in different ways. Some have suggested that cohesiveness among group members develops from a heightened sense of belonging, teamwork, interpersonal and group-level attraction. Attraction, task commitment and group pride are also said to cause group cohesion.

social intelligence

the capacity to know oneself and to know others. Social scientist Ross Honeywillbelieves social intelligence is an aggregated measure of self- and social-awareness, evolved social beliefs and attitudes, and a capacity and appetite to manage complex social change. Psychologist, Nicholas Humphrey believes that it is social intelligence, rather than quantitative intelligence, that defines who we are as humans. The original definition by Edward Thorndike in 1920 is "the ability to understand and manage men and women and boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations". It is equivalent to interpersonal intelligence, one of the types of intelligence identified in Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, and closely related to theory of mind. Some authors have restricted the definition to deal only with knowledge of social situations, perhaps more properly called social cognition or social marketing intelligence, as it pertains to trending socio-psychological advertising and marketing strategies and tactics. According to Sean Foleno, social intelligence is a person's competence to optimally understand one's environment and react appropriately for socially successful conduct. It is important to note the multiple definitions listed above, as there is yet to be a complete consensus on the operational definition of social intelligence.

sacralized victimhood (Jordan, 2019)

the establishment of a perceived social group as permanently victimized based on real or perceived past injustices or inequities that renders the group or their behaviors or opinions beyond reproach or criticism and the evocation of such criticism cause for a vehemently denunciatory response from those supportive of the group's scaralized victimhood. Sacralized victimhood often precludes the possibility of objective examination of issues important to effective social functioning and regulation and may contribute to societal dysfunction among groups in a pluralistic society that, ironically, may tend to further disenfranchise and oppress historically marginalized peoples. Frank G. Jordan Jr. (2019)

attitude polarization

the finding that people's attitudes become more extreme as they reflect on them. Attitude polarization is a phenomenon where people's attitudes or beliefs strengthen and become more extreme as they engage in intensive thought about the attitude object.

spiral of silence theory

the spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, which stipulates that individuals have a fear of isolation, which results from the idea that a social group or the society, in general, might isolate, neglect, or exclude members due to the members' opinions. This fear of isolation consequently leads to remaining silent instead of voicing opinions. Media is an important factor that relates to both the dominant idea and people's perception of the dominant idea. The assessment of one's social environment may not always correlate with reality.

Contact theory of prejudice

the theory that the mere exposure of individuals or groups to each other can mitigate prejudice and animosity.

Arguing against emotion . . . (Hume, 1777)

"And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles." David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1777)

Politics and makeup . . . (Herman, 2013)

"Both politics and makeup appeal to the emotions not reason." Arthur Herman (2013), The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle and the Struggles for the Soul of Western Civilization

Deceit . . . (Homer, 8th BCE)

"But always I was on the lookout for a man handsome, and tall, with great endowment of strength on him, to come here; but now the end of it is that a little man, niddering, feeble, has taken away the sight of my eye." Homer (8th BCE), Odyssey, Book IX, 512-516)

Equalitarianism . . . (Pontynen & Miller, 2011)

"Equalitarianism replaces a concern for virtue with a leveling concern for condition. To expect equal treatment before the law makes sense. What does not make sense is defining goodness and justice as the realization of equal condition based upon--or despite--our choices and conduct. . . . No wisdom-seeking culture anywhere in the world can coexist with the transgressive equalitarianism of postmodernity; no proponent of equalitarianism can tolerate the presence of those professing a qualitative vision of reality and life." Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller (2011), Western Culture at the American Crossroads: Conflicts Over the Nature of Science and Reason

Freedom or license? (Herman, 2013)

"Human beings think they want freedom; what they really want is license." - Arthur Herman (2013), The Cave and the Light

"Man is by nature a political animal . . ."

"Man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the 'tribeless, lawless, hearthless one . . .'" Aristotle, Politics

The Wisdom of Repugnance (Kass, 1998)

"Repugnance only voice left that speaks up to defend central core of humanity in an age in which everything is thought to be permissible as long as it is freely done and our given human nature no longer commands respect. . . . Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder." Leon R. Kass, "The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans", 32 Val. U. L. Rev. 679 (1998).

Preference for the Cave . . . (Herman, 2013)

"The Myth of the Cave reveals a bitter truth: Most people prefer life in the cave. The world and institutions around us reflect it, and . . . people get upset and even furious when someone challenges their fondest illusions . . . especially if everything else is collapsing around them." Arthur Herman (2013), The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

". . . hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart" . . . (Sengcan)

"The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart; If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease." Jianzhi Sengcan

the righteous mind (Haidt, 2012)

Jonathan Haidt's conceptualization of the shared human predisposition to judge and be judgmental as expounded in his 2012 book of the same name.

Rider and Elephant Metaphor (Haidt, 2006)

Jonathan Haidt's metaphor to explain human thinking as involving emotion (the elephant) and reason (the rider) both acting in human decisions and behaviors as described in his book The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (2006). Haidt's premise is that the elephant and rider must work in concert to function effectively.

Five Contingencies Affecting Human Behavior (Lawrence & Nohria, 2002)

Lawrence and Nohria (2002) propose five contingencies as affecting human behavior in addition to, and influential on, the genetic complement: - biogeography - physical isolation - stages of technology - ideology - individual genetic differences These contingencies significantly impact the diverse ways our common innate drives of D1 (acquire), D2 (bond), D3 (learn), and D4 (defend) are manifested in everyday behavior. Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria (2002), Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices

Homophily: Effects

One study reported that perception of interpersonal similarity improves coordination and increase the expected payoff of interactions, above and beyond the effect of merely "liking others". Another study claimed that homophily produces tolerance and cooperation in social spaces. Other studies have claimed that homophily helps people to access information, diffuse innovations and behaviors, and form opinions and social norms. Homophily influences diffusion patterns over a social network in two ways: homophily affects the way a social network develops, and individuals are more likely to successfully influence others when they are similar to them. Homophily often leads to homogamy—marriage between people with similar characteristics. Homophily is a fertility factor; An increased fertility is seen in people with a tendency to seek acquaintance among those with common characteristics. Governmental family policies have a decreased influence on fertility rates in such populations.

social disintegration

Social disintegration is the tendency for society to decline or disintegrate over time, perhaps due to the lapse or breakdown of traditional social support systems. In this context, "society" refers to the social order which maintains a society, rather than the political order that defines its boundaries. Society in the sociological sense is not the same as a country.

The Mantle of Virtue (Burroughs, 1912)

"The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in the mantle of virtue." Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912), Tarzan of the Apes

Skepticism as a national goal . . . (Sagan)

"There is enough nonsense promulgated by both political parties that the habit of evenhanded skepticism should be declared a national goal, essential for our survival." Carl Sagan "The Burden of Skepticism" Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 1987

"To be attached to the subdivision" (Burke, 1790)

"To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind." Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution (1790)

Sacralization . . . (Rappaport, 1971)

"To invest social conventions with sanctity is to hide their arbitrariness in a cloak of necessity." Roy Rappaport (1971), "The Sacred in Human Evolution"

Morality binds and blinds . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"When a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don't match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal." Jonathan Haidt (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

delusion vs. religion (Pirsig, 1991)

"When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." Robert Pirsig (1991)

Reason vs. coercion . . . (Baggini, 2016)

"When we give up on reason, the only tool we have left is coercion." Julian Baggini (2016), The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Revolution . . . (Kungfu-tse)

"Where there is contentment there is no revolution." Kungfu-tse

The Abyss (Nietzsche, 1886)

"Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche (1886), Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

Haidt's Principles of Moral Psychology

1) Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Moral intuitions arise naturally whereas moral reasoning must be developed, like a rider trying to control an elephant. 2) There is more to morality than harm and fairness. The righteous mind is like a tongue with multiple taste receptors. 3) Morality binds and blinds. Humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee. We compete briskly with individuals but within a group context. Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

Three Great Premises of Idiot America (Pierce, 2009)

1) any theory is valid if it moves units 2) anything is true is someone says it loudly enough 3) fact is whatever enough people believe, truth depends on how fervently they believe it Charles P. Pierce postulated the Great Premises in his book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (2009) to address the ascendance of anti-intellectualism in the U.S.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher" (Smith, 1776)

Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, had claimed that individuals have sympathy for the well-being of others. On the other hand, in The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Adam Smith (1776), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Deep structure and surface structure (D-structure and S-structure)

Deep structure and surface structure (also D-structure and S-structure, although these abbreviated forms are sometimes used with distinct meanings) are concepts used in linguistics, specifically in the study of syntax in the Chomskyan tradition of transformational generative grammar. The deep structure of a linguistic expression is a theoretical construct that seeks to unify several related structures. For example, the sentences "Pat loves Chris" and "Chris is loved by Pat" mean roughly the same thing and use similar words. Some linguists, Chomsky in particular, have tried to account for this similarity by positing that these two sentences are distinct surface forms that derive from a common (or very similar) deep structure. Chomsky coined and popularized the terms "deep structure" and "surface structure" in the early 1960s.

Prosociality

Focusing on others' needs and interests by helping or cooperating with individuals or groups based on social norms and expectations.

social desirability bias

In social science research, social desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavior" or under-reporting "bad," or undesirable behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences.

He used Balance Theory

In the psychology of motivation, balance theory is a theory of attitude change, proposed by Fritz Heider. It conceptualizes the cognitive consistency motive as a drive toward psychological balance. The consistency motive is the urge to maintain one's values and beliefs over time. Heider proposed that "sentiment" or liking relationships are balanced if the affect valence in a system multiplies out to a positive result. In social network analysis, balance theory is the extension proposed by Frank Harary and Dorwin Cartwright. It was the framework for the discussion at a Dartmouth College symposium in September 1975.

cultural tribe

While cultural is necessarily an integral component of tribalism, positive or deleterious, cultural tribalism is a useful term for describing groups that have committed themselves to some aspect of a more general culture and identify themselves as such avowedly or through their actions. Likely occurs more in large populations where distinguishing oneself in the group can be difficult and becoming a part of a cultural tribe likely offers more opportunities for acknowledgement, e.g. sports teams, cause célèbres. As with the generic term "tribalism," cultural tribalism may be positive or pejorative depending upon its effects.

moral community (Goddard, 2015)

a moral community is one that meets, or at least addresses, three deep-seated needs in man: 1) The need for MEANING: the construction of a sense of PURPOSE 2) The need for IDENTITY: the discovery of a SENSE OF SELF 3) The need for AFFILIATION: the creation of a sense of BELONGING Jules Goddard, Management and Moral Capital (2015)

Ideology

a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy or religious belief. In the pejorative sense, a hegemonic body of beliefs that may subjugate alternative or competing belief systems.

Tribal identity

a tribal identity is when a group of people of a certain "tribe" or civilization are identified by their lineage or ancestry. In the extended sense, anything that contributes to the feeling of a group member's sense of belonging.

Affective Primacy Hypothesis

affective primacy hypothesis, which claims that positive and negative affective reactions can be evoked with minimal stimulus input and virtually no cognitive processing (Zajonc, 1980).

Big Lie

big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique and logical trick (fallacy). The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". Hitler believed the technique was used by Jews to blame Germany's loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist and antisemitic political leader in the Weimar Republic.

social norms

expected standards of conduct, which influence behavior.

sacralization

imbuing a social convention, ideology, or belief system, such as religion, with a divine aspect to make it seem necessity or mandate.

fictive kin

sociology of the family, this idea is referred to as chosen kin, fictive kin or voluntary kin. Sociologists define the concept as a form of extended family members who are not related by either blood or marriage. The bonds allowing for chosen kinship may include religious rituals, close friendship ties, or other essential reciprocal social or economic relationships. Examples of chosen kin include godparents, informally adopted children, and close family friends. The idea of fictive kin has been used to analyze aging, foreign fighters, immigrant communities, and minorities in modern societies. Some researchers state that peers have the potential to create fictive kin networks.

tribal signaling

symbols, behaviors, attitudes, and other physical and conceptual regalia that identify a group or reaffirm the existence of the group for its members and outgroups.

cultural tribalism

the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group. Refers to the subdivision of society in groups who come together by a shared or specific type of thinking or behavior.

groupishness

the desire of people to be with other people.

intellectual conformity (intellectual or emotional dependence)

the naive sociocentric tendency to uncritically accept the received views of society as the right and correct way to think regardless of the soundness of those views; the intrinsic tendency to seek validation from the groups in which we are members; the natural tendency to place acceptance by others above thinking for ourselves. Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2010). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Dillon Beach: Foundation for Critical Thinking Press

collective effervescence (Durkheim, 1915)

Émile Durkheim's (1915) term for the passion and ecstasy that group rituals can generate. "The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation." Émile Durkheim (1915), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Stories, not logic . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor." Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

Crisis of Moral Legitimacy

The belief by many that modern societies are experiencing a moral crisis due, in the West, to a decline in the authority of the church. The perceived lack of a societal moral paradigm may contribute to the rise and exacerbation of group polarization and tribalism.

political culture

an overall set of values widely shared within a society.

mere contact strategy

based on the principle that greater contact among members of diverse groups increases cooperation among group members.

social conventions (Turiel, 1983)

behavioral uniformities that serve to coordinate social interactions and are tied to the contexts of specific social systems. E. Turiel (1983), The Develop ment of Social Knowledge

Tribal behaviors

behaviors that tend to identify members of an acknowledged or assumed group.

social persuasion

being persuaded to an opinion, belief, or to take an action based in social influence rather than reasoned judgment.

hivemind (Cavanaugh, 2019)

collective thinking, thinking as part of a whole not an individual human being, groupthink. Hivemind: A collective consciousness in which we share consensus thoughts, emotions, and opinions; a phenomenon whereby a group of people function as if with a single mind. Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World (2019), Sarah Rose Cavanaugh

Disgust sensitivity

disgust sensitivity is defined as a predisposition to experiencing disgust.

strategic altruism

engaging in cooperative behaviors with the expectation that recipients will reciprocate. Varies from reciprocal altruism in that strategic altruism is conscious while reciprocal altruism is innate in humans and many other primates.

Robbers Cave Experiment

experiment which showed that even arbitrary group distinctions (camp teams) can cause a bitter rivalry and discrimination, thus demonstrating in-group/out-group biases.

tribal disloyalty

in the extended sense, any attitude, belief, or behavior perceived by group members as contrary to established group practices or group (tribal) ideology.

Group

two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals.

outgroup

"them" - those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.

The Big Lie Theory

Commonly known as Goebbels principle that states if one wrong is reverberated many times, people will accept that wrong as right a.i. Brilliant propaganda confines itself to a few key terms and repeats them continuously.

Self-Categorization Theory (SCT)

Idea that people place themselves within a category and can satisfy self-esteem needs by more positively evaluating their group as compared to other groups.

group identification

a feeling of belonging with others.

medial prefrontal cortex

area of the brain associated with recognizing others as human. The are does not activate as intensely when considering out group members.

cultural group selection

occurs when the cultural beliefs and behaviors of a group spread to other groups through cultural diffusion.

political socialization

the process by which people gain their political attitudes and opinions.

"The Tragedy of the Commons" (Hardin, 1968)

In 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin explored this social dilemma in his article "The Tragedy of the Commons", published in the journal Science. The essay derived its title from the pamphlet by Lloyd, which he cites, on the over-grazing of common land.

A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger

In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance, by making changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.

moral panic (social science)

Marshall McLuhan gave the term academic treatment in his book Understanding Media, written in 1964. According to Stanley Cohen, author of a sociological study about youth culture and media called Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when "...[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as 'moral entrepreneurs', while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as 'folk devils.'

Reflective equilibrium

Reflective equilibrium is a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgments. Although he did not use the term, philosopher Nelson Goodman introduced the method of reflective equilibrium as an approach to justifying the principles of inductive logic (this is now known as Goodman's method). The term 'reflective equilibrium' was coined by John Rawls and popularized in his A Theory of Justice as a method for arriving at the content of the principles of justice.

oppositional culture

Oppositional culture, also known as the ''blocked opportunities framework'' or the "caste theory of education", is a term most commonly used in studying the sociology of education to explain racial disparities in educational achievement, particularly between white and black Americans. However, the term refers to any subculture's rejection of conformity to prevailing norms and values, not just nonconformity within the educational system. Thus many criminal gangs and religious cults could also be considered oppositional cultures.

"social order is moral order" (Shweder, 1987)

Richard Shweder (1987), based in his studies in the Orissa province of east India discovered that in sociocentric cultures where societal order trumped individual needs, anything could become a moral issue, thus promoting his observation that "the social order is a moral order" to emphasize this fact. Ultimately, he concluded that all human societies adhere to this general concept but vary in its details. Shweder, R.A., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1987). "Culture and moral development." In The Emergence of Morality in Young Children, J. Kagan & S. Lamb (eds.), 1-83.

oppression socialization

Oppression socialization refers to the process by which "individuals develop understandings of power and political structure, particularly as these inform perceptions of identity, power, and opportunity relative to gender, racialized group membership, and sexuality." This action is a form of political socialization in its relation to power and the persistent compliance of the disadvantaged with their oppression using limited "overt coercion."

reactive devaluation (Ross & Stillinger, 1988)

Reactive devaluation is a cognitive bias that occurs when a proposal is devalued if it appears to originate from an antagonist. The bias was proposed by Lee Ross and Constance Stillinger (1988). Reactive devaluation could be caused by loss aversion or attitude polarization, or naïve realism.

moral dumbfounding

The stubborn and puzzled maintenance of a moral judgment without supporting reasons. Insistence that something is morally wrong without being able to articulate rational reasons to support the contention. Many researchers have found evidence to support the contention that specious reasons offered for moral victimhood are often post hoc rationalizations, viz. Haidt (2012). Reference Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Moral Community Hypothesis

The term "moral community" in ethics does not mean a community of people who act morally or ethically. This could be a meaning of the term, but it is not the meaning used here. In ethics, one's moral community consists of all those beings that one holds in moral regard. ie., those beings that you need to think "but is this right" before you do something that could affect them.

"the praise and blame of our fellow-men" (Darwin, 1874)

". . . another and much more powerful stimulus to the development of the social virtues, is afforded by the praise and the blame of our fellow-men." Charles Darwin (1874), Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Reason . . . (Swift)

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." Jonathan Swift

reasoned judgement

A decision that requires time and effort and results from careful information gathering, generation of alternatives, and evaluation of alternatives.

social norms approach

A method of reducing risky behavior among emerging adults that is based on their desire to follow social norms. This approach publicizes survey results to make emerging adults aware of the actual prevalence of various behaviors within their peer group..

social (cultural) construct

A social (cultural) construct or construction concerns the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by the inhabitants of that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event. In that respect, a social construct as an idea would be widely accepted as natural by the society. A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are developed, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans.

enlightened self-interest

Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest. It has often been simply expressed by the belief that an individual, group, or even a commercial entity will "do well by doing good.

Identity

Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person (self-identity) or group (particular social category or social group), in psychology.[citation needed] Categorizing identity can be positive or destructive. A psychological identity relates to self-image (one's mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality. Consequently, Weinreich gives the definition: "A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future"; this allows for definitions of aspects of identity, such as: "One's ethnic identity is defined as that part of the totality of one's self-construal made up of those dimensions that express the continuity between one's construal of past ancestry and one's future aspirations in relation to ethnicity."

self-perception theory of attitude change (Ben, 1972)

In 1972, Daryl Bem proposed the self-perception theory of attitude change, which proposes a different mechanism of change than that of Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. Although the two theories appear contradictory, evidence suggests that dissonance theory and self-perception theory each explain different aspects of how people adjust their attitudes and behaviors to one another. Dissonance theory explains how people change their attitudes when they find themselves acting in opposition to the attitudes they already hold, while self-perception theory explains how people create their attitudes in the first place. According to self-perception theory, people infer their attitudes from their own behavior much as an outside observer might.

Counter projection

Jung wrote, "All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject." Thus, what is unconscious in the recipient will be projected back onto the projector, precipitating a form of mutual acting out. In a rather different usage, Harry Stack Sullivan saw counter-projection in the therapeutic context as a way of warding off the compulsive re-enactment of a psychological trauma, by emphasizing the difference between the current situation and the projected obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the original trauma.

Confluence Model (Zajonc & Markus, 1975)

Robert Zajonc, along with Greg Markus, developed the Confluence Model (1975), which provided a mathematical model of the effect of birth order and family size on IQ scores. This theory suggests that children are born into intellectual environments that affect intelligence—first born children are born into adults-only families, all others are born into mixed adult/child families. As families increase in size, the overall IQ of the family drops; children from larger families do have slightly lower IQs. The last child in the family is denied the opportunity to tutor younger children, and there is a slight "extra" detriment for being the youngest child in a family. These effects are theoretically important, but the size of the effects is fairly small (amounting to a range of about 3 IQ points).

social definition

Situations defined as real are real in their consequences (subjective reality). The meanings that a given group or culture places on a concept or situation.

social default effect

Some default effects are implied by the situation. In social settings, for example, the normative choice (what others are doing) may be adopted unconsciously as a social default effect. People are thus more likely to choose what they observe other choosing, even if they do not believe that other person is the more knowledgeable person. People are also more likely to treat choices that require less justification as defaults. The default option for parole hearings, for example, is to deny prisoners parole.

Moral Monism vs. Moral Pluralism

Some ethicists believe that a person should be fundamentally committed to a single moral orientation and make all their moral decisions using only that framework. Others think it unnecessary to choose one theory and that it is acceptable to switch between theories as needed. Moral monism is the view that it is necessary to choose only one theory for your moral decisions. Moral pluralism is the view that it is not necessary to select a single moral theory. A person can move from one theory to another as necessary. Consequentialism can serve for some moral decisions, for example, and Aristotelianism for others.

partisan minds . . . (Hoffer, 1951)

The American thinker Eric Hoffer believed we could generate deep insights about human history, psychology, and politics by examining how people come to hold extreme ideological identities. In his famous book, The True Believer (1951), Hoffer argued that extreme adherents to an ideology or political party tend to have a particular psychological character that makes them susceptible to joining any ideological group, regardless of the specific beliefs it advocates. He wrote: All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind.

Yerkes-Dodson law

The Yerkes-Dodson law, when applied to social facilitation, states that "the mere presence of other people will enhance the performance in speed and accuracy of well-practiced tasks, but will degrade in the performance of less familiar tasks." Compared to their performance when alone, when in the presence of others, they tend to perform better on simple or well-rehearsed tasks and worse on complex or new ones. The audience effect is an attempt at psychologically explaining why the presence of an audience leads to people performing tasks better in some cases and worse in others. This idea was further explored when some studies showed that the presence of a passive audience facilitated the better performance of a simple task, while other studies showed that the presence of a passive audience inhibited the performance of a more difficult task or one that was not well practiced, possibly due to psychological pressure or stress.

Tribalism's Toxic Trio

The three elements of thinking that contribute invidiously to creating group polarization and tribalism are . . . - self-interest - social identity - strong emotions

The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) The Second Coming

tribal response

a tribal response is any reaction that adheres strictly to tribal ideology and doctrine. An unthoughtful, reflexive position.

informational gerrymandering

communication networks (such as social media) can distort voters' perceptions of how others plan to vote, but also that this distortion can increase the chance of electoral deadlock or bias overall election outcomes in favor of one party.

intellectual and ideological diversity

debates or deliberations that are tolerant or proactively supportive of diverse and divergent points of view with an aim toward achieving the best decisions and generating productive ideas.

Robbers Cave Experiment

experiment which showed that even arbitrary group distinctions (camp teams) can cause a bitter rivalry and discrimination, thus demonstrating in-group/out-group biases. The 1954 Robbers Cave Experiment by Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Wood Sherif represents one of the most widely known demonstrations of RCT. The Sherifs' study was conducted over three weeks in a 200-acre summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, focusing on intergroup behavior. In this study, researchers posed as camp personnel, observing 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys who had never previously met and had comparable backgrounds. The experiment was divided into three stages. The first stage being "ingroup formation", in which upon arrival the boys were split into two approximately equal groups based on similarities. Each group was unaware of the other group's presence. The second stage was the "friction phase", wherein the groups were entered in competition with one another in various camp games. Valued prizes were awarded to the winners. This caused both groups to develop negative attitudes and behaviors towards the outgroup. The third and final stage was the "integration stage". During this stage, tensions between the groups were reduced through teamwork-driven tasks that required intergroup cooperation. The Sherifs made several conclusions based on the three-stage Robbers Cave Experiment. From the study, he determined that because the groups were created to be approximately equal, individual differences are not necessary or responsible for intergroup conflict to occur. As seen in the study when the boys were competing in camp games for valued prizes, Sherif noted that hostile and aggressive attitudes toward an outgroup arise when groups compete for resources that only one group can attain. Sherif also establishes that contact with an outgroup is insufficient, by itself, to reduce negative attitudes. Finally, he concludes that friction between groups can be reduced along with positive intergroup relations maintained, only in the presence of superordinate goals that promote united, cooperative action. However a further review of the Robber's Cave Experiments, which were in fact a series of three separate experiments carried out by the Sherifs and colleagues, reveals additional deliberations. In two earlier studies the boys ganged up on a common enemy, and in fact on occasion ganged up on the experimenters themselves showing an awareness of being manipulated.[9] In addition, Michael Billig argues that the experimenters themselves constitute a third group, and one that is arguably the most powerful of the three, and that they in fact become the outgroup in the aforementioned experiment. Lutfy Diab repeated the experiment with 18 boys from Beirut. The 'Blue Ghost' and 'Red Genies' groups each contained 5 Christians and 4 Muslims. Fighting soon broke out, not Christian vs Muslim but Blue vs Red.

ideological commitment

genuinely committed to "making a difference" strongly motivated "moral shock" - a sense of outrage - finding out what is "really" going on.

tribal instincts hypothesis (Richerson & Boyd, 1998)

groups that learned to innovate and accumulate culture gained a competitive advantage over other merely social groups. Peter Richerson & Rob Boyd (1998). "The Evolution of Human Ultra-sociality"

gullible learning module (Dawkins, 2006)

human children have a selective advantage by naïvely believing everything, without question, their parents tell them. Richard Dawkins (2006), The God Delusion

moral community (Durkheim)

moral community A term used by Émile Durkheim to describe traditional rural communities, in contrast to cities. The moral community is characterized by social integration (extensive and intimate attachments) and by moral integration (a set of shared beliefs about morality and behaviour). In modern usage, any small group with these qualities, such as a religious sect or military unit, may be termed a moral community.

reasoned persuasion

persuasion that builds a case to justify its recommendations.

Haidt's Elephants Rule theory

rider (concious), elephant (intution) believes inuition comes first then rationalisation so the elephant RULES.

out-group homogeneity

tendency to view all individuals outside our group as highly similar.

social identity

the "we" aspect of our self-concept.

social pre-wiring hypothesis (social determinism)

the belief that social behaviors are genetically determined and alone explain individual behavior.

ideological competition

the contest between two or more ideologically disposed groups or individuals to demonstrate the supremacy or rectitude of one ideology or the other.

"prewired . . . rather than hardwired" (Marcus, 2004)

"Nature bestows upon the newborn a considerably complex brain, but one that is best seen as prewired--flexible and subject to change--rather than hardwired, fixed, and immutable." Gary Marcus, The Birth of the Brain (2004)

"organized in advance of experience" (Marcus, 2004)

"Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises. . . . 'Built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means 'organized in advance of experience." Gary Marcus, The Birth of the Brain (2004)

acedia

Acedia (also accidie or accedie from Latin acedĭa, and this from Greek "negligence", "lack of "care") is a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life. It is related to depression. Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life.

creeping normality (Diamond, 2005)

Creeping normality (also called landscape amnesia) is the way a major change can be accepted as a normal situation if it happens slowly through unnoticeable increments of change. The change could otherwise be regarded as objectionable if it took place in a single step or short period. The phrase creeping normality was coined by American scientist Jared Diamond in his 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He had previously alluded to this theory while attempting to explain why, in the course of long-term environmental degradation, Easter Island natives would, seemingly irrationally, chop down the last tree: I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper. After all, there are those hundreds of abandoned statues to consider. The forest the islanders depended on for rollers and rope didn't simply disappear one day—it vanished slowly, over decades.

Bacon's Idola Tribus

Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus): This is humans' tendency to perceive more order and regularity in systems than truly exists, and is due to people following their preconceived ideas about things. Francis Bacon Novum Organon (1620)

"Glaucon was right" (Haidt, 2012)

In assessing human nature, psychologist Jonathan Haidt (2012) refers to Plato's classic the Republic to assess human morality specifically the debate between Socrates and Glaucon about justice and the nature of virtue. Socrates avers that the common good requires people to be virtuous per se, while Glaucon maintains that such an expectation is quixotic and unattainable. In awarding the debate to Glaucon, Haidt makes the following points: 1) what people ought to do depends on assumptions about human nature and psychology made invariably by people 2) reason is not fit to rule; it evolved to provide justification, not truth 3) people care more about appearance and reputation than reality 4) the most important principle in designing an ethical society is to make sure that everyone's reputation is on the line all the time, so that bad behavior will always bring bad consequences. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

naïve realism

In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased. Naïve realism provides a theoretical basis for several other cognitive biases, which are systematic errors when it comes to thinking and making decisions. These include the false consensus effect, actor-observer bias, bias blind spot, and fundamental attribution error, among others. The term, as it is used in psychology today, was coined by social psychologist Lee Ross and his colleagues in the 1990s. It is related to the philosophical concept of naïve realism, which is the idea that our senses allow us to perceive objects directly and without any intervening processes. Social psychologists in the mid-20th century argued against this stance and proposed instead that perception is inherently subjective.

Glauconian Moral Reasoning (Haidt, 2012)

Jonathan Haidt's (2012) contention that moral reasoning evolved to further humans socially strategic goals. The name comes from the character of Glaucon in Plato's Republic who maintained that without restraints imposed on them, people will naturally seek advantage, a population with which Haidt et al., a moral psychologist, agrees. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Haidt's Three Principles of Moral Psychology

Jonathan Haidt originally posited four principles. He has since reduced the number to three by combining the first two. His three principles are described in the three sections of his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. They are 1) Intuition comes first, strategic reasoning second 2) There's more to morality than care and fairness, and 3) Morality binds and blinds. In Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion (1) Haidt describes a "new synthesis" of "cross-disciplinary scientific interest in morality" which has taken place since the advent of the technology of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Our new ability, with fMRI, to see which parts of the brain are active when we react to various situations, in combination with other findings from social science research - notably including that of Haidt - shows us that "Emotional responses in the brain, not abstract principles of philosophy" explain why we humans think and act the way we do about moral and social issues. Haidt summarizes this new synthesis in with four principles of Moral Psychology: 1) "Intuitive primacy, but not dictatorship." We are driven mostly by our instantaneous emotions and intuitions (e.g., fight or flee, approach or avoid.) Reasoning, on the other hand, "by its very nature is slow, playing out in seconds," long after we've experienced our emotional reaction to something. The use of reason to override our intuitive reactions "happens rarely, maybe in one or two percent of the hundreds of judgments we make each week." 2) "Moral thinking is for social doing." Reason is for winning arguments, not for finding the truth. Language and reasoning evolved to help us persuade others to see and do things our way. 3) "Morality binds and builds." "Morality is a set of constraints that binds people together into an emergent collective identity." Humans "form tight, cooperative groups that pursue collective ends and punish cheaters and slackers, and they do this most strongly when in conflict with other groups. Morality is what makes all of that possible." 4) "Morality is about more than harm and fairness." Many people believe that morality is about fairness, and the "care and protection of the vulnerable." "But if you try to apply this two-foundation morality to the rest of the world, you either fail or you become Procrustes." [Procrustes is a mythological figure who would persuade passers-by to stay the night with the promise that he had a bed which would fit them perfectly. After they accepted his offer he would stretch them or amputate parts of their legs so they would fit the bed. Procrustean analysis is the process of fitting the data to fit the solution.] "If you want to describe human morality, rather than the morality of educated Western academics, you've got to include the Durkheimian view that morality is in large part about binding people together."

Koinophilia

Koinophilia is an evolutionary hypothesis proposing that during sexual selection, animals preferentially seek mates with a minimum of unusual or mutant features, including functionality, appearance and behavior. Koinophilia intends to explain the clustering of sexual organisms into species and other issues described by Darwin's Dilemma. The term derives from the Greek, koinos, "common", "that which is shared", and philia, "fondness".

Political Tribes (2018), Amy Chua

Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations is a book by Amy Chua. It was published in February, 2018, and covers the topic of how loyalty to groups can be more important than ideology, and applies this idea to both failures of American foreign policy abroad and the rise of Donald Trump within the United States.

Psychological projection

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

social distance

Social distance describes the distance between different groups in society and is opposed to locational distance. The notion includes differences such as social class, race/ethnicity, gender or sexuality, but also the fact that the different groups mix less than members of the same group. The term is applied especially in cities. An old concept, Robert E. Park defined social distance in 1924 as "an attempt to reduce to something like measurable terms the grade and degrees of understanding and intimacy which characterizes personal and social relations generally". It is the measure of nearness or intimacy that an individual or group feels towards another individual or group in a social network or the level of trust one group has for another and the extent of perceived likeness of beliefs. The concept of social distance as applied to the study of racial attitudes and racial relations. Journal of Applied Sociology, 8, 339-344.</ref> In the sociological literature, social distance is conceptualized in several different ways. Affective social distance: One widespread conception of social distance focuses on affectivity. According to this approach, social distance is associated with affective distance, i.e. how much sympathy the members of a group feel for another group. Emory Bogardus, the creator of "Bogardus social distance scale" was typically basing his scale on this subjective-affective conception of social distance: "[i]n social distance studies the center of attention is on the feeling reactions of persons toward other persons and toward groups of people." Normative social distance: A second approach views social distance as a normative category. Normative social distance refers to the widely accepted and often consciously expressed norms about who should be considered as an "insider" and who an "outsider/foreigner". Such norms, in other words, specify the distinctions between "us" and "them". Therefore, normative social distance differs from affective social distance, because it conceives social distance is conceived as a non-subjective, structural aspect of social relations. Examples of this conception can be found in some of the works of sociologists such as Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim and to some extent Robert Park. Interactive social distance: A third conceptualization of social distance focuses on the frequency and intensity of interactions between two groups, claiming that the more the members of two groups interact, the closer they are socially. This conception is similar to the approaches in sociological network theory, where the frequency of interaction between two parties is used as a measure of the "strength" of the social ties between them. Cultural and Habitual Distance: A fourth conceptualization of social distance focuses cultural and habitual which is proposed by Bourdieu (1990). This type of distance is influenced by the "capital" people possess. It is possible to view these different conceptions as "dimensions" of social distance, which do not necessarily overlap. The members of two groups might interact with each other quite frequently, but that does not always mean that they will feel "close" to each other or that normatively they will consider each other as the members of the same group. In other words, interactive, normative and affective dimensions of social distance might not be linearly associated. Social distance was also used in a different meaning by anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, Edward T. Hall, to describe the psychological distance which an animal can stand to be away from its group before beginning to feel anxious. This phenomenon can be seen in human babies and toddlers who can only walk or crawl so far from their parents or guardians before becoming anxious and quickly returning to the safe space. The babies' social distance is quite small. Hall also notes that this concept of social distance has been extended by technological advances such as the telephone, walkie talkie, and television, among others. Hall's analysis of social distance came before the development of the internet, which has expanded social distance exponentially. Social distance is now even expanding beyond our planet as we send people into outer space on space missions and even personal trips to space.

common ingroup identity model

The common ingroup identity model is a theoretical model proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio that outlines the processes through which intergroup bias may be reduced. Intergroup bias is a preference for one's in-group over the out-group. Derived from the social identity approach to intergroup behaviour, the common ingroup identity model is rooted in the process of social categorization, or how people conceive of group boundaries. The model describes how intergroup bias can be reduced if members of different groups can be induced to conceive of themselves to be part of the same group, then they would develop more positive attitudes of the former outgroup members. An individual will change the way they view the out-group through a social categorization process called recategorization where former out-group members become incorporated into individual's representations of the in-group.

Harm Principle

The harm principle holds that the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals. John Stuart Mill articulated this principle in On Liberty, where he argued that "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." An equivalent was earlier stated in France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 as, "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."

deliberative field (Herman, 1999)

The particular, intricate, and continually evolving field of factors and influences laden with projects, preferences, affects, and attachments within which a person exercises their rational deliberative power (rational agency) and make decisions. Herman, Barbara (1991). "Agency, Attachment, and Difference."

Volunteer's Dilemma

The volunteer's dilemma game models a situation in which each player can either make a small sacrifice that benefits everybody, or instead wait in hope of benefiting from someone else's sacrifice.

sociocentric morality

assessing morality thorugh the intellectual frame of group needs.

Echo Chamber Effect

self-selection of media sources tends to reinforce pre-existing views.

cultural relativism

the practice of judging a culture by its own standards.

group cohesion

the sense of solidarity or loyalty that individuals feel toward a group to which they belong.

outgroup homogeneity effect

the tendency to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members.

Speak to the elephant . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"If you want to change someone's mind about a moral or political issue, talk to the elephant first. If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch--a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion. They will almost always succeed." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

"follow the sacredness . . ." / Manichaean vs. Yin-yang disagreements

"If you want to understand another group, follow the sacredness. As a first step, think about the six moral foundations, and try to figure out which one or two are carrying the most weight in a particular controversy. And if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first. If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the "other" group, you'll find it far easier to listen to what they're saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light. You may not agree, but you'll probably shift from Manichaean disagreement to a more respectful and constructive yin-yang disagreement." Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

Inhabiting different spaces . . . (Irigaray)

"In this moment we seem to be in the same place, inhabiting the same space, the same time, the same country, the same culture, the same language. . . . it is only an illusion." Luce Irigaray

Intolerance . . . (Freud, 1939)

"Intolerance finds stronger expression, strange to say, in regard to small differences than to fundamental ones." Sigmund Freud (1939), Moses and Monotheism

Intuitions and reasoning . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. You'll misunderstand moral reasoning if you think about it as something people do by themselves in order to figure out the truth." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

Emotional Universes (Russell, 1962)

"It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. . . . I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us." Bertrand Russell (1962), Letter to Sir Oswald Mosley

"opposite dangers" (Russell, 1946)

"It is clear that each party to this dispute . . . is partly right and partly wrong. Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; and on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of individualism and personal experience that makes cooperation impossible." Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1946)

Educated ignorance . . . (Donnelly, 1856)

"It is so oftentimes in this world that it is not the philosophy that is at fault, but the facts." Ignatius Donnelly (1856)

Justice . . . (Rawls, 1971)

"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests." John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)

"Man is by nature a social animal . . ."

"Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god." Aristotle, Politics

Herd thinking . . . (Mackay)

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)

Moral matrices bind and blind . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"Moral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices. This makes it very difficult for people to consider the possibility that there might really be more than one form of moral truth, or more than one valid framework for judging people or running a society." Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

The Intuitive Dog . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. A dog's tail wags to communicate. You can't make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their arguments. . . . Elicit new intuitions, not new rationales." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

moral systems (Haidt, 2012)

"Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, [ideologies], technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible." Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

ideological teams (Haidt, 2012)

"Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say." Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

"primate minds with a hivish moral overlay" (Haidt, 2012)

"Once you see our righteous minds as primate minds with a hivish moral overlay, you get a whole new perspective on morality, politics, and religion. . . . People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds." Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

The responsibility of choice, the boredom of agreement . . . (Lawrence & Nohria, 2002)

"Our genetic heritage has given us the responsibility to choose our course in the universe. Free will is real; it is built into every individual. . . . It is our destiny based on human nature, to forever seek to create, as best we can, heaven on earth and beyond. Rest assured, however, that humans will always be contentious and will never reach the boredom of complete agreement on the nature of that heaven." Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria (2002), Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices

Morality as politics . . . (Haidt, 2002)

"Our moral thinking is much more like a politician searching for votes than a scientist searching for truth." Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

shared intentionality . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"Shared intentionality allowed humans to construct nests that were vast and ornate yet weightless and portable. Bees construct hives out of wax and wood fibers, which they then fight, kill, and die to defend. Humans construct moral communities out of shared norms, institutions, and gods that, even in the twenty-first century, they fight, kill, and die to defend." Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Quarrelsome people . . . (Madison)

"So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that when no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions." James Madison Federalist 10

Talk radio . . . (Pierce, 2009)

"Talk radio was the driving force in changing American debate into American argument. It moved discussion southward from the brain to the Gut. Debate no longer consists of thesis and antithesis, moving forward to synthesis; it is now a matter of choosing up sides, finding someone on your team to sally forth, and then laying the wood to each other in between commercials for male-enhancement products." Pierce, Charles P. (2009). Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Brave

Embrace of rationality . . . (Baggini, 2016)

"The embrace of rationality does not require a retreat into a heartless, sterile, scientistic world-view, but simply involves the application of critical thinking wherever thinking is needed." Julian Baggini (2016), The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Morality . . . (Shermer)

"Morality is relative to the moral frame of reference. As long as it is understood that morality is a human construction influenced by human cultures, one can be more tolerant of other human belief systems, and thus other humans. But as soon as a group sets itself up as the final moral arbiter of other people's actions, especially when it's members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it marks the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus reason and rationality. It is this characteristic more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any other group dangerous to individual freedom." Michael Shermer Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudo-science, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (1997)

the Hive Switch aka Hive Hypothesis (Haidt, 2012)

"My hypothesis in this chapter is that human beings are conditional hive creatures . We have the ability (under special conditions) to transcend self-interest and lose ourselves (temporarily and ecstatically) in something larger than ourselves. That ability is what I'm calling the hive switch . The hive switch, I propose, is a group-related adaptation that can only be explained "by a theory of between-group selection," as Williams said. 4 It cannot be explained by selection at the individual level. (How would this strange ability help a person to outcompete his neighbors in the same group?) The hive switch is an adaptation for making groups more cohesive, and therefore more successful in competition with other groups." Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Ethics and choices . . . (Herman, 2013)

"No one is an island unto himself. Our ethical choices . . . all have social consequences." Arthur Herman (2013), The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

A Divided Empire . . . (Jefferson, 1786)

"When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science; to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their controul. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the incertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation therefore in sentiment, not in science." Thomas Jefferson, "Letter to Maria Cosway" (1786)

We are multiple from the start . . . (Shweder, 1991)

"Yet the conceptions held by others are available to us, in the sense that when we truly understand their conception of things we come to recognize possibilities latent within our own rationality . . . and those ways of conceiving things become salient for us for the first time, or once again. In other words, there is no homogeneous 'backcloth' to our world. We are multiple from the start." Shweder, R.A. (1991). Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology

nationalism (Orwell)

"the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. . . . The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality." George Orwell

toxic tribalism

A loyalty to one's own tribe or social group to the point that dogma and dysfunction become the standard. Two key characteristics in which an individual has become drunk with toxic tribalism: Demonization — This is the first and foremost quality of someone who is toxically tribal. If there is any labeling of the other group as being "stupid," "evil," "racist," "demons," "scum," so on and so forth then you can almost be sure that they are in the mindset of toxic tribalism.Unconscious Behavior & Attitudes — One of the hallmarks of someone who is engrossed in toxic tribalism is a lack of conscious behavior. Unconscious behavior comes in many forms such as screaming, not entertaining contradictory ideas, being closed minded, violence, and the list goes on. You cannot be dogmatic if you are truly conscious in the present moment. Dogmatic behavior can only take place in unconsciousness.

moral panic

A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society. A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue - usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media". In recent centuries the mass media have become important players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged in sensationalism or in muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic. Stanley Cohen states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory paedophiles, belief in ritual abuse of women and children by satanic cults,[8] concerns over the effects of music lyrics, the war on drugs, and other public-health issues. Some moral panics can become embedded long-term in standard political discourse, e.g., note concerns about "Reds under the beds" and about terrorism.

construal level theory (CLT)

A theory that outlines the relationship between psychological distance and the concreteness versus abstraction of thought. Psychologically distant actions and events are thought about in abstract terms; actions and events that are close at hand are thought about in concrete terms. Construal level theory (CLT) is a theory in social psychology that describes the relation between psychological distance and the extent to which people's thinking (e.g., about objects and events) is abstract or concrete. The general idea is that the more distant an object is from the individual, the more abstract it will be thought of, while the closer the object is, the more concretely it will be thought of. In CLT, psychological distance is defined on several dimensions—temporal, spatial, social and hypothetical distance being considered most important, though there is some debate among social psychologists about further dimensions like informational, experiential or affective distance.

dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and social appraisal

Activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been implicated in processing both the detection and appraisal of social processes, including social exclusion. When exposed to repeated personal social evaluative tasks, non-depressed women showed reduced fMRI BOLD activation in the dACC on the second exposure, while women with a history of depression exhibited enhanced BOLD activation. This differential activity may reflect enhanced rumination about social evaluation or enhanced arousal associated with repeated social evaluation.

boundaries of the mind

Boundaries of the mind refers to a personality trait concerning the degree of separateness ("thickness") or connection ("thinness") between mental functions and processes. Thin boundaries are associated with open-mindedness, sensitivity, vulnerability, creativity, and artistic ability. People with thin boundaries may tend to confuse fantasy and reality and tend to have a fluid sense of identity, so that they tend to merge or lose themselves in their relations with others. People with thick boundaries differentiate clearly between reality and fantasy and between self and other, and tend to prefer well-defined social structures. The concept was developed by psychoanalyst Ernest Hartmann from his observations of the personality characteristics of frequent nightmare sufferers. The construct has been particularly studied in relation to dream recall and lucid dreaming.

reactance theory

Christopher Brehm's theory that we react against threats to our freedoms by reasserting those freedoms, often by doing the opposite of what we are being pressured to do.

competitive altruism

Competitive altruism is a possible mechanism for the persistence of cooperative behaviors, specifically those that are performed unconditionally. The theory of reciprocal altruism can be used to explain behaviors that are performed by a donor who receives some sort of benefit in the future. When no such compensation is received, however, reciprocity fails to explain altruistic behavior.

relative hostile media effect

Early hostile media effect studies measured perceptions of a media message designed to be unbiased. As ideologically diversified news outlets became more commonplace, later experiments began to utilize messages that were less objective. They found that while partisans on both sides of an issue recognized the bias, the group the message opposed perceived a greater degree of bias than the group the message supported. This variation is referred to as the relative hostile media effect, and has been demonstrated in media coverage of the use of primates for lab testing. Gunther et al. said, "the relative hostile media effect occurs when individuals with different attitudes toward the issue exhibit significantly different evaluations of the same media content."

Everett Dirksen (1896-1969)

Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 - September 7, 1969) was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Illinois in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. As Senate Minority Leader from 1959 to 1969, he played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s. He helped write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both landmark pieces of legislation during the Civil Rights Movement. He was also one of the Senate's strongest supporters of the Vietnam War. A talented orator with a florid style and a notably rich baritone voice, his flamboyant speeches caused his detractors to refer to him as "The Wizard of Ooze."

Herd behavior

Herd behavior is the behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction. Herd behavior occurs in animals in herds, packs, bird flocks, fish schools and so on, as well as in humans in demonstrations, riots and general strikes, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and everyday decision-making, judgement and opinion-forming. Raafat, Chater and Frith proposed an integrated approach to herding, describing two key issues, the mechanisms of transmission of thoughts or behavior between individuals and the patterns of connections between them. They suggested that bringing together diverse theoretical approaches of herding behavior illuminates the applicability of the concept to many domains, ranging from cognitive neuroscience to economics.

Preferences need no inferences (Zajonc, 1980)

In 1980, a speculative and widely debated paper by Robert Zajonc entitled "Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences," invited in honor of his receipt of the 1979 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, made the argument that affective and cognitive systems are largely independent, and that affect is more powerful and comes first. This paper precipitated a great deal of interest in affect in psychology, and was one of a number of influences that brought the study of emotion and affective processes back into the forefront of psychology.

muscular bonding (McNeill, 1997)

In Keeping Together in Time (1997) William McNeill, one of the most widely read and respected historians in America, pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together. As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to the latest findings of the life sciences, he discovers evidence that rhythmic movement has played a profound role in creating and sustaining human communities. The behavior of chimpanzees, festival village dances, the close-order drill of early modern Europe, the ecstatic dance-trances of shamans and dervishes, the goose-stepping Nazi formations, the morning exercises of factory workers in Japan--all these and many more figure in the bold picture McNeill draws. A sense of community is the key, and shared movement, whether dance or military drill, is its mainspring. McNeill focuses on the visceral and emotional sensations such movement arouses, particularly the euphoric fellow-feeling he calls muscular bonding. These sensations, he suggests, endow groups with a capacity for cooperation, which in turn improves their chance of survival. A tour de force of imagination and scholarship, Keeping Together in Time reveals the muscular, rhythmic dimension of human solidarity. Its lessons will serve us well as we contemplate the future of the human community and of ourvarious local communities.

dominant ideology

In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the population thinks about the nature of society, their place in society, and their connection to a social class. In The German Ideology (1845), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said that "The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas" applied to every social class in service to the interests of the ruling class. Hence, in the revolutionary practice, the slogan: "The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class" summarises its function as a revolutionary basis. In a capitalist, bourgeois society, Marxist revolutionary praxis seeks to achieve the social and political circumstances that render the ruling class as politically illegitimate, as such, it is requisite for the successful deposition of the capitalist system of production. Then, the ideology of the working class achieves and establishes social, political, and economic dominance, so that the proletariat (the urban working class and the peasantry) can assume power (political and economic) as the dominant class of the society. In non-Marxist theory, the dominant ideology means the values, beliefs, and morals shared by the social majority, which frames how most of the populace think about their society, and so, to the extent that it does, it may serve the interests of the ruling class; therefore, the extent to which a dominant ideology effectively dominates collective societal thought has declined during the modern era.

The God Delusion (2006), Richard Dawkins

In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." With many examples, he explains that one does not need religion to be moral and that the roots of religion and of morality can be explained in non-religious terms.

externality

In economics, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit. Externalities often occur when a product or service's price equilibrium cannot reflect the true costs and benefits of that product or service. This causes the externality competitive equilibrium to not be a Pareto optimality.

Machiavellian intelligence (socially strategic reasoning)

In primatology and evolutionary psychology, Machiavellian intelligence is the capacity of an organism to be in a successful political engagement with social groups. The first introduction of this concept came from Frans de Waal's book Chimpanzee Politics (1982), which described social maneuvering while explicitly quoting Machiavelli. This hypothesis posits that large brains and distinctive cognitive abilities of humans have evolved via intense social competition in which social competitors developed increasingly sophisticated "Machiavellian" strategies as a means to achieve higher social and reproductive success.

neotribalism

Neotribalism (a.k.a. neo-tribalism and modern tribalism) is a sociological concept which postulates that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new "tribes." French sociologist Michel Maffesoli was perhaps the first to use the term neotribalism in a scholarly context. Maffesoli predicted that as the culture and institutions of modernism declined, societies would embrace nostalgia and look to the organizational principles of the distant past for guidance, and that therefore the post-modern era would be the era of neotribalism. Studies seem to support at least the more moderate neotribalist arguments. Data has pointed to a general breakdown in the social structure of modern civilization due to more frequent moves for economic reasons, longer commutes and a lack of emphasis in the media narrative on the desirability of strong friendships and community bonds.

social capital

Social capital broadly refers to those factors of effectively functioning social groups that include such things as interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. However, the many views of this complex subject make a single definition difficult. The term generally refers to (a) resources, and the value of these resources, both tangible (public spaces, private property) and intangible ("actors", "human capital", people), (b) the relationships among these resources, and (c) the impact that these relationships have on the resources involved in each relationship, and on larger groups. It is generally seen as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common good.

Social comparison theory

Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others in order to reduce uncertainty in these domains, and learn how to define the self. Following the initial theory, research began to focus on social comparison as a way of self-enhancement, introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons.

moral capital

moral capital is the relative degree of social credibility that comes with a person or group's moral stance which partly determines the amount of support and cooperation that can be expected. According to Haidt (2012), moral capital is . . . "the resources that sustain a moral community. . . . the degree to which a community possesses interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identifies, institutions, [ideologies], and technologies that mesh well with evolved psychological mechanisms and thereby enable the community to suppress or regulate selfishness and make cooperation possible." Reference Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

Us and Them (2005), David Berreby

Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind (2005) by David Berreby explains how and why people are wedded to the notion that they belong to differing human kindstribe-type categories like races, ethnic groups, nations, religions, castes, street gangs, sports fandom, and high school cliques. Why do we see these divisions? Why do we care about them so much? Why do we kill and die for them? This is the stuff of news headlines. How has a nation gone from peaceful coexistence to genocide? How does social status affect your health? Why are teenagers willing to kill themselves in hazing rituals in order to belong to a fraternity or social group? How do terrorists learn not to care about the lives of those they attack? US AND THEM gets at the heart of these profound questions by looking at their common root in human nature. Politics, culture, and economics play their parts, but its the human mind that makes them possible, and thats the focus of US AND THEM. Were not born with a map of human kinds; each person makes his own and learns to fight for it. This is a crucial subject that touches all of our lives in ways both large and small, obvious and subtle. Human-kind thinkingwhether beneficial or destructiveis part of human nature, as David Berrebys brilliant book reveals.

organizational socialization

Organizational socialization is the process whereby an employee learns the knowledge and skills necessary to assume his or her organizational role As newcomers become socialized, they learn about the organization and its history, values, jargon, culture, and procedures. This acquired knowledge about new employees' future work environment affects the way they are able to apply their skills and abilities to their jobs. How actively engaged the employees are in pursuing knowledge affects their socialization process. They also learn about their work group, the specific people they work with on a daily basis, their own role in the organization, the skills needed to do their job, and both formal procedures and informal norms. Socialization functions as a control system in that newcomers learn to internalize and obey organizational values and practices.

Peer pressure (social pressure)

Peer pressure (or social pressure) is the direct influence on people by peers, or the effect on an individual who gets encouraged to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. This can result in either a positive or negative effect, or both. Social groups affected include both membership groups, in which individuals are "formally" members (such as political parties and trade unions), and cliques, in which membership is not clearly defined. However, a person does not need to be a member or be seeking membership of a group to be affected by peer pressure. Peer pressure can decrease one's confidence.

Echo Chamber Phenomenon

People seek out information that supports their worldview and rejects information that doesn't.

Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT)

Realistic conflict theory (initialized RCT), also known as realistic group conflict theory (initialized RGCT), is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict. The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition over limited resources, and it also offers an explanation for the feelings of prejudice and discrimination toward the outgroup that accompany the intergroup hostility. Groups may be in competition for a real or perceived scarcity of resources such as money, political power, military protection, or social status. Feelings of resentment can arise in the situation that the groups see the competition over resources as having a zero-sums fate, in which only one group is the winner (obtained the needed or wanted resources) and the other loses (unable to obtain the limited resource due to the "winning" group achieving the limited resource first). The length and severity of the conflict is based upon the perceived value and shortage of the given resource. According to RCT, positive relations can only be restored if superordinate goals are in place.

hostile media effect,

The hostile media effect, originally deemed the hostile media phenomenon and sometimes called hostile media perception, is a perceptual theory of mass communication that refers to the tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side and in favor of their antagonists' point of view. Partisans from opposite sides of an issue will tend to find the same coverage to be biased against them. The phenomenon was first proposed and studied experimentally by Robert Vallone, Lee Ross and Mark Lepper.

Self-Elaboration Model of Belief (Jordan, 2019)

The hypothesis that due to the evolved, hegemonic propensity to reason causally, initial premises, whether taken on faith or developed logically, sometimes become self-elaborating in the sense that the initial premise is sufficient to initiate a chain of supportive beliefs with recursive and innovative properties. For example, religion need not be explained as an evolutionary by-product nor as a distinct module, but simply as a logical outcome of a fundamental erroneous belief in an important matter. A pinball machine makes an apt analogy. The initiating event is the pull of the lever that send the ball powerfully forward. Afterward, the ball's course is largely capricious and unpredictable. In fine, our propensity for belief is a by-product of our evolved tendency--perhaps compulsion--to identify causality. Frank G. Jordan Jr. (2019)

social intelligence hypothesis

The hypothesis that the relatively sophisticated cognitive abilities of higher primates are the outcome of selective pressures that favored intelligence as a means to gain advantages in social groups.

Virtue signaling

Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values. Academically, the phrase relates to signalling theory and describes a subset of social behaviors that could be used to signal virtue—especially piety among the religious. In recent years, the term has been more commonly used within groups to criticize those who are seen to value the expression of virtue over action. In contract theory, signalling is the idea that one party (termed the agent) credibly conveys some information about itself to another party (the principal). For example, potential employees signal ability by acquiring education credentials. The principal thus believes the agent's credentials signal greater ability. A bank with impressive architecture signals its greater financial soundness than a bank with less impressive architecture. "Virtue-signalling" is also used as a pejorative term, denouncing empty acts of public commitment to unexceptional good causes such as changing Facebook profile pictures to support a cause, participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge, offering thoughts and prayers after a tragedy, celebrity speeches during award shows, and politicians pandering to constituents on ideological issues. The term was popularised by James Bartholomew in an article in The Spectator on 18 April 2015 to mean "public, empty gestures intended to convey socially approved attitudes without any associated risk or sacrifice". Lexicographer Orin Hargraves says that the term stems from social media, which removes barriers to broadcasting sentiments. Hargraves links the term to the "shaming" category of neologisms, such as "prayer-shaming", which can have an opposite meaning to virtue signalling. Merriam-Webster editor Emily Brewster described it as an academic-sounding counterpart to "humblebrag", a term coined by Harris Wittels in 2010.

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983), Benedict Anderson

a book by Benedict Anderson. It introduces a popular concept in political sciences and sociology, that of imagined communities named after it. It was first published in 1983, and reissued with additional chapters in 1991 and a further revised version in 2006. According to Anderson's theory of imagined communities, the main causes of nationalism are the declining importance of privileged access to particular script languages (such as Latin) because of mass vernacular literacy; the movement to abolish the ideas of rule by divine right and hereditary monarchy; and the emergence of printing press capitalism ("the convergence of capitalism and print technology... standardization of national calendars, clocks and language was embodied in books and the publication of daily newspapers")—all phenomena occurring with the start of the Industrial Revolution.

tribe

a social group made up of families or clans. The word "tribe" can be defined to mean an extended kin group or clan with a common ancestor, or can also be described as a group with shared interests, lifestyles and habits. The proverb "birds of a feather flock together" describes homophily, the human tendency to form friendship networks with people of similar occupations, interests, and habits. Some tribes can be located in geographically proximate areas, like villages or bands, though telecommunications enables groups of people to form digital tribes using tools like social networking websites. In terms of conformity, tribalism has been defined as a "subjectivity" or "way of being" social frame in which communities are bound socially beyond immediate birth ties by the dominance of various modalities of face-to-face and object integration.Ontologically, tribalism is oriented around the valences of analogy, genealogy and mythology. That means that customary tribes have their social foundations in some variation of these tribal orientations, while often taking on traditional practices (e.g. Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and modern practices, including monetary exchange, mobile communications, and modern education.

moral truth

a truth dealing with the goodness or evil of human acts, attitudes, and values as accepted by individuals in a particular moral matrix (Haidt, 2012), specific culture, or subjective existential experience. The validity of a moral truth is whatever the individual or group deems it to be. Reference Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Moral Matrices (Haidt, 2012)

a web of shared ethics, meanings, values, and concerns which "provides a complete, unified, and emotionally compelling worldview." According to psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his book the Righteous Mind (2012), "moral matrices coexist within each nation. Each matrix provides a complete, unified, and emotionally compelling worldview, easily justified by observable evidence and nearly impregnable to attack by arguments from outsiders."

activated ignorance

activated ignorance is taking into the mind, and actively using, information that is false, though we mistakenly think it to be true. The philosopher Rene Descartes came to confidently believe that animals have no actual feelings, but are simply robotic machines.

adversarial process

adversarial process is one that supports conflicting one-sided positions held by individuals, groups or entire societies, as inputs into the conflict resolution situation, typically with rewards for prevailing in the outcome. Often the form of the process assumes a game-like appearance.

definition of the situation

an agreement with others about "what is going on" in a given circumstance; this consensus allows us to coordinate our actions with those of others and realize goals. The definition of the situation is a fundamental concept in symbolic interactionism advanced by the American sociologist W. I. Thomas. It involves a proposal upon the characteristics of a social situation (e.g. norms, values, authority, participants' roles), and seeks agreement from others in a way that can facilitate social cohesion and social action. Conflicts often involve disagreements over definitions of the situation in question. This definition may thus become an area contested between different stakeholders (or by an ego's sense of self-identity). A definition of the situation is related to the idea of "framing" a situation. The construction, presentation, and maintenance of frames of interaction (i.e., social context and expectations), and identities (self-identities or group identities), are fundamental aspects of micro-level social interaction.

mere contact theory

based on the principle that greater contact among members of diverse groups increases cooperation among group members.

social capital

broadly refers to those factors of effectively functioning social groups that include such things as interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. However, the many views of this complex subject make a single definition difficult. The term generally refers to (a) resources, and the value of these resources, both tangible (public spaces, private property) and intangible ("actors", "human capital", people), (b) the relationships among these resources, and (c) the impact that these relationships have on the resources involved in each relationship, and on larger groups. It is generally seen as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common good.

social domain

change in variables that are associated with the relationship of an individual to others.

Homophily and intolerance

The relation between homophily (a preference for interacting with those with similar traits) and intolerance is manifested when a tolerant person is faced with the dilemma of choosing between establishing a positive relationship with a tolerant individual of a dissimilar group, or establishing a positive relationship with an intolerant in-group member. In the first case, the intolerant in-group member disapproves the established link with an other-group individual, leading necessarily to a negative relationship with his tolerant equal; while in the second case, the negative relationship toward the other-group individual is endorsed by the intolerant in-group member and promotes a positive relationship between them. This dilemma has been considered by Aguiar and Parravano in Tolerating the Intolerant: Homophily, Intolerance, and Segregation in Social Balanced Networks, modeling a community of individuals whose relationships are governed by a modified form of the Heider balance theory.

siege (bunker) mentality

Siege mentality is a shared feeling of victimization and defensiveness—a term derived from the actual experience of military defences of real sieges. It is a collective state of mind in which a group of people believe themselves constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated in the face of the negative intentions of the rest of the world. Although a group phenomenon, the term describes both the emotions and thoughts of the group as a whole, and as individuals. The result is a state of being overly fearful of surrounding peoples, and an intractably defensive attitude. Among the consequences of a siege mentality are black and white thinking, social conformity, and lack of trust, but also a preparedness for the worst and a strong sense of social cohesion.

anticipatory socialization

Anticipatory socialization refers to the processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships. For example, a couple might move in together before getting married in order to try out, or anticipate, what living together will be like. Research by Kenneth J. Levine and Cynthia A. Hoffner suggests that parents are the main source of anticipatory socialization in regards to jobs and careers.

male warrior hypothesis

Humans are a social species with a long history of living in tribal groups. The psychological mechanisms that evolved to handle the complexities of group living have also created heuristics for quickly categorizing others as ingroup or outgroup members, with different behavioral strategies for each: treat ingroup members (those in one's own group) favorably, and react to outgroup members (those who belong to a different group) with fear and aggression. These tendencies arise with little motivation, and have been provoked over superficial groups in lab studies—for example, by showing paintings to participants and creating groups based on which painting participants prefer. Ingroup and outgroup preferences have also been observed in other social primates, such as the rhesus macaque. The male warrior hypothesis suggests that the ease with which individuals discriminate against members of other groups is an adaptation resulting from a long history of being threatened by outgroup males, who are in competition for resources. The male warrior hypothesis (MWH) is an evolutionary psychology hypothesis by Professor Mark van Vugt which argues that human psychology has been shaped by between-group competition and conflict. Specifically, the evolutionary history of coalitional aggression between groups of men may have resulted in sex-specific differences in the way outgroups are perceived, creating ingroup vs. outgroup tendencies that are still observable today. According to this hypothesis, intergroup conflict represents an opportunity for men to gain access to mates, territory, and increased status. As such, conflicts may have created selection pressures for psychological mechanisms in men to initiate intergroup aggression. In women, intergroup conflict substantially increases the risk of sexual assault by outgroup men, and may have created selection pressure for psychological mechanisms that bias women against outgroup men.

EvPsych Formula for Religious Belief

Hypersensitive agency detector + shared intentionality + love of storytelling + misperceptions × attribution of agency = supernatural agents explained religiously. Derived from Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind

Belief . . . (Harris, 2004)

"A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything else in a person's life." Sam Harris (2004), The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

"Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals" (Caro, 1982)

"But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary." Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4) (1982)

tribal moral communities (Haidt, 2012)

"Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects. Morality binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say." Jonathan Haidt (2012), The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Religion and Politics

group selection (Darwin, 1874)

"Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes: but in the course of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn overcome by some other tribe still more highly endowed. Thus the social and moral qualities would tend slowly to advance and be diffused throughout the world. But it may be asked, how within the limits of the same tribe did a large number of members first become endowed with these social and moral qualities, and how was the standard of excellence raised? It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents, or of those who were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared in greater numbers than the children of selfish and treacherous parents belonging to the same tribe. He who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature. The bravest men, who were always willing to come to the front in war, and who freely risked their lives for others, would on an average perish in larger numbers than other men. Therefore, it hardly seems probable that the number of men gifted with such virtues, or that the standard of their excellence, could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest; for we are not here speaking of one tribe being victorious over another. Although the circumstances, leading to an increase in the number of those thus endowed within the same tribe, are too complex to be clearly followed out, we can trace some of the probable steps. In the first place, as the reasoning powers and ​foresight of the members became improved, each man would soon learn that if he aided his fellow-men, he would commonly receive aid in return. From this low motive he might acquire the habit of aiding his fellows; and the habit of performing benevolent actions certainly strengthens the feeling of sympathy which gives the first impulse to benevolent actions. Habits, moreover, followed during many generations probably tend to be inherited. But another and much more powerful stimulus to the development of the social virtues, is afforded by the praise and the blame of our fellow-men. To the instinct of sympathy, as we have already seen, it is primarily due, that we habitually bestow both praises and blame on others, whilst we love the former and dread the latter when applied to ourselves; and this instinct no doubt was originally acquired, like all the other social instincts, through natural selection. At how early a period the progenitors of man in the course of their development, became capable of feeling and being impelled by, the praise or blame of their fellow-creatures, we cannot of course say. But it appears that even dogs appreciate encouragement, praise, and blame. The rudest savages feel the sentiment of glory, as they clearly show by preserving the trophies of their prowess, by their habit of excessive boasting, and even by the extreme care which they take of their personal appearance and decorations; for unless they regarded the opinion of their comrades, such habits would be senseless." Charles Darwin (1874), Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

The Mob . . . (Poe)

"The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led." Edgar Allan Poe

Stages of Moral Panic (Richardson, Best, & Bromley, 1991)

- a perceived threat to societal values or interests emerges - presented in a stylized or stereotypical fashion, most prominently by the media - moral barricades are manned by "right-thinking" people - socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions - ways of coping evolve or are resorted to - the condition disappears, submerges, or deteriorates Moral panics are used by people for purposes of.influence, usually political or social. James Richardson, Joel Best, and David Bromley (1991). The Satanism Scare

Ostrom and Wilson's Core Design Principles (CDP) for Group Efficacy in Common Pool Resources (CPR)

- strong group identity and understanding of purpose - proprotional equivalence between benefits and costs - fair and inclusive decision-making - monitoring of agreed-upon behaviors - graduated sanctions - fast and fair conflict resolution - local autonomy - polycentric governance Auxiliary CDPs for education: - safe and secure learning environment - long-term learning objectives must be rewarding in the short-term

Bacon's Idola Mentis (1620)

Bacon listed what he called the idols (false images) of the mind. He described these as things which obstructed the path of correct scientific reasoning. - Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus): This is humans' tendency to perceive more order and regularity in systems than truly exists, and is due to people following their preconceived ideas about things. - Idols of the Cave (Idola specus): This is due to individuals' personal weaknesses in reasoning due to particular personalities, likes and dislikes. - Idols of the Marketplace (Idola fori): This is due to confusion in the use of language and taking some words in science to have a different meaning than their common usage. - Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri): This is the following of academic dogma and not asking questions about the world. Francis Bacon Novum Organon (1620)

belief perseverance

Belief perseverance (also known as conceptual conservatism) is maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it. Such beliefs may even be strengthened when others attempt to present evidence debunking them, a phenomenon known as the backfire effect (compare boomerang effect). For example, journalist Cari Romm, in a 2014 article in The Atlantic, describes a study in which a group of people, concerned of the side effects of flu shots, became less willing to receive them after being told that the vaccination was entirely safe. Since rationality involves conceptual flexibility, belief perseverance is consistent with the view that human beings act at times in an irrational manner. Philosopher F.C.S. Schiller holds that belief perseverance "deserves to rank among the fundamental 'laws' of nature."

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), Robert Putnam

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam. It was developed from his 1995 essay entitled "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital". Putnam surveys the decline of social capital in the United States since 1950. He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civil engagement which a strong democracy requires from its citizens.

Call-out Culture

Call-out culture (also known as outrage culture) is a form of public shaming that aims to hold individuals and groups accountable for their actions, by calling attention to behavior that is perceived to be problematic, usually on social media. A variant of the term, cancel culture, describes a form of boycott in which someone (usually a celebrity) who has shared a questionable or unpopular opinion, or has had behavior that is perceived to be offensive called out on social media is "canceled"; they are completely boycotted by many fans, often leading to massive declines in celebrities' (almost always social media personalities) careers and fanbase.

ceremonial deism

Ceremonial deism is a legal term used in the United States to designate governmental religious references and practices deemed to be mere ritual and non-religious through long customary usage. Proposed examples of ceremonial deism include the reference to God introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency, and the Ohio state motto, "With God, all things are possible". The term was coined in 1962 by the then-dean of Yale Law School, Eugene Rostow, and has been used since 1984 by the Supreme Court of the United States to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It has been noted that the term is incongruous with the historical meaning of deism.

Direct the rider, motivate the elephant, shape the path (Heath & Heath, 2010)

Chip and Dan Heath's book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (2010), builds on this analogy and talks about directing the rider (rational brain: responsible for planning and direction, but can get paralyzed overthinking things) and motivating the elephant (emotional brain: prefers quick gratification over long term, but gets things done). Numerous experiments show that the rider can get exhausted trying to motivate the elephant and needs time to recover. This is why, if you're trying to eat healthily while on the road, you tend to make bad choices at the end of a long day and opt for that extra glass of beer.

Embodied Cognition

Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing. In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious mistake. Sometimes the nature of the dependence of cognition on the body is quite unexpected, and suggests new ways of conceptualizing and exploring the mechanics of cognitive processing.

Cognitive consistency

Cognitive consistency is a psychological theory that proposes that humans are motivated by inconsistencies and a desire to change them. Cognitive inconsistencies cause imbalance in individuals and the tension from this imbalance motivates people to alter these inconsistencies. The tension arises when thoughts conflict with each other and this tension creates a motivation to change and correct the inconsistency. When this tension is reduced balance is achieved in the individual. The three main components of this theory state that people anticipate consistency, inconsistencies create imbalance and dissonance in individuals, and that tension motivates the individuals to create consistency in order to achieve balance.

Homo sociologicus (Dahrendorf, 1958)

Comparisons between economics and sociology have resulted in a corresponding term homo sociologicus (introduced by German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf in 1958), to parody the image of human nature given in some sociological models that attempt to limit the social forces that determine individual tastes and social values. (The alternative or additional source of these would be biology.) Hirsch et al. say that homo sociologicus is largely a tabula rasa upon which societies and cultures write values and goals; unlike economicus, sociologicus acts not to pursue selfish interests but to fulfill social roles (though the fulfillment of social roles may have a selfish rationale—e.g. politicians or socialites). This "individual" may appear to be all society and no individual.

competitive victimhood

Competitive victimhood (CV) is a tendency to see one's group as having comparatively suffered relative to an outgroup.

Crowd psychology

Crowd psychology, also known as mob psychology, is a branch of social psychology. Social psychologists have developed several theories for explaining the ways in which the psychology of a crowd differs from and interacts with that of the individuals within it. Major theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, Sigmund Freud, and Steve Reicher. This field relates to the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual crowd members and the crowd as an entity. Crowd behavior is heavily influenced by the loss of responsibility of the individual and the impression of universality of behavior, both of which increase with crowd size.

Cultural capital

Cultural capital is a concept, developed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, that can refer to both achieved and ascribed characteristics. They are desirable qualities (either material or symbolic) that contribute to one's social status; any advantages a person has which give him/her a higher status in society. It may include high expectations, forms of knowledge, skill, and education, among other things. Parents provide children with cultural capital, the attitudes and knowledge that make the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily. There are other types of capital as well; Social capital refers to one's membership in groups, relationships, and networks. It too can have a significant impact on achievement level.

Shweder's (1990) Three Major Moral Clusters

Cultural psychologist Richard Shweder (1990) postulated three major moral themes or "ethics" in human cultures: Ethic of Autonomy: people are autonomous beings with individual wants, preferences, and needs Ethic of Community: people are first and foremost members of groups. Ethic of Divinity: people are temporary vessels within which a divine soul is implanted Shweder, R. A. (1990). "Cultural Psychology: What is It?"

Theory of Comparative Advantage (Ricardo, 1817)

David Ricardo developed the classical theory of comparative advantage in 1817 to explain why countries engage in international trade even when one country's workers are more efficient at producing every single good than workers in other countries. He demonstrated that if two countries capable of producing two commodities engage in the free market, then each country will increase its overall consumption by exporting the good for which it has a comparative advantage while importing the other good, provided that there exist differences in labor productivity between both countries. Widely regarded as one of the most powerful yet counter-intuitive insights in economics, Ricardo's theory implies that comparative advantage rather than absolute advantage is responsible for much of international trade.

Deindividuation

Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention (resistance). Sociologists also study the phenomenon of deindividuation, but the level of analysis is somewhat different. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social sciences, such as sociology, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society.

partisan brain

Democracies assume accurate knowledge by the populace, but the human attraction to fake and untrustworthy news poses a serious problem for healthy democratic functioning. We articulate why and how identification with political parties—known as partisanship—can bias information processing in the human brain. There is extensive evidence that people engage in motivated political reasoning, but recent research suggests that partisanship can alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgments. We propose an identity-based model of belief for understanding the influence of partisanship on these cognitive processes. This framework helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy, and even over truth. Finally, we discuss strategies for de-biasing information processing to help to create a shared reality across partisan divides.

propaganda (Bernays)

Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew and the father of propaganda and public relations, used many of his uncle's theories in order to create new methods in marketing. In Propaganda, he published that "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it". He used the herd theory in order to create public relations, thus conditioning the public to need particular goods from certain manufacturers. In the same publication he stated, "A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable." His theories and applications in social conditioning continue throughout his work.

the Elite (Bernays)

Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, associates the method in which a minority elite use social conditioning to assert their dominance and will power. In You May Ask Yourself, Dalton Conley describes this ideal with hegemony. He states that the term "refers to a historical process in which a dominant group exercises 'moral and intellectual leadership' throughout society by winning the voluntary 'consent' of popular masses." Bernays believed that this was a functionalist approach. Stating "vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses." Such influence is made possible by persistent repetition. Wilbert E. Moore, a formal Princeton University Sociology professor, in Social Change, states that "the persistence of patterns gives order and constancy to recurrent events. In terms of behavior, many elements of persistence are more nearly cyclical, the near repetition of sequences of action over various time periods." He continues to state that "role structures (and this norms) grow out of the need for predictability". While he does state that there are several reasons for group formation (spontaneous, deliberate and coercive) the group usually winds up 'repeating sequences' and then, in accordance to Freud and Bernays, contribute to the socialization of possibly new members.

neotribalism

French sociologist Michel Maffesoli was perhaps the first to use the term neotribalism in a scholarly context. Maffesoli predicted that as the culture and institutions of modernism declined, societies would embrace nostalgia and look to the organizational principles of the distant past for guidance, and that therefore the post-modern era would be the era of neotribalism. Work by researchers such as American political scientist Robert D. Putnam and a 2006 study by McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Brasiers published in the American Sociological Review seem to support at least the more moderate neotribalist arguments. Data has pointed to a general breakdown in the social structure of modern civilization due to more frequent moves for economic reasons, longer commutes and a lack of emphasis in the media narrative on the desirability of strong friendships and community bonds.

Homophily: Causes

Geography: Baseline homophily often arises when the people who are located nearby also have similar characteristics. People are more likely to have contact with those who are geographically closer than those who are distant. Technology such as the telephone, e-mail, and social networks have reduced by not eliminated this effect. Family ties: Family relationships often produce relatively close, frequent contact among those who are at great geographic distance. These ties tend to decay slowly, but can be dramatically restructured when new marriages occur. Organizations: School, work, and volunteer activities provide the great majority of non-family ties. Many friendships, confiding relations, and social support ties are formed within voluntary groups. The social homogeneity of most organizations creates a strong baseline homophily in networks that are formed there. Isomorphic sources: The connections between people who occupy equivalent roles will induce homophily in the system of network ties. This is common in three domains: workplace (for example all heads of HR departments will tend to associate with other HR heads), family (for example mothers tend to associate with other mothers), and informal networks. Cognitive processes: People who have demographic similarity tend to own shared knowledge, and therefore they have a greater ease of communication and share cultural tastes, which can also generate homophily.

Mass Society Theory

Groups only form for people seeking refuge from main society (ex. Nazism). Mass society is any society of the modern era that possesses a mass culture and large-scale, impersonal, social institutions. A mass society is a "society in which prosperity and bureaucracy have weakened traditional social ties". Descriptions of society as a "mass" took form in the 19th century, referring to the leveling tendencies in the period of the Industrial Revolution that undermined traditional and aristocratic values. In the work of early 19th century political theorists such as Alexis de Tocqueville, the term was used in discussions of elite concerns about a shift in the body politic of the Western world pronounced since the French Revolution. Such elite concerns centered in large part on the "tyranny of the majority", or mob rule. In the late 19th century, in the work of Émile Durkheim, the term was associated with society as a mass of undifferentiated, atomistic individuals. In 20th century neo-Marxist accounts, such as those of the Frankfurt School, mass society was linked to a society of alienated individuals held together by a culture industry that served the interests of capitalism. Conservative accounts in the 20th century critiqued mass society from a different perspective. José Ortega y Gasset, for instance, lamented the decline of high culture in mass society.

Social experience

Growing up and living within a society can foster the development and observation of social experience. Social experience provides individuals with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own societies, as a society itself is formed through a plurality of shared experiences forming norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols and languages. Experience plays an important role in experiential groups.

Herd mentality

Herd mentality, mob mentality and pack mentality, also lesser known as gang mentality, describes how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors on a largely emotional, rather than rational, basis. When individuals are affected by mob mentality, they may make different decisions than they would have individually. Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, groupthink, deindividuation, and decentralized decision making.

"Seeing-that" and "Reasoning-why" (Margolis, 1989)

Howard Margolis' terms meant to explain his affirmation of Wason's (1968) finding that judgment and justification are separate processes. We see patterns that then actuate behaviors (seeing-that, aka intuitive) and then explain why (reasoning-why). References Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment (1989), Howard Margolis Wason, P. C. (1968). "Reasoning about a rule". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 20(3): 273-281. doi:10.1080/14640746808400161. PMID 5683766.

Homo economicus

Homo economicus is a term used for an approximation or model of Homo sapiens that acts to obtain the highest possible well-being for him or herself given available information about opportunities and other constraints, both natural and institutional, on his ability to achieve his predetermined goals. This approach has been formalized in certain social sciences models, particularly in economics. Homo economicus is seen as "rational" in the sense that well-being as defined by the utility function is optimized given perceived opportunities. That is, the individual seeks to attain very specific and predetermined goals to the greatest extent with the least possible cost. Note that this kind of "rationality" does not say that the individual's actual goals are "rational" in some larger ethical, social, or human sense, only that he tries to attain them at minimal cost. Only naïve applications of the homo economicus model assume that this hypothetical individual knows what is best for his long-term physical and mental health and can be relied upon to always make the right decision for himself. See rational choice theory and rational expectations for further discussion; the article on rationality widens the discussion. As in social science, these assumptions are at best approximations. The term is often used derogatorily in academic literature, perhaps most commonly by sociologists, many of whom tend to prefer structural explanations to ones based on rational action by individuals.

Identity politics

Identity politics is a political approach and analysis based on people prioritizing the concerns most relevant to their particular racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, social, cultural or other identity, and forming exclusive political alliances with others of this group, instead of engaging in more traditional, broad-based party politics. Those who prioritize their particular type of identity politics may promote their group's interests without regard for the interests of larger, more diverse political groups that are based in shared theory. In academic usage, the term identity politics has been used to refer to a wide range of political activities and theoretical analysis rooted in experiences of injustice shared by different social groups. In this usage, identity politics typically aims to reclaim greater self-determination and political freedom for marginalized groups through understanding each interest group's distinctive nature and challenging externally imposed characterizations, instead of organizing solely around belief systems or party affiliations. Identity is used "as a tool to frame political claims, promote political ideologies, or stimulate and orientate social and political action, usually in a larger context of inequality or injustice and with the aim of asserting group distinctiveness and belonging and gaining power and recognition." The term identity politics has been in use in various forms since the 1960s or 1970s, but has been applied with, at times, radically different meanings by different populations. It has gained currency with the emergence of social movements such as the feminist movement, the civil rights movement in the U.S., the LGBTQ movement, as well as nationalist and postcolonial movements. Examples include identity politics based on age, religion, social class, profession, culture, language, disability, education, race or ethnicity, language, sex, gender identity, occupation, sexual orientation, urban or rural habitation, and veteran status.

In-group favoritism

In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group-out-group bias, in-group bias, or intergroup bias, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways. This effect has been researched by many psychologists and linked to many theories related to group conflict and prejudice. The phenomenon is primarily viewed from a social psychology standpoint. Studies have shown that in-group favoritism arises as a result of the formation of cultural groups. These cultural groups can be divided based on seemingly trivial observable traits, but with time, populations grow to associate certain traits with certain behaviour, increasing covariation. This then incentivises in-group bias. Two prominent theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of in-group favoritism are realistic conflict theory and social identity theory. Realistic conflict theory proposes that intergroup competition, and sometimes intergroup conflict, arises when two groups have opposing claims to scarce resources. In contrast, social identity theory posits a psychological drive for positively distinct social identities as the general root cause of in-group favoring behavior.

ideological immune system (Snelson, 2019)

Jay Stuart Sheldon (2019) describes the ideological immune system as a cognitive response that resists new ideas that my threaten the vakidity and value of existing ideas and beliefs. Snelson claims that there are three principal causes: 1) Principle of Intellectual Insolence. It takes effort to embrace a new idea. 2) Fear of Reputational Loss. Knowledge and expertise built on existing ideas and information may be integral to a person's sense of identity or perceived reputation and any challenge to that identity can be viewed as a threat. 3) Fear of Economic Loss. People may fear loss of wealth or earning power because new information displaced old. The adverse affects Ideological Immune System can be mitigated by adhering to the Principle of Scientific Skepticism: The less scientific verification for an explanation of causality, the more skeptical one can afford to be; and the more scientific verification the less skeptical one can afford to be.

grand narrative (metanarrative)

Jean Lyotard's term for the totalizing narratives or metadiscourses of modernity which have provided ideologies with a legitimating philosophy of history. For example, the grand narratives of the Enlightenment, democracy, and Marxism. Hayden White (b.1928), an American historian, suggests that there are four Western master narratives: Greek fatalism, Christian redemptionism, bourgeois progressivism, and Marxist utopianism. Lyotard argues that such authoritarian universalizing narratives are no longer viable in postmodernity, which heralds the emergence of 'little narratives' (or micronarratives, petits récits): localized representations of restricted domains, none of which has a claim to universal truth status. Critics suggest that this could be seen as just another grand narrative, and some have seen it as Eurocentric. Indidviduals construct personal grand narratives, i.e. the narrative self, usually consistent with the grand narratives they adhere to, as guiding paradigms for their lives.

Durkheimogen

Jonathan Haidt's (2012) jocular nonce term for hallucinogens because they produce the transformative experiences described by Émile Durkheim. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

"conditional hive creatures" (Haidt, 2012)

Jonathan Haidt's (2012) observation that humans are parochially altruistic and tend to empathize most with their own tribe rather than other humans generally.

lifestyle enclaves

Lifestyle enclave is a sociological term first used by Robert N. Bellah et al. in their 1985 book, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. In the glossary of the book, they provide the following definition: "A lifestyle enclave is formed by people who share some feature of private life. Members of a lifestyle enclave express their identity through shared patterns of appearance, consumption, and leisure activities, which often serve to differentiate them sharply from those with other lifestyles." This term is contrasted with community, which Bellah et al. claim is characterized by social interdependence, shared history, and shared participation in politics. The concept of lifestyle enclave has been used to analyse, for example, youth subcultures and the relationship between leisure and democracy.

"Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" (1902), Peter Kropotkin

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is a 1902 essay collection by Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin. The essays, initially published in the English periodical The Nineteenth Century between 1890 and 1896, explore the role of mutually-beneficial cooperation and reciprocity (or "mutual aid") in the animal kingdom and human societies both past and present. It is an argument against theories of social Darwinism that emphasize competition and survival of the fittest, and against the romantic depictions by writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who thought that cooperation was motivated by universal love. Instead Kropotkin argues that mutual aid has pragmatic advantages for the survival of human and animal communities and, along with the conscience, has been promoted through natural selection. Mutual Aid is considered a fundamental text in anarchist communism. It presents a scientific basis for communism as an alternative to the historical materialism of the Marxists. Kropotkin considers the importance of mutual aid for prosperity and survival in the animal kingdom, in indigenous and early European societies, in the Medieval free cities (especially through the guilds), and in the late 19th century village, labor movement, and poor folk. He criticizes the State for destroying historically important mutual aid institutions, particularly through the imposition of private property. Many biologists also consider it an important catalyst in the scientific study of cooperation.

New Atheism

New Atheism is a term coined in 2006 by the journalist Gary Wolf to describe the positions promoted by some atheists of the twenty-first century. This modern-day atheism is advanced by a group of thinkers and writers who advocate the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever their influence arises in government, education, and politics. According to Richard Ostling, Bertrand Russell, in his 1927 essay Why I Am Not a Christian, put forward positions similar to those espoused by the New Atheists, suggesting that there are no substantive differences between traditional atheism and New Atheism. New Atheism lends itself to and often overlaps with secular humanism and antitheism, particularly in its criticism of what many New Atheists regard as the indoctrination of children and the perpetuation of ideologies founded on belief in the supernatural. Some critics of the movement characterize it as "militant atheism" or "fundamentalist atheism."

Four Horsemen of the New Atheism (Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse)

On 30 September 2007, four prominent atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett) met at Hitchens' residence in Washington, D.C., for a private two-hour unmoderated discussion. The event was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen". During "The God Debate" in 2010 featuring Christopher Hitchens versus Dinesh D'Souza, the men were collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse", an allusion to the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation. The four have been described disparagingly as "evangelical atheists."

Mere Exposure Effect

One important contribution by Robert Zajonc was the demonstration of the mere-exposure effect, the phenomenon that repeated exposure to a stimulus brings about an affective change in relation to the stimulus. He focused on processes involved in social behavior, with an emphasis on the relationship between affect, or emotion, and cognition. For example, he found that participants reacted more favorably toward the nonsense words zebulons and worbus through repeated exposure.

Lin Ostrom's Group Design Principles

Ostrom identified eight design principles that allow groups to manage common pool resources sustainably. Without them, we're closer to Hardin's conception of the tragedy. These principles are: - Clearly defined boundaries - Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions (i.e. proportional equivalence between benefits and costs) - Collective-choice arrangements - those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules. - Monitoring - Graduated sanctions - Conflict-resolution mechanisms - Minimal recognition of rights to organize - For larger systems: Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.

Our Political Nature (2013), Avi Tuschman

Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us is a 2013 book by Avi Tuschman. It proposed an evolutionary theory of human political orientation. The book theorizes that political leanings are evolutionary adaptations that arise primarily from three clusters of measurable personality traits: tribalism, tolerance of inequality, and perceptions of human nature. As evidence, Our Political Nature synthesizes studies from the fields of political science, genetics, neuroscience, and primatology. The book also offers a psychological explanation for why economic stress tends to broaden the divide between political factions.

parochial altruism

Parochial altruism — the human inclination toward costly intra-group cooperation and inter-group aggression without expectations of future returns — requires group selection logic to explain its evolution. Social norms and the associated altruistic behaviours are decisive for the evolution of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order, and they affect family life, politics and economic interactions. However, as altruistic norm compliance and norm enforcement often emerge in the context of inter-group conflicts they are likely to be shaped by parochialism—a preference for favouring the members of one's ethnic, racial or language group. We found that punishers protect ingroup victims—who suffer from a norm violation—much more than they do outgroup victims, regardless of the norm violator's group affiliation. Norm violators also expect that punishers will be lenient if the latter belong to their social group. As a consequence, norm violations occur more often if the punisher and the norm violator belong to the same group.

political alienation

Political alienation refers to an individual citizen's relatively enduring sense of estrangement from or rejection of the prevailing political system.

pseudospeciation

Pseudospeciation refers to the claim that cultural differences cause humans to separate into different social groups, with different language, dress, customs, etc. These cultural differences are analogous to the formation of different biological species (speciation). In the extreme, pseudospeciation leads to dehumanization of other cultural groups (out-groups). Pseudospeciation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, refers to the tendency of members of in-groups to consider members of out-groups to have evolved genetically into different, separate, and inferior species to their own. The term was first used by Erik Erikson in 1966, according to his biographer, Lawrence J. Friedman. Dehumanization is one possible outcome of pseudospeciation, as is ethnic discrimination or genocide. Francisco Gil-White proposed in 2001 that humans evolved in such a way[weasel words] that the brain perceives different ethnic groups to be equivalent to different biological 'species', thus suggesting that pseudospeciation is innate. His hypothesis has yet to receive widespread empirical support.[citation needed] His theory and data are found in Current Anthropology, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 515-554. Pseudospeciation is an especially virulent form of ethnocentrism.

psychological distance

Psychological distance is a cognitive separation between the self and other instances such as persons, events, or times. Psychological distance is defined within the Construal-Level Theory (CLT), which was developed by Trope and Liberman (2003). Their first approach referred only to the temporaldistance and assumed that we judge a more distant event in time by few abstract characteristics (high-level construal). On the opposite, one judges an event which is closer in time by some concrete traits (low-level construal). The theory was further developed to include other three dimensions of psychological distance: spatial, social, and hypothetical. The spatial distance is that from the individual to the target of his judgment. The social distance is between the person and the rest of the world. The hypothetical distance is between certain and hypothetical events. Fiedler (2007) adds, among other dimensions, the informational distance.

Merton's Theory of Deviance (1938)

Robert K. Merton's theory on deviance stems from his 1938 analysis of the relationship between culture, structure and anomie. Merton defines culture as an "organized set of normative values governing behavior which is common to members of a designated society or group". Social structures are the "organized set of social relationships in which members of the society or group are variously implicated". Anomie, the state of normlessness, arises when there is "an acute disjunction between the cultural norms and goals and the socially structured capacities of members of the group to act in accord with them". In his theory, Merton links anomie with deviance and argues that the discontinuity between culture and structure have the dysfunctional consequence of leading to deviance within society.

Role congruity theory

Role congruity theory proposes that a group will be positively evaluated when its characteristics are recognized as aligning with that group's typical social roles (Eagly & Diekman, 2005). Coined by Eagly and Karau (2002), prejudice toward female leaders occurs because inconsistencies exist between the characteristics associated with the female gender stereotype and those associated with the typical leadership.

herd instinct (Freud)

Sigmund Freud, known as the father of psychoanalysis, recorded his observations of group dynamics in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In his work, he refers to Wilfred Trotter as the group conditions its members, Freud states "opposition to the herd is as good as separation from it, and is therefore anxiously avoided". Such fear causes the individual members and even leaders of a particular group to go along with the decisions a group based in accordance to its culture. On a micro scale, the individual is conditioned to partake in the social norms of the said group even if they contradict his or her personal moral code. The consequences of such protest (may) result in isolation. Such, in accordance to Freud, is one of the greatest punishments than can be instilled on an individual. This would result in the inability of an individual to practice his or her "instinctual impulses". These instincts, in accordance to Freud, are the motives behind actions that the individual may take. The father of psychoanalysis further states that, "we thus have an impression of a state in which an individual's private emotional impulses and intellectual acts are too weak to come to anything by themselves and are entirely dependent for this on being reinforced by being repeated in a similar way in the other members of the group". Out of fear of isolation and to secure the practice of instinctual impulses, there may be little protest from individual members as the group continues to conditions.

Sociometer Theory

Sociometer theory is a theory of self-esteem from an evolutionary psychological perspective which proposes that self-esteem is a gauge (or sociometer) of interpersonal relationships. This theoretical perspective was first introduced by Mark Leary and colleagues in 1995 and later expanded on by Kirkpatrick and Ellis. In Leary's research, the idea of self-esteem as a sociometer is discussed in depth. This theory was created as a response to psychological phenomenon i.e. social emotions, inter- and intra- personal behaviors, self-serving biases, and reactions to rejection. Based on this theory, self-esteem is a measure of effectiveness in social relations and interactions that monitors acceptance and/or rejection from others. With this, an emphasis is placed on relational value, which is the degree to which a person regards his or her relationship with another, and how it affects day-to-day life. Confirmed by various studies and research, if a person is deemed having relational value, they are more likely to have higher self-esteem. According to Leary, there are five main groups associated with relational value that are classified as those affording the greatest impact on an individual. They are: 1) macro-level, i.e., communities, 2) instrumental coalitions, i.e., teams, committees 3) mating relationships 4) kin relationships, and 5) friendships.

Intuitionism vs. Sentimentalism

Some use the term "ethical intuitionism" in moral philosophy to refer to the general position that we have some non-inferential moral knowledge (that is, basic moral knowledge that is not inferred from or based on any proposition). On this definition, moral sense theory is a form of ethical intuitionism. However, it is important to distinguish between empiricist versus rationalist models of this. One may thus distinguish between rationalist ethical intuitionism for the rationalist version and "moral sense theory" for the empiricist version. (This will be the use of the terms here. However, the terminology is not ultimately important, so long as one keeps in mind the relevant differences between these two models of non-inferential moral knowledge.)

Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. Stereotype threat is purportedly a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. It may occur whenever an individual's performance might confirm a negative stereotype because stereotype threat is thought to arise from a particular situation, rather than from an individual's personality traits or characteristics. Since most people have at least one social identity which is negatively stereotyped, most people are vulnerable to stereotype threat if they encounter a situation in which the stereotype is relevant. Situational factors that increase stereotype threat can include the difficulty of the task, the belief that the task measures their abilities, and the relevance of the stereotype to the task. Individuals show higher degrees of stereotype threat on tasks they wish to perform well on and when they identify strongly with the stereotyped group. These effects are also increased when they expect discrimination due to their identification with a negatively stereotyped group. Repeated experiences of stereotype threat can lead to a vicious circle of diminished confidence, poor performance, and loss of interest in the relevant area of achievement.

Stone Soup

Stone Soup is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.

Aspects of Narrative Self

Structure Coherence is one of the primary structural elements of narratives. As individuals develop from children to adults, four types of coherence emerge in their abilities to tell stories: Temporal coherence: the telling of a story in a clear, chronological way, i.e. event B follows event A. Causal coherence: drawing cause-and-effect relationships between events in the narrative and also between events and their effect on the narrator's sense of self. Thematic coherence: the narrator making a reflective evaluation of their story, revealing themes, overarching trends, and creating meaning from the narrative. The cultural concept of biography: the story assuming the format and prose common to the narrator's culture and context. Some amount of coherence is always necessary in a narrative, otherwise it will be incomprehensible, while too much coherence may make the narrative hard to believe, as though it too-neatly ties together the complexity of life. The general extent to which coherence is present or absent in a narrative has been found to be related to a variety of important outcomes such as overall psychological well-being and the nuance and complexity of meaning-making processes (ego development). Turning to content, research on narrative identity has focused especially on the thematic elements of personal narratives. When participants in research studies are asked to recount a personal narrative, researchers code the story on the following seven constructs: redemption, contamination, agency, communion, exploratory narrative processing, coherent positive resolution, and meaning making. An additional construct named performance has been newly recognized and also included in some researchers coding. Redemption: the narrator transitions from a generally "bad"/negative state, to a generally "good"/positive state (A → B). Such a transition can be characterized as being a sacrifice (enduring a negative event A to get the benefit of B), recovery (attaining a positive state after losing it), growth (bettering the self psychologically, physically, personally), or learning (gaining/mastering new skills, knowledge, wisdom).Contamination: the narrator transitions from a generally good/positive state, to a bad/negative state (B → A). Often, this transition is marked by a denial or not being able to remember the 'good' of the state before - it has been overwhelmed by the current 'bad' state. Common sub-themes in contamination include victimization, betrayal, loss, failure, illness/injury, disappointment, or disillusionment.Agency: refers to the extent to which the narrator is autonomous, and has the power to affect his/her own life. Agency is sometimes broken down into four pathways: self-mastery (the protagonist masters, enlarges, or betters the self), status/victory (the protagonist attains a heightened status or prestige amongst their peers), achievement/responsibility (the protagonist has significant achievement in some task, job, or goal), and empowerment (the protagonist is made better through an interaction with something larger and greater than the self). Communion: the narrator is motivated to form intimate friendships/relationships; showing intimacy, sharing, belonging, affiliation, etc. Common themes in communion are: love/friendship, reciprocal and noninstrumental dialogue, providence of caring/help to another, or a general feeling of unity/togetherness with the world/others.Exploratory narrative processing: the extent that the narrator engages in self-exploration while telling a story; a high score suggests profound self-exploration and/or a deep understanding of oneself. The practice of exploratory narrative processing in times of struggle is one avenue through which maturity develops, and narratives of positive self-transformation are often characterized by increased exploratory narrative processing. Coherent positive resolution: the extent to which tensions dissolve, providing closure and a satisfying ending to a narrative. Increased coherent positive resolution in narratives correlate with improvements in ego-resiliency, or one's adaptability under stress. Meaning-making: the extent to which the narrator gleans meaning from a narrative. Scores on responses range from low (no meaning; narrator simply recounts story), moderate (extracting a concrete lesson from the story—for example: do not put hands on hot surfaces), to high (gaining a deep insight from the narrative—for example: learning that you can't judge a book by its cover). Performance: The narrator describes life stories around the outcome of their performance. This narrative tends to be seen typically among elite athletes. It can be considered a very dominant narrative since it is very accepted within the athletic community.

Suicide of the West (2018), Jonah Goldberg

Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Nationalism, Populism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (2018) is a book by conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg. The book warns against illiberal forms of populism and argues that the West is increasingly facing the risk of decline. Unlike many other recent authors, Goldberg, while alluding to a dispassionate assessment of the dangers of tribalism, quickly reverts to his accustomed use of extreme political partisanship, making this work little more than a conservative polemic bemoaning the liberal influence in American society.

The Evolution of Cooperation (Axelrod, 1984)

The Evolution of Cooperation is a 1984 book by political scientist Robert Axelrod that expanded a highly influential paper of the same name, and popularized the study upon which the original paper had been based."The Evolution of Cooperation" is a 1981 paper by Axelrod and evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton in the scientific literature, which became the most cited publication in the field of political science. Evolution of cooperation is a general term for investigation into how cooperation can emerge and persist (also known as cooperation theory) as elucidated by the application of game theory. Traditional game theory did not explain some forms of cooperation well. The academic literature concerned with those forms of cooperation not easily handled in traditional game theory, with special consideration of evolutionary biology, largely took its modern form as a result of Axelrod's and Hamilton's influential 1981 paper and the book that followed.

The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars (Bradley & Manning, 2018)

The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars, is a 2018 book by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning.The book began as an academic journal article, Microaggression and Moral Cultures.The book began as a scholarly paper entitled Microaggression and Moral Cultures published in the journal Comparative Sociology in 2014. Campbell and Manning argue that accusations of microaggression focus on unintentional slights, unlike the Civil rights movement, which focused on concrete injustices. They argue that the purpose of calling attention to microaggressions is less to elevate the status of offended victim. "When the victims publicize microaggressions," wrote Campbell and Manning "they call attention to what they see as the deviant behavior of the offenders. In doing so," they "also call attention to their own victimization." They do this because it lowers "the offender's moral status" and "raises the moral status of the victims."

The Third Chimpanzee (1991), Jared Diamond

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal is a 1991 book by academic and popular science author Jared Diamond, in which the author explores concepts relating to the animal origins of human behavior. The book follows a series of articles published by Diamond, a physiologist, examining the evidence and its interpretation in earlier treatments of the related species, including cultural characteristics or features often regarded as particularly unique to humans. Presciently, Diamond also speculates whether humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos should not be classified as one genus, a position now taken by many geneticists since the three are more closely related to each other than to other primates.

moral competence

The ability to produce moral behaviors; primarily an outgrowth of cognitive-sensory processes. The ability to accurately assess moral situations and act appropriately.

group identity

The degree to which members identify with a group, and conversely, identify who is not part of that group, a process that affects the group's strength, cohesiveness, and survival.

Paradox of Tolerance

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." The paradox of tolerance is an important concept for thinking about which boundaries can or should be set on freedom of speech.

victim mentality

Victim mentality is an acquired personality trait in which a person tends to recognize or consider themselves as a victim of the negative actions of others, and to behave as if this were the case in the face of contrary evidence of such circumstances. Victim mentality depends on clear thought processes and attribution. In some cases, those with a victim mentality have in fact been the victim of wrongdoing by others or have otherwise suffered misfortune through no fault of their own. However, such misfortune does not necessarily imply that one will respond by developing a pervasive and universal victim mentality where one frequently or constantly perceives oneself to be a victim. The term is also used in reference to the tendency for recognizing one's misfortunes on somebody else's misdeeds, which is also referred to as victimism. Victim mentality is primarily developed, for example, from family members and situations during childhood. Similarly, criminals often engage in victim thinking, believing themselves to be moral and engaging in crime only as a reaction to an immoral world and furthermore feeling that authorities are unfairly singling them out for persecution.

hivish organization (Haidt, 2012)

a hivish organization is one that successfully develops a sense of groupishness thus facilitating group cohesion which enhances effectiveness. According to Haidt (2012), the transformative leader needed to achieve a hivish culture must utilize the tenets of Moral Foundations Theory by constructing a moral matrix based on the Authority Foundation to legitimate the leader's authority; the Liberty Foundation to avoid making members feel oppressed and threatened; and the Loyalty Foundation to meet the challenge of forming cohesive coalitions. A model for achieving a hivish culture would: - increase similarity, not diversity by emphasizing shared values and common identity. - exploit synchrony. People who move together feel closer. Synchrony builds trust. - create healthy competition among teams, not individuals. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

stigma

a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. "A stigma is a negative social label that not only changes others' behaviour towards a person but, also alters that person's self-concept and social identity." Once placed into such a category, an individual finds it nearly impossible to move out of that particular grouping. Such becomes his or her master status, overshadowing any other statuses. Such conditions the individual to continuously partake in the activities ascribed to the master status, good or bad.

social dominance orientation

a motivation to have one's group dominate other social groups.

intuitive politician

a term that describes the ability of most humans to assess social situations in order to present themselves in a positive aspect.

social dominance theory

a theory contending that societal groups can be organized in a power hierarchy in which the dominant groups enjoy a disproportionate share of the society's assets and the subordinate groups receive most of its liabilities.

amity-enmity complex

amity-enmity complex was a term introduced by Sir Arthur Keith. His work, A New Theory of Human Evolution (1948), posited that humans evolved as differing races, tribes, and cultures, exhibiting patriotism, morality, leadership and nationalism. Those who belong are part of the in-group, and tolerated; all others are classed as out-group, and subject to hostility; 'The code of enmity is a necessary part of the machinery of evolution. He who feels generous towards his enemy... has given up his place in the turmoil of evolutionary competition.' Conscience in humans evolved a duality; to protect and save friends, and also to hate and fight enemies. Keith's work summarized earlier opinions on human tribalism by Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Herbert Spencer.

categorical commitment

categorical commitments are a type of psychological fact with internal motive force (Becker, 1998) characterized by the unconditional way the agent expresses them. They are experienced as constraints, attachments, necessities, requirements, and boundaries. Ideas such as dignity, integrity, honor, privacy, and legality are included. Their perceived violation can be experienced as violation, degradation, and disintegration. Becker borrowed the term from George Harris, Dignity and Vulnerability (1997), but applied the meaning here rather than Harris's. Reference Becker, L.C. (1998). A New Stoicism

group-induced attitude polarization

group-induced attitude polarization. Though group polarization deals mainly with risk-involving decisions and/or opinions, discussion-induced shifts have been shown to occur on several non-risk-involving levels. This suggests that a general phenomenon of choice-shifts exists apart from only risk-related decisions. Stoner found that a decision is impacted by the values behind that circumstances of the decision. The study found that situations that normally favor the more risky alternative increased risky shifts. More so, situations that normally favor the cautious alternative increased cautious shifts. These findings also show the importance of previous group shifts. Choice shifts are mainly explained by largely differing human values and how highly these values are held by an individual.

identity groups

groups based on the social identities of members.

heteronomous morality

moral precepts, ideals, beliefs, commitments, and requirements foisted upon one from external forces such as parents and one's culture.

social exhibitionism (Jordan, 2019)

ostentatious or extreme manifestations of group fidelity meant to reaffirm loyalty to the group or enhance status. Social exhibitionism can be practical and directive, such as to avoid social ostracism, or simply a free-form expression of group solidarity with no avowed purpose. Social exhibitionistic acts can be innocuous, such as body painting at athletic events, or deleterious and even deadly, such as acts of violence meant to demonstrate commitment to the group.

social disinhibition

psychological maladjustment or acting out behaviors. Occurs when individuals within a society no longer feel constrained by social norms or adhere to an alternative set of norms and values. Often justified--or rationalized--by an avowed ideology.

Social Cohesion (Durkheim)

social bonds; how well people relate to each other and get along on a day-to-day basis.

shared moral narrative

the corpus of moral precepts that bind groups and dictate their beliefs and behaviors.

tribal literacy

the extent to which a member of a group knows the expectations, norms, more's, beliefs, etc. of the group.

dyadic instinct (us vs. them)

the presumably natural human tendency of people and in-groups to identify out-groups, or Others, as enemies and somehow less than human. The dyadic instinct contributes to group polarization and tribalism which can lead to ostracism and extremes of violence such as genocide.

social cognition

the processes by which people come to understand others. Social cognition is a sub-topic of various branches of psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in social interactions. More technically, social cognition refers to how people deal with conspecifics (members of the same species) or even across species (such as pet) information, include four stages: encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing. In the area of social psychology, social cognition refers to a specific approach in which these processes are studied according to the methods of cognitive psychologyand information processing theory. According to this view, social cognition is a level of analysis that aims to understand social psychological phenomena by investigating the cognitive processes that underlie them.[2] The major concerns of the approach are the processes involved in the perception, judgment, and memory of social stimuli; the effects of social and affective factors on information processing; and the behavioral and interpersonal consequences of cognitive processes. This level of analysis may be applied to any content area within social psychology, including research on intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup processes.

ingroup bias

the tendency to favor our own group.

tribal

relating to a group of people of the same race, and with the same customs, or a group's customs and beliefs, whether as a formal living arrangement, polity, or as an organically formed aggregation of like-minded people.

tribal

relating to a group of people of the same race, and with the same customs. Used colloquially or informally to refer to any group of people who share beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, whether they self-identify as a group or not.

Democratic Yin and Yang . . . (Mill, 1859)

"A party of order or stability and a party of progress or reform are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life, until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity." John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

The superior and inferior souls . . . (Plato)

"And He Himself acts as the Constructor of things divine, but the structure of the mortal things He commanded His own engendered sons to execute. And they, imitating Him, on receiving the immortal principle of soul, framed around it a mortal body, and gave it all the body to be its vehicle,1 and housed therein besides another form of soul, even the mortal form, which has within it passions both fearful and unavoidable—firstly, pleasure, a most mighty lure to evil; next, pains, which put good to rout1; and besides these, rashness and fear, foolish counsellors both and anger, hard to dissuade; and hope, ready to seduce. And blending these with irrational sensation and with all-daring lust, they thus compounded in necessary fashion the mortal kind of soul." Plato, Timaeus, 69.c-d

Groups . . . (Wilson, 1993)

"At some stage in the evolution of mankind--probably a quite early one--cooperative behavior became adaptive. Groups that could readily band together to forage, hunt, and defend against predators were more likely to survive the were solitary individuals." James Q. Wilson (1993), The Moral Sense

Populism . . . (Baggini, 2016)

"Democracies do not secure the consent of their electorates by appeal to philosophical arguments, no matter how (relatively) straightforward. Furthermore, since populism is not rooted in rational arguments but appeals to common sense, it seems unrealistic to suppose argument can uproot it. What's worse, once populism takes hold, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the case for pluralism, since to do so would appear to be offering precisely the kind of elitist over-complication that pluralism rails against." Julian Baggini (2016), The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Remake yourself . . . (Becker, 1998)

"Each person's deliberative field evolves continuously. . . . Initial sensibilities, sensitivities, values, aims, commitments, and preferences . . . together with beliefs and deliberative routines, yield normative propositions for conduct. The circumstances in which such normative propositions are acted out or abandoned (that is, relative strength or weakness of will) are given, and actions follow. Each process from information gathering to action then becomes information for the next process. . . . The agent's awareness of and reflection upon these iterative processes varies. But when awareness is high, it is fair to say rational agency is a self-transformative power: over time, its reflexive, recursive operations can transform its own powers, deliberative field, and operations--hence its norms and actions. . . . Agents can thus remake their characters over time." Lawrence C. Becker A New Stoicism (1998)

First They Came

"First they came ..." is the poetic form of a prose post-war confession first made in German in 1946 by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals and certain clergy (including, by his own admission, Niemöller himself) following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets, group after group. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in the English language. It deals with themes of persecution, guilt, repentance, and responsibility.

Freedom . . . (Brookfield, )

"Freedom is a social relationship in which the rights that a person takes to herself are extended to all others " Stephen D. Brookfield, The Power of Critical Theory for Adult Learning and Teaching

"Good laws will make good men" (Herman, 2013)

"Good laws will make good men, and the best laws are forged not in the heat of crisis or the give-and-take of ordinary political debate, where men's appetites take over, but through the exercise of knowledge and reason. Self-interest must yield to common interest; and men must be united if they are to be free." Arthur Herman (2013), The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

"90% chimp, 10% bee" (Haidt, 2012)

"Human nature is 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee. We are like chimps in being primates whose minds were shaped by the relentless competition of individuals with their neighbors. We are descended from a long string of winners in the game of social life. This is why we are Glauconians, usually more concerned about the appearance of virtue than the reality (as in Glaucon's story about the ring of Gyges). But human nature also has a more recent groupish overlay. We are like bees in being ultrasocial creatures whose minds were shaped by the relentless competition of groups with other groups. We are descended from earlier humans whose groupish minds helped them cohere, cooperate, and outcompete other groups. That doesn't mean that our ancestors were mindless or unconditional team players; it means they were selective. Under the right conditions, they were able to enter a mind-set of "one for all, all for one" in which they were truly working for the good of the group, and not just for their own advancement within the group." Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Man's lowly origin . . . (Darwin)

"I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge , as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system - with all these exalted powers - Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." Charles Darwin The Descent of Man (1871)

Biblical ideology

"I will put my law within them, and I will write it in their hearts." Jeremiah 31: 33-34

Identity . . . (Quammen)

"Identity is such a crucial affair that one shouldn't rush into it." David Quammen

Factions . . . (Madison)

"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." James Madison Federalist 10

"the moral sense" (Darwin, 1874)

"Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment—originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit." Charles Darwin (1874), Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Social persuasion before reasoned persuasion (Haidt, 2012)

"Use social persuasion to prepare the ground before attempting to use reasoned persuasion." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

Moral reasoning . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment." Jonathan Haidt (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Pre- and post-barbarism . . . (Hebbel)

"What a vast difference there is between the barbarism that precedes culture and the barbarism that follows it." Christian Friedrich Hebbel

Ideological commitment vs. confusion of values

-individuals need something to believe in or follow.

identity vs. role confusion

12 to 20 years. Encompasses physiological revolution. Favorable outcome is fidelity, the ability to see oneself as a unique and integrated person with sustained loyalties. Unfavorable outcomes are confusion about one's identity and a personality that shifts from day to day. Who am I? What can I be?

cult of personality

A cult of personality, or cult of the leader, arises when a country's regime - or, more rarely, an individual - uses the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. It is often seen in totalitarian or authoritarian countries. The term came to prominence in 1956, in Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, given on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the speech, Khrushchev, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party - in effect, the leader of the country - criticized the lionization and idealization of Joseph Stalin, and by implication, his Communist contemporary Mao Zedong, as being contrary to Marxist doctrine. The speech was later made public and was part of the "de-Stalinization" process the Soviet Union went through.

"shared space of public reason" (Baggini, 2016)

A dialogical forum identified by Julian Baggini (2016) as a cognitive space for the use of reason in debate. Reference Julian Baggini (2016), The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Filter Bubble Theory

A filter bubble - a term coined by Internet activist Eli Pariser - is a state of intellectual isolation that allegedly can result from personalized searches when a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user, such as location, past click-behavior and search history. As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by these algorithms are not transparent. Prime examples include Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news-stream. The bubble effect may have negative implications for civic discourse, according to Pariser, but contrasting views regard the effect as minimal and addressable.

hot-cold empathy gap

A hot-cold empathy gap is a cognitive bias in which people underestimate the influences of visceral drives on their own attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. The most important aspect of this idea is that human understanding is "state-dependent". For example, when one is angry, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one to be calm, and vice versa; when one is blindly in love with someone, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one not to be, (or to imagine the possibility of not being blindly in love in the future). Importantly, an inability to minimize one's gap in empathy can lead to negative outcomes in medical settings (e.g., when a doctor needs to accurately diagnose the physical pain of a patient), and in workplace settings (e.g., when an employer needs to assess the need for an employee's bereavement leave). Hot-cold empathy gaps can be analyzed according to their direction: Hot-to-cold: People under the influence of visceral factors (hot state) don't fully grasp how much their behavior and preferences are being driven by their current state; they think instead that these short-term goals reflect their general and long-term preferences.Cold-to-hot: People in a cold state have difficulty picturing themselves in hot states, minimizing the motivational strength of visceral impulses. This leads to unpreparedness when visceral forces inevitably arise. They can also be classified in regards to their relation with time (past or future) and whether they occur intra- or inter-personally: - intrapersonal prospective: the inability to effectively predict their own future behavior when in a different state. See also projection bias. - intrapersonal retrospective: when people recall or try to understand behaviors that happened in a different state. See retrospective hot-cold empathy gaps.interpersonal: the attempt to evaluate behaviors or preferences of another person who is in a state different from one's own. The term hot-cold empathy gap was coined by Carnegie Mellon University psychologist, George Loewenstein. Hot-cold empathy gaps are one of Loewenstein's major contributions to behavioral economics.

Ideological Immunity: Causes

According to Snelson, ideological immunity is due to three principal causes: PRINCIPLE OF INTELLECTUAL INDOLENCE: It always takes more time and effort to embrace a new idea and less time and effort to cling to an old idea. FEAR OF REPUTATIONAL LOSS: When an individual's reputation is built upon a foundation of certain basic premises, if the truth of these premises is challenged, his reputation is also challenged. FEAR OF ECONOMIC LOSS: If the truth of an individual's basic premises is inextricably tied to his economic well being, he will feel compelled to defend his premises as a means of defending his income. So what do we do about this idealogical immunity? Snelson writes that one of the best ways to combat, and even leverage, our idealogical immune system is "the recognition that everyone has an ideological immune system that protects him or her from new ideas: new good ideas and new bad ideas" and utilizing healthy skepticism in our thinking. Snelson provides the following principle to aide individuals in this effort: THE PRINCIPLE OF SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM: The less scientific verification for an explanation of causality, the more skeptical one can afford to be; and the more scientific verification the less skeptical one can afford to be. Snelson, Jay Stuart (1993). The Ideological Immune System

Cohen's Stages of Moral Panic

According to Stanley Cohen, who seems to have borrowed the term from Marshall McLuhan, there are five key stages in the construction of a moral panic: 1) Someone, something or a group are defined as a threat to social norms or community interests 2) The threat is then depicted in a simple and recognizable symbol/form by the media 3) The portrayal of this symbol rouses public concern 4) There is a response from authorities and policy makers 5) The moral panic over the issue results in social changes within the community In 1971 Stanley Cohen investigated a series of "moral panics". Cohen used the term "moral panic" to characterize the reactions of the media, the public, and agents of social control to youth disturbances. This work, involving the Mods and Rockers, demonstrated how agents of social control amplified deviance. According to Cohen, these groups were labeled as being outside the central core values of consensual society and as posing a threat to both the values of society and society itself, hence the term "folk devils". In a more recent edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Cohen outlines some of the criticisms that have arisen in response to moral panic theory. One of these is of the term "panic" itself, as it has connotations of irrationality and a lack of control. Cohen maintains that "panic" is a suitable term when used as an extended metaphor.

Achieved status

Achieved status is a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton denoting a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen. It is the opposite of Ascribed status. It reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts. Examples of achieved status are being an Olympic athlete, being a criminal, or being a college professor. Status is important sociologically because it comes with a set of rights, obligations, behaviours, and duties that people occupying a certain position are expected or encouraged to perform. These expectations are referred to as roles. For instance, the role of a "professor" includes teaching students, answering their questions, being impartial, appropriately.

American civil religion (Bellah, 1967)

American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that foster social and cultural integration. The ritualistic elements of ceremonial deism found in American ceremonies and presidential invocations of God can be seen as expressions of the American civil religion. The very heavy emphasis on pan-Christian religious themes is quite distinctively American and the theory is designed to explain this.The concept goes back to the 19th century, but in current form, the theory was developed by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967 in his article, "Civil Religion in America"According to Bellah, Americans embrace a common "civil religion" with certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals, parallel to, or independent of, their chosen religion. Presidents have often served in central roles in civil religion, and the nation provides quasi-religious honors to its martyrs—such as Abraham Lincoln and the soldiers killed in the American Civil War. Historians have noted presidential level use of civil religion rhetoric in profoundly moving episodes such as World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, and the September 11th attacks. Squiers identifies fourteen principal tenets of the American civil religion: - Filial piety - Reverence to certain sacred texts and symbols of the American civil religion (The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, the flag, etc.) - The sanctity of American institutions - The belief in God or a deityThe idea that rights are divinely given - The notion that freedom comes from God through government - Governmental authority comes from God or a higher transcendent authority - The conviction that God can be known through the American experience - God is the supreme judge - God is sovereignAmerica's prosperity results from God's providence - America is a "city on a hill" or a beacon of hope and righteousness - The principle of sacrificial death and rebirth - America serves a higher purpose than self-interests.

anomie

Anomie is "the condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals". This evolves from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). In a person this can progress into a dysfunctional ability to integrate within normative situations of their social world e.g., an unruly personal scenario that results in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of values. The term is commonly understood to mean normlessness, and believed to have been popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). However, Durkheim first introduces the concept of anomie in his 1893 work The Division of Labour in Society. Durkheim never used the term normlessness; rather, he described anomie as "derangement", and "an insatiable will". Durkheim used the term "the malady of the infinite" because desire without limit can never be fulfilled; it only becomes more intense. For Durkheim, anomie arises more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations. This is a nurtured condition: The word, "a reborrowing with French spelling of anomy", comes from Greek "lawlessness", namely the privative alpha prefix (a- "without"), and nomos "law". The Greeks distinguished between nomos ("law"), and arché ("starting rule, axiom, principle").

ascribed status vs. achieved status

Ascribed status is a position assigned to individuals or groups based on traits beyond their control, such as sex, race, or parental social status. This is usually associated with "closed" societies. Achieved status is distinguished from ascribed status by virtue of being earned. Many positions are a mixture of achievement and ascription; for instance, a person who has achieved the status of being a physician is more likely to have the ascribed status of being born into a wealthy family. This is usually associated with "open" societies or "social" class societies.

Ascribed status

Ascribed status is the social status a person is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. It is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned. These positions are occupied regardless of efforts or desire. These rigid social designators remain fixed throughout an individual's life and are inseparable from the positive or negative stereotypes that are linked with one's ascribed statuses. The practice of assigning such statuses to individuals exists cross-culturally within all societies and is based on gender, race, family origins, and ethnic backgrounds. For example, a person born into a wealthy family has a high ascribed status based solely on the social networks and economic advantages that one gains from being born into a family with more resources than others. In contrast, an achieved status is a social position a person takes on voluntarily that reflects both personal ability and merit.[citation needed] An individual's occupation tends to fall under the category of an achieved status; for example, a teacher or a firefighter. Individuals have control over their achieved statuses insofar as there are no restrictions associated with their ascribed statuses that could potentially hinder their social growth. Ascribed status plays an important role in societies because it can provide the members with a defined and unified identity. No matter where an individual's ascribed status may place him or her in the social hierarchy, most has a set of roles and expectations that are directly linked to each ascribed status and thus, provides a social personality.

attitude polarization

Attitude polarization, also known as belief polarization and polarization effect, is a phenomenon in which a disagreement becomes more extreme as the different parties consider evidence on the issue. It is one of the effects of confirmation bias: the tendency of people to search for and interpret evidence selectively, to reinforce their current beliefs or attitudes. When people encounter ambiguous evidence, this bias can potentially result in each of them interpreting it as in support of their existing attitudes, widening rather than narrowing the disagreement between them. The effect is observed with issues that activate emotions, such as political "hot button" issues. For most issues, new evidence does not produce a polarization effect. For those issues where polarization is found, mere thinking about the issue, without contemplating new evidence, produces the effect. Social comparison processes have also been invoked as an explanation for the effect, which is increased by settings in which people repeat and validate each other's statements. This apparent tendency is of interest not only to psychologists, but also to sociologists and philosophers.

Attitude polarization (belief polarization, polarization effect)

Attitude polarization, also known as belief polarization and polarization effect, is a phenomenon in which a disagreement becomes more extreme as the different parties consider evidence on the issue. It is one of the effects of confirmation bias: the tendency of people to search for and interpret evidence selectively, to reinforce their current beliefs or attitudes. When people encounter ambiguous evidence, this bias can potentially result in each of them interpreting it as in support of their existing attitudes, widening rather than narrowing the disagreement between them. The effect is observed with issues that activate emotions, such as political "hot button" issues. For most issues, new evidence does not produce a polarization effect. For those issues where polarization is found, mere thinking about the issue, without contemplating new evidence, produces the effect. Social comparison processes have also been invoked as an explanation for the effect, which is increased by settings in which people repeat and validate each other's statements. This apparent tendency is of interest not only to psychologists, but also to sociologists and philosophers.

language socialization

Based on comparative research in different societies, focusing on the role of language in child development, linguistic anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin have developed the theory of language socialization. They discovered that the processes of enculturation and socialization do not occur apart from the process of language acquisition, but that children acquire language and culture together in what amounts to an integrated process. Members of all societies socialize children both to and through the use of language; acquiring competence in a language, the novice is by the same token socialized into the categories and norms of the culture, while the culture, in turn, provides the norms of the use of language.

Homophily: Types and Dimensions

Baseline vs. inbreeding: To test the relevance of homophily researchers have distinguished between baseline homophily and inbreeding homophily. The former is simply the amount of homophily that would be expected by chance given an existing uneven distribution of people with varying characteristics, and the second is the amount of homophily over and above this expected value, typically due to personal preferences and choices. Status vs. value: In their original formulation of homophily, Lazarsfeld and Merton (1954) distinguished between status homophily and value homophily. The authors find that individuals with similar social status characteristics are more likely to associate with each other than by chance. "Status" includes both ascribed characteristics like race, ethnicity, sex, and age; and acquired characteristics like religion and education. In contrast, value homophily involves association with others who think in similar ways, regardless of differences in these status characteristics. Race and ethnicity: Social networks in United States today are strongly divided by race and ethnicity, which account for the greatest proportion of inbreeding homophily (though classification by these criteria can be problematic in sociology due to fuzzy boundaries and different definitions of race). Smaller groups have lower diversity simply due to the number of members, and this tends to give racial and ethnic minority groups a higher baseline homophily. Race and ethnicity also correlates with educational attainment and occupation, which increase baseline homophily further. Sex and gender: With regard to sex and gender, baseline homophily of networks is relatively low compared to race and ethnicity. Men and women frequently live together, and are both large and equally-sized populations. Most sex homophily is of the inbreeding type. Age: Most age homophily is of the baseline type. An interesting pattern of inbreeding age homophily for groups of different ages was found by Marsden (1988). It indicated a strong relationship between someone's age and the social distance to other people with regard to confiding in someone. For example, the larger age gap someone had, the smaller chances that they were confided by others with lower ages to "discuss important matters". Religion: Homophily based on religion is due to both baseline homophily and inbreeding. Education, occupation and social class: Family of birth accounts for considerable baseline homophily with respect to education, occupation, and social class.

collective narcissism

Collective narcissism (or group narcissism) extends the concept of individual narcissism onto the social level of self. It is a tendency to exaggerate the positive image and importance of a group the individual belongs to - i.e. the ingroup. While the classic definition of narcissism focuses on the individual, collective narcissism asserts that one can have a similar excessively high opinion of a group, and that a group can function as a narcissistic entity. Collective narcissism is related to ethnocentrism. However, ethnocentrism primarily focuses on self-centeredness at an ethnic or cultural level, while collective narcissism is extended to any type of ingroup, beyond just cultures and ethnicities. While ethnocentrism is an assertion of the ingroup's supremacy, collective narcissism is a self-defensive tendency to invest unfulfilled self-entitlement into a belief about ingroup's uniqueness and greatness. Thus, the ingroup is expected to become a vehicle of actualisation of frustrated self-entitlement. When applied to a national group, collective narcissism is similar to nationalism: a desire for national supremacy. Positive overlap between ingroup satisfaction and collective narcissism suppresses collective narcissistic intergroup hostility.

group commitment (individual)

Commitment highlights one of the ways in which individuals infuse roles and social structure with self-motivated behaviors, thereby linking the self to social structure. Past theoretical formulations of commitment, including work by Becker, Stryker, and Kanter, tended to focus on commitment as a tie between an individual and either 1) a line of activity, 2) particular role partners, or 3) an organization. An approach based on identity theory or affect control theory (each of which uses a cybernetic model of identity processes) suggests that commitment connects an individual to an identity. In this view, commitment does not link a person to consistent lines of activity, other role partners, or organizations, but to a stable set of self-meanings. These stable self-meanings, in turn, produce consistent lines of activities. This idea is borne out in an analysis of data from the college student role, in which there exist multiple, independent bases of commitment containing cognitive and socioemotional components. Commitment moderates the relationship between student identity and role performance such that the relationship is stronger for persons with higher commitment. "An Identity Theory Approach to Commitment," Peter J. Burke and Donald C. Reitzes, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), pp. 239-251

Common Enemy Intimacy

Common Enemy Intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging. If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection. Reference Brené Brown (2017), Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

Social Control and Stigmatization (SCS)

Conley states that "individuals subconsciously notice how others see or label them, and their reactions to these labels over time form the basis of their self-identity. It is only through the social process of labeling that we create deviance by assigning shared meanings to acts." Social conditioning is formed by the creation of 'good' and 'bad' behaviors - persistent reinforcement and the use of operant conditioning influences individuals/groups to develop particular behaviors and/or ideals. In "A Differential Association—Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior", from Criminological Theory Readings and Retrospectives, social norms and deviance in a particular group is described as follows: "We often infer what the norms of a group are by observing reaction to behavior, i.e., the sanctions applied to, or reinforcement and punishment of, such behavior. We may also learn what a group's norms are through verbal and written statements. The individual group member also learns what is and is not acceptable behavior on the basis of verbal statements made by others, as well as through sanctions (i.e. the reinforcing or aversive stimuli) applied by others in response to his behavior and that of other norms violators." A particular group conditions its members into certain behaviors. In Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, the authors note that even illegal behaviors may be seen as positive and promoted within a particular group because different social organizations have a varying amount of influence over particular members - in particular, as children age, their friends play a greater amount of influence than the family. Burgess and Akers further reinforce this point: "In terms of our analysis, the primary group would be seen to be the major source of an individual's social reinforcements. The bulk of behavioral training which the child receives occurs at a time when the trainers, usually the parents, possess a very powerful system of reinforcement. In fact, we might characterize a primary group as a generalized reinforce (one associated with many reinforces, conditioned as well as unconditioned). And, as we suggest above, as the child grows older, groups other than the family may come to control a majority of an individual's reinforces, e.g. the adolescent peer group. Such theories are further backed up by Mead's theory of Social Development and are reinforced by stigmatization."

Decentralized decision-making

Decentralized decision-making is any process where the decision-making authority is distributed throughout a larger group. It also connotes a higher authority given to lower level functionaries, executives, and workers. This can be in any organization of any size, from a governmental authority to a corporation. However, the context in which the term is used is generally that of larger organizations. This distribution of power, in effect, has far-reaching implications for the fields of management, organizational behavior, and government. The decisions arising from a process of decentralized decision-making are the functional result of group intelligence and crowd wisdom. Decentralized decision-making also contributes to the core knowledge of group intelligence and crowd wisdom, often in a subconscious way a la Carl Jung's collective unconscious. Decision theory is a method of deductive reasoning based on formal probability and deductive reasoning models. It is also studied in a specialized field of mathematics wherein models are used to help make decisions in all human activities including the sciences and engineering.

Moral Tribes (2013), Joshua Greene

Drawing on dual-process theory, as well as evolutionary psychology and other neuroscience work, Greene's book Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them (2013) explores how our ethical intuitions play out in the modern world. Greene posits that humans have an instinctive, automatic tendency to cooperate with others in their social group on tragedy of the commons scenarios ("me versus us"). For example, in a cooperative investment game, people are more likely to do what's best for the group when they're under time pressure or when they're primed to "go with their gut," and inversely, cooperation can be inhibited by rational calculation. However, on questions of inter-group harmony ("us versus them"), automatic intuitions run into a problem, which Greene calls the "tragedy of commonsense morality." The same ingroup loyalty that achieves cooperation within a community leads to hostility between communities. In response, Greene proposes a "metamorality" based on a "common currency" that all humans can agree upon and suggests that utilitarianism—or as he calls it, "deep pragmatism"—is up to the task.

Four Drives Motivating Human Choice (Lawrence & Nohria, 2002)

Drive to acquire objects and experiences that improve our status relative to others (D1). Drive to bond with others in long-term relationships of mutual care and commitment (D2). Drive to learn and make sense of the world and ourselves (D3). Drive to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our resources from harm (D4). Paul R. Lawrence & Nitin Nohria Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices (2002)

Engaged Theory

Engaged theory is a methodological framework for understanding social complexity. It takes social life or social relations as its base category, with 'the social' always understood as grounded in 'the natural', including humans as embodied beings. Engaged theory provides a framework that moves from detailed empirical analysis about things, people and processes in the world to abstract theory about the constitution and social framing of those things, people and processes. Engaged theory is one approach within the broader tradition of critical theory. Engaged theory crosses the fields of sociology, anthropology, political studies, history, philosophy, and global studies. At its most general, the term engaged theory is used to describe theories that provide a tool box for engaging with the world while seeking to change it. One lineage of engaged theory is called the 'constitutive abstraction' approach associated with a group of writers publishing in Arena Journal such as John Hinkson, Geoff Sharp (1926-2015), and Simon Cooper. A related lineage of engaged theory has been developed by researchers who began their association through the Centre for Global Research at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia - scholars such as Manfred Steger, Paul James and Damian Grenfell - drawing upon a range of writers from Pierre Bourdieu to Benedict Anderson and Charles Taylor. A group of researchers at Western Sydney University describe their work as 'Engaged Research'.

Group Cohesiveness: Attraction

Festinger and colleagues (1951) proposed the theory of group cohesiveness as attractiveness to people which have the best care within the group and attractiveness to the group as a whole. Lott and Lott (1965) argued that interpersonal attraction within the group is sufficient to account for group cohesion. In other words, group cohesion exists when its members have mutual positive feelings towards one another. Later theorists (1992) wrote that attraction to the group as a whole causes group cohesion, a concept reminiscent of the social identity theory. According to Hogg, group cohesiveness is based on social attraction, which refers to "attraction among members of a salient social group." Hogg explains how group cohesiveness develops from social attraction with self-categorization theory according to which individuals when looking at others' similarities and differences, mentally categorize themselves and others as part of a group, in-group members, or as not part of a group, out-group members. From this type of categorizing, the stereotypes of the group becomes more prominent in the individual's mind. This leads the individual to think and behave according to group norms, thus resulting in attraction to the group as a whole. This process is known as depersonalization of self-perception. In Hogg's theory social attraction refers to the liking of depersonalized characteristics, the prototype of the group, which is distinct from interpersonal attraction among individuals within the group. It is also important to note that group cohesiveness is more associated with group attraction than with attraction to individual members.

total social fact (Mauss)

For Marcel Mauss (Durkheim's nephew and sometime collaborator) a total social fact (French fait social total) is "an activity that has implications throughout society, in the economic, legal, political, and religious spheres". Diverse strands of social and psychological life are woven together through what he came to call total social facts. A total social fact informs and organizes seemingly quite distinct practices and institutions. Marcel Mauss popularized the term in his book, The Gift: "These phenomena are at once legal, economic, religious, aesthetic, morphological and so on. They are legal in that they concern individual and collective rights, organized and diffuse morality; they may be entirely obligatory, or subject simply to praise or disapproval. They are at once political and domestic, being of interest both to classes and to clans and families. They are religious; they concern true religion, animism, magic and diffuse religious mentality. They are economic, for the notions of value, utility, interest, luxury, wealth, acquisition, accumulation, consumption and liberal and sumptuous expenditure are all present."

Domains (Modes) of Influence (Paul & Elder, 2014)

Forces rational and irrational from a variety of modes, or domains, influence our thinking to produce the beliefs we, and our groups, hold and the perspectives we have, including . . . - vocational (work) - sociological (groups, especially peer groups and tribal influences) - philosophical (personal philosophy) - ethical (our obligations and the way we define them) - intellectual (ideas we hold, manner of reasoning, and how we deal with concepts and abstractions) - anthropological (cultural practices, more's, taboos, innate tribalism and tendency toward group polarization) - ideological and political (how we are influenced by structures of power and interest groups) - economic (economic conditions of our lives) - historical (our history, that of our groups, and the ways that we tell those histories) - biological and physiological (our biology, neurology [particularly Systems 1 and 2 thinking], physical condition) - theological (religious beliefs and attitudes) - psychological (personality and personal psychology) Derived from Richard Paul and Linda Elder Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life (2014)

Group cohesiveness

Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main components: social relations, task relations, perceived unity, and emotions. Members of strongly cohesive groups are more inclined to participate readily and to stay with the group. From Neo-Latin "cohaesio" and French "cohésion", in physics, cohesion means "the force that unites the molecules of a liquid or of a solid". Thereby, there are different ways to define group cohesion, depending on how researchers conceptualize this concept. However, most researchers define cohesion to be task commitment and interpersonal attraction to the group. Cohesion can be more specifically defined as the tendency for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. This definition includes important aspects of cohesiveness, including its multidimensionality, dynamic nature, instrumental basis, and emotional dimension. Its multidimensionality refers to how cohesion is based on many factors. Its dynamic nature refers to how it gradually changes over time in its strength and form from the time a group is formed to when a group is disbanded. Its instrumental basis refers to how people cohere for some purpose, whether it be for a task or for social reasons. Its emotional dimension refers to how cohesion is pleasing to its group members. This definition can be generalized to most groups characterized by the group definition discussed above. These groups include sports teams, work groups, military units, fraternity groups, and social groups. However, it is important to note that other researchers claim that cohesion cannot be generalized across many groups.

choice shifts

Group polarization and choice shifts are similar in many ways; however, they differ in one distinct way. Group polarization refers to attitude change on the individual level due to the influence of the group, and choice shift refers to the outcome of that attitude change; namely, the difference between the average group members' pre-group discussion attitudes and the outcome of the group decision. Risky and cautious shifts are both a part of a more generalized idea known as group-induced attitude polarization. Though group polarization deals mainly with risk-involving decisions and/or opinions, discussion-induced shifts have been shown to occur on several non-risk-involving levels. This suggests that a general phenomenon of choice-shifts exists apart from only risk-related decisions. Stoner found that a decision is impacted by the values behind that circumstances of the decision. The study found that situations that normally favor the more risky alternative increased risky shifts. More so, situations that normally favor the cautious alternative increased cautious shifts. These findings also show the importance of previous group shifts. Choice shifts are mainly explained by largely differing human values and how highly these values are held by an individual. According to Moscovici et al. interaction within a group and differences of opinion are necessary for group polarization to take place. While an extremist in the group may sway opinion, the shift can only occur with sufficient and proper interaction within the group. In other words, the extremist will have no impact without interaction. Also, Moscovici et al. found individual preferences to be irrelevant; it is differences of opinion which will cause the shift. This finding demonstrates how one opinion in the group will not sway the group; it is the combination of all the individual opinions that will make an impact.

Group polarization (sociology)

Group polarization is defined as a phenomenon when "members of a deliberating group move toward a more extreme point in whatever direction is indicted by the members' predeliberation tendency." Group polarization leads to changing attitudes among individuals within the group. In addition, group polarization can lead to groupthink, which is when bad decisions are made by a group because some of its members don't want to express opinions or suggest new ideas that some in the group may disagree with. People want to be unique and have opinions that differ from others, which could lead to more extreme views on a certain subject taking hold. This can have dangerous consequences for society as a whole. Why Does It Happen? There is a pair of theories that help explain how group polarization works. The social comparison theory concerns individuals comparing views with others, while the informational influence theory focuses on an individual trying to persuade another. Social Comparison Theory Also known as the normative influence, this theory of group polarization states that people often change their opinions when in a group in order to fit in or to be accepted, and to be looked upon more favorably. As outsiders, new members of the group may promote a more extreme view of a topic than the rest of the group previously had. That can push the entire group toward the more extreme viewpoint or the stance that best correlates with the views of the group leader. This concept states "that people tend to enter a discussion with favorable information for both sides of the argument, and then change their opinion favoring that side which provides more information in its arguments." This mainly occurs when an individual is unsure about what he or she believes, and that person will tend to follow which ever viewpoint has the most information supporting it.

group socialization

Group socialization is the theory that an individual's peer groups, rather than parental figures, are the primary influence of personality and behavior in adulthood. Parental behavior and the home environment has either no effect on the social development of children, or the effect varies significantly between children. Adolescents spend more time with peers than with parents. Therefore, peer groups have stronger correlations with personality development than parental figures do. For example, twin brothers, whose genetic makeup are identical, will differ in personality because they have different groups of friends, not necessarily because their parents raised them differently. Behavioral genetics suggest that up to fifty percent of the variance in adult personality is due to genetic differences. The environment in which a child is raised accounts for only approximately ten percent in the variance of an adult's personality. As much as twenty percent of the variance is due to measurement error. This suggests that only a very small part of an adult's personality is influenced by factors parents control (i.e. the home environment). Harris claims that while it's true that siblings don't have identical experiences in the home environment (making it difficult to associate a definite figure to the variance of personality due to home environments), the variance found by current methods is so low that researchers should look elsewhere to try to account for the remaining variance. Harris also states that developing long-term personality characteristics away from the home environment would be evolutionarily beneficial because future success is more likely to depend on interactions with peers than interactions with parents and siblings. Also, because of already existing genetic similarities with parents, developing personalities outside of childhood home environments would further diversify individuals, increasing their evolutionary success.

Groupthink

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup." Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.

Haidt's Moral Foundations (Haidt, 2012)

Haidt (2012) has postulated a number of moral foundations that are innate, or "organized in advance of experience," shared by all humans and their cultures though each may be elaborated in different ways or to different degrees of significance. Care/Harm Foundation: evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of caring for vulnerable children who take longer to nature than other species due to enhanced brain capacity requiring longer maturation. Fairness/Cheating Foundation: evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of reaping the rewards of cooperation without being exploited, i.e. reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971). Loyalty/Betrayal Foundation: evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions. Authority/Subversion Foundation: evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forging relationships that will benefit humans within social hierarchies. Sanctity/Degradation Foundation: evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of the Omnivore's Dilemma, or deciding what is edible and what isn't, and then to the broader challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. This foundation makes it possible for people to engage in essentialism, or endowing objects with irrational and extreme values--positive and negative--which are important for binding groups together. Liberty/Oppression Foundation: makes people notice and resent perceived signs of attempted domination. Triggers an urge to band together in respective tribes to resist. References Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion Gary Marcus (2004), The Birth of the Brain Trivers, R. L. (1971). "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism"

Glauconian groupishness

Haidt's (2012) term for people who care more about the appearance of demonstrating group loyalty than actually committing to group principles and values. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World (2019), Sarah Rose Cavanaugh

Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World (2019), by Sarah Rose Cavanaugh is a provocative look at how communities can sync up around shared ideas, and how this hive mentality is contributing to today's polarized times. Hivemind: A collective consciousness in which we share consensus thoughts, emotions, and opinions; a phenomenon whereby a group of people function as if with a single mind. Our views of the world are shaped by the stories told by our self-selected communities. Whether seeking out groups that share our tastes, our faith, our heritage, or other interests, since the dawn of time we have taken comfort in defining ourselves through our social groups. But what happens when we only socialize with our chosen group, to the point that we lose the ability to connect to people who don't share our passions? What happens when our tribes merely confirm our world view, rather than expand it? We have always been a remarkably social species-our moods, ideas, and even our perceptions of reality synchronize without our conscious awareness. The advent of social media and smartphones has amplified these tendencies in ways that spell both promise and peril. Our hiveish natures benefit us in countless ways-combatting the mental and physical costs of loneliness, connecting us with collaborators and supporters, and exposing us to entertainment and information beyond what we can find in our literal backyards. But of course, there are also looming risks-echo chambers, political polarization, and conspiracy theories that have already begun to have deadly consequences. Leading a narrative journey from the site of the Charlottesville riots to the boardrooms of Facebook, considering such diverse topics as zombies, neuroscience, and honeybees, psychologist and emotion regulation specialist Sarah Rose Cavanagh leaves no stone unturned in her quest to understand how social technology is reshaping the way we socialize. It's not possible to turn back the clocks, and Cavanagh argues that there's no need to; instead, she presents a fully examined and thoughtful call to cut through our online tribalism, dial back our moral panic about screens and mental health, and shore up our sense of community. With compelling storytelling and shocking research, Hivemind is a must-read for anyone hoping to make sense of the dissonance around us.

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951), Eric Hoffer

Hoffer came to public attention with the 1951 publication of his first book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, which consists of a preface and 125 sections, which are divided into 18 chapters. Hoffer analyzes the phenomenon of "mass movements," a general term that he applies to revolutionary parties, nationalistic movements, and religious movements. He summarizes his thesis in §113: "A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of actions." Hoffer argues that fanatical and extremist cultural movements, whether religious, social, or national, arise when large numbers of frustrated people, believing their own individual lives to be worthless or spoiled, join a movement demanding radical change. But the real attraction for this population is an escape from the self, not a realization of individual hopes: "A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation." Hoffer consequently argues that the appeal of mass movements is interchangeable: in the Germany of the 1920s and the 1930s, for example, the Communists and National Socialists were ostensibly enemies, but sometimes enlisted each other's members, since they competed for the same kind of marginalized, angry, frustrated people. For the "true believer," Hoffer argues that particular beliefs are less important than escaping from the burden of the autonomous self. Harvard historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. said of The True Believer: "This brilliant and original inquiry into the nature of mass movements is a genuine contribution to our social thought."

Homo duplex (Durkheim)

Homo duplex is a view promulgated by Émile Durkheim, a macro-sociologist of the 19th century, saying that a man on the one hand is a biological organism, driven by instincts, with desire and appetite and on the other hand is being led by morality and other elements generated by society. What allows a person to go beyond the "animal" nature is the most common religion that imposes specific normative system and is a way to regulate behaviour. Left unchecked the individualism leads to a lifetime of seeking to slake selfish desires which leads to unhappiness and despair. On the other hand collective conscience serves as a check on the will. This is created by socialisation. Highly anomic societies are characterized by weak primary group ties—family, church, community, and other such groups. Émile Durkheim: Far from being simple, our inner life has something like a double centre of gravity. On the one hand is our individuality ... On the other is everything in us that expresses something other than ourselves. Not only are these two groups of states of consciousness different in their origins and their properties, but there is a true antagonism between them. David Foster Wallace: But the young educated adults of the 90s got to watch all this brave new individualism and self-expression and sexual freedom deteriorate into the joyless and anomic self-indulgence of the Me Generation. Today's sub-40s have different horrors, prominent among which are anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without once having loved something more than yourself." Sigmund Freud used these ideas in his essay Civilization and Its Discontents, he wrote civilisation is created through restraint - is "built up upon a renunciation of instinct." Reference David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me." - Publius Terentius Afer, "Terence," Heauton Timorumenos

Homophily

Homophily from Ancient Greek (homou, "together") and Greek φιλία (philia, "friendship") is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others, as in the proverb "birds of a feather flock together". The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies. More than 100 studies have observed homophily in some form or another and they establish that similarity breeds connection. These include age, gender, class, and organizational role. Individuals in homophilic relationships share common characteristics (beliefs, values, education, etc.) that make communication and relationship formation easier. The opposite of homophily is heterophily or intermingling. Homophily between mated pairs in animals has been extensively studied in the field of evolutionary biology, in which it is known as assortative mating. Homophily between mated pairs is common within natural animal mating populations.

Hostile Attribution Bias: Theoretical Formulation

Hostile attribution bias is typically conceptualized within a social information processing framework, in which social information (e.g., during an interaction) is processed in a series of steps that leads to a behavioral reaction. Accurate social information processing requires a person to engage in six steps that occur in order. Step 1: Accurately encode information in the brain and store it in short term memory. During this step, an individual will pay attention to and code specific stimuli/cues in their environment, including external factors (e.g., someone bumping into you; other people's reactions to the situation) and internal factors (e.g., your affective reaction to the situation). Step 2: Accurately interpret or give meaning to encoded information. During this step, an individual may decide if a behavior or situation was meant to be hostile or benign. Step 3: Decide a goal for the interaction Step 4: Generate potential responses Step 5: Evaluate potential responses and select the "optimal" response Step 6: Enact chosen response Hostile attribution bias is theorized to result from deviations in any of these steps, including paying attention to and encoding biased information (e.g., only paying attention to cues suggestive of hostility), biases toward negative interpretations of social interactions (e.g., more likely to interpret situation as hostile), limited ability to generate a broad range of potential responses, and difficulty appropriately evaluating responses and selecting an optimal response. Furthermore, biases in any of the steps affect the rest of the steps. Hostile attribution bias has been particularly linked to step 2 of social information processing (i.e., interpretation of information), but is linked to impairments in other steps as well, including inaccurate perception/encoding of social situations and problems with generating a broad range of potential behavioral responses. For example, a child with high levels of hostile attribution bias may generate fewer potential responses than other children, and these responses may be limited to hostile or ineffective responses to a situation. Dodge theorized that hostile attribution bias arises from an individual's hostile schemas about the world that are formed through an interaction between a child's neural dispositions and his/her early exposures to hostile socialization experiences. These experiences may include disrupted parental attachment, child abuse, exposure to family violence, peer rejection or victimization, and community violence.

hostile attribution bias (hostile attribution of intent)

Hostile attribution bias, or hostile attribution of intent, is the tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign. For example, a person with high levels of hostile attribution bias might see two people laughing and immediately interpret this behavior as two people laughing about him/her, even though the behavior was ambiguous and may have been benign. The term "hostile attribution bias" was first coined in 1980 by Nasby, Hayden, and DePaulo who noticed, along with several other key pioneers in this research area (e.g., Kenneth A. Dodge), that a subgroup of children tend to attribute hostile intent to ambiguous social situations more often than other children. Since then, hostile attribution bias has been conceptualized as a bias of social information processing (similar to other attribution biases), including the way individuals perceive, interpret, and select responses to situations. While occasional hostile attribution bias is normative (particularly for younger children), researchers have found that individuals who exhibit consistent and high levels of hostile attribution bias across development are much more likely to engage in aggressive behavior (e.g., hitting/fighting, reacting violently, verbal or relational aggression) toward others. In addition, hostile attribution bias is hypothesized to be one important pathway through which other risk factors, such as peer rejection or harsh parenting behavior, lead to aggression. For example, children exposed to peer teasing at school or child abuse at home are much more likely to develop high levels of hostile attribution bias, which then lead them to behave aggressively at school and/or at home. Thus, in addition to partially explaining one way aggression develops, hostile attribution bias also represents a target for the intervention and prevention of aggressive behaviors.

Tribalism is Human Nature (Clark,Liu, Winegard, & Ditto, 2019)

Humans evolved in the context of intense intergroup competition, and groups comprised of loyal members more often succeeded than those that were not. Therefore, selective pressures have consistently sculpted human minds to be" tribal," and group loyalty and concomitant cognitive biases likely exist in all groups. Modern politics is one of the most salient forms of modern coalitional conflict and elicits substantial cognitive biases. Given the common evolutionary history of liberals and conservatives, there is little reason to expect pro-tribe biases to be higher on one side of the political spectrum than the other. We call this the evolutionarily plausible null hypothesis and recent research has supported it. In a recent meta-analysis, liberals and conservatives showed similar levels of partisan bias, and a number of pro-tribe cognitive tendencies often ascribed to conservatives (eg, intolerance toward dissimilar others) have been found in similar degrees in liberals. We conclude that tribal bias is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition, and that no group—not even one's own—is immune. Tribalism is Human Nature (2019), Cory J. Clark, Brittany S. Liu, Bo M. Winegard, and Peter H. Ditto

value (moral) pluralism

In ethics, value pluralism (also known as ethical pluralism or moral pluralism) is the idea that there are several values which may be equally correct and fundamental, and yet in conflict with each other. In addition, value-pluralism postulates that in many cases, such incompatible values may be incommensurable, in the sense that there is no objective ordering of them in terms of importance. Value pluralism is opposed to value monism. Value-pluralism is a theory in metaethics, rather than a theory of normative ethics, or a set of values in itself. Oxford philosopher and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin is credited with being the first to popularize a substantial work describing the theory of objective value-pluralism, bringing it to the attention of academia (cf. the Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library). The related idea that fundamental values can and, in some cases, do conflict with each other is prominent in the thought of Max Weber, captured in his notion of "polytheism."

Nash Equilibrium

In game theory, the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., is a proposed solution of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy.

Unscrupulous Diner's Dilemma

In game theory, the unscrupulous diner's dilemma (or just diner's dilemma) is an n-player prisoner's dilemma. The situation imagined is that several people go out to eat, and before ordering, they agree to split the cost equally between them. Each diner must now choose whether to order the costly or cheap dish. It is presupposed that the costlier dish is better than the cheaper, but not by enough to warrant paying the difference when eating alone. Each diner reasons that, by ordering the costlier dish, the extra cost to their own bill will be small, and thus the better dinner is worth the money. However, all diners having reasoned thus, they each end up paying for the costlier dish, which by assumption, is worse than had they each ordered the cheaper.

Social Intuitionist Model of Moral jJudgment (Haidt, 2001)

In moral psychology, social intuitionism is a model that proposes that moral positions and judgments are: (1) primarily intuitive ("intuitions come first") (2) rationalized, justified, or otherwise explained after the fact (3) taken mainly to influence other people, and are (4) often influenced and sometimes changed by discussing such positions with others. This model diverges from earlier rationalist theories of morality, such as of Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral reasoning. Inspired in part by Antonio Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt's (2001) Social Intuitionist Model de-emphasized the role of reasoning in reaching moral conclusions. Haidt asserts that moral judgment is primarily given rise to by intuition, with reasoning playing a smaller role in most of our moral decision-making. Conscious thought-processes serve as a kind of post hoc justification of our decisions. His main evidence comes from studies of "moral dumbfounding" where people have strong moral reactions but fail to establish any kind of rational principle to explain their reaction. An example situation in which moral intuitions are activated is as follows: Imagine that a brother and sister sleep together once. No one else knows, no harm befalls either one, and both feel it brought them closer as siblings. Most people imagining this incest scenario have very strong negative reaction, yet cannot explain why. Referring to earlier studies by Howard Margolis and others, Haidt suggests that we have unconscious intuitive heuristics which generate our reactions to morally charged-situations, and underlie our moral behavior. He suggests that when people explain their moral positions, they often miss, if not hide, the core premises and processes that actually led to those conclusions. Haidt's model also states that moral reasoning is more likely to be interpersonal than private, reflecting social motives (reputation, alliance-building) rather than abstract principles. He does grant that interpersonal discussion (and, on very rare occasions, private reflection) can activate new intuitions which will then be carried forward into future judgments.

Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954)

In psychology and other social sciences, the contact hypothesis suggests that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can effectively reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. Following WWII and the desegregation of the military and other public institutions, policymakers and social scientists had turned an eye towards the policy implications of interracial contact. Of them, social psychologist Gordon Allport united early research in this vein under intergroup contact theory. In 1954, Allport published The Nature of Prejudice, in which he outlined the most widely cited form of the hypothesis. The premise of Allport's hypothesis states that under appropriate conditions interpersonal contact could be one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. According to Allport, properly managed contact should reduce issues of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination that commonly occur between rival groups and lead to better intergroup interactions. In the decades following Allport's book, social scientists expanded and applied the contact hypothesis towards the reduction of prejudice beyond racism, including prejudice towards physically and mentally disabled people, women, and LGBTQ people, in hundreds of different studies. In some subfields of criminology, psychology, and sociology, intergroup contact has been described as one of the best ways to improve relations among groups in conflict. Nonetheless, the effects of intergroup contact vary widely from context to context, and empirical inquiry continues to this day Not just any contact, but contact under optimal conditions: - equal status - authority sanction - personalized friendship - cooperative goals.

social trap

In psychology, a social trap is a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole. Examples of social traps include overfishing, energy "brownout" and "blackout" power outages during periods of extreme temperatures, the overgrazing of cattle on the Sahelian Desert, and the destruction of the rainforest by logging interests and agriculture.

identity crisis

In psychology, identity crisis is the failure to achieve ego identity during adolescence. The term was coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson. The stage of psychosocial development in which identity crisis may occur is called the identity cohesion vs. role confusion. During this stage, adolescents are faced with physical growth, sexual maturity, and integrating ideas of themselves and about what others think of them. Adolescents therefore form their self-image and endure the task of resolving the crisis of their basic ego identity. Successful resolution of the crisis depends on one's progress through previous developmental stages, centering on issues such as trust, autonomy, and initiative.

false consensus effect

In psychology, the false-consensus effect or false-consensus bias is an attributional type of cognitive bias whereby people tend to overestimate the extent to which their opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical of those of others (i.e., that others also think the same way that they do). This cognitive bias tends to lead to the perception of a consensus that does not exist, a "false consensus". This false consensus is significant because it increases or decreases self-esteem, the overconfidence effect or a belief that everyone knows one's own knowledge. It can be derived from a desire to conform and be liked by others in a social environment. This bias is especially prevalent in group settings where one thinks the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. Since the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way. The false-consensus effect is not restricted to cases where people believe that their values are shared by the majority, but it still manifests as an overestimate of the extent of their belief. Additionally, when confronted with evidence that a consensus does not exist, people often assume that those who do not agree with them are defective in some way. There is no single cause for this cognitive bias; the availability heuristic, self-serving bias, and naïve realism have been suggested as at least partial underlying factors. Maintenance of this cognitive bias may be related to the tendency to make decisions with relatively little information. When faced with uncertainty and a limited sample from which to make decisions, people often "project" themselves onto the situation. When this personal knowledge is used as input to make generalizations, it often results in the false sense of being part of the majority. The false-consensus effect can be contrasted with pluralistic ignorance, an error in which people privately disapprove but publicly support what seems to be the majority view.

positive (positively associated) stereotype

In social psychology, a positive stereotype refers to a subjectively favourable belief held about a social group. Common examples of positive stereotypes are Asians with better math ability, African Americans with greater athletic ability, and women with being more warm and communal. As opposed to negative stereotypes, positive stereotypes represent a "positive" evaluation of a group that typically signals an advantage over another group. As such, positive stereotypes may be considered a form of compliment or praise. However, positive stereotypes can have a positive or negative effect on targets of positive stereotypes. The positive or negative influence of positive stereotypes on targets depends on three factors: (1) how the positive stereotype is stated, (2) who is stating the positive stereotype, (3) in what culture the positive stereotype is presented (e.g., Western contexts vs. East Asian contexts).

pluralistic ignorance

In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes". In short, pluralistic ignorance is a bias about a social group, held by the members of that social group. Pluralistic ignorance may help to explain the bystander effect. If no-one acts, onlookers may believe others believe action is incorrect, and may therefore themselves refrain from acting.

social fact (Durkheim)

In sociology, social facts are values, cultural norms, and social structures that transcend the individual and can exercise social control. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim defined the term, and argued that the discipline of sociology should be understood as the empirical study of social facts. For Durkheim, social facts "... consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him."

oppositional cultural identity

In some cases dominant cultural attitudes can oppress or alienate particular students to the point where they feel they have no choice but to put themselves on the margins of mainstream activity. Such students may develop an oppositional cultural identity, meaning that they define themselves not by who they are, but by how they differ from or oppose mainstream culture (Ogbu & Davis, 2003; Carter, 2005). Instead of aspiring to do well in school, for example, or to get along well with teachers, the students may aspire not to do well and not to be liked by teachers. Obviously this sort of attitude poses problems for teachers who try to motivate the students, it also poses problems for the students' long-term success in life. Oppositional identity is especially likely in so-called involuntary minorities—groups that emigrated to or joined a society against their will and who may have been given few resources with which to participate in society. In the United States, for example, African-Americans and American Indians may have been involuntary minorities originally, although many present-day individuals from these groups may now feel very much a part of American culture. As cultural groups, however, their experiences have been quite different than so-called voluntary minorities—groups that chose to emigrate to a society in order to create better lives for themselves. The latter groups are more likely to work actively to fit in to their newfound culture. Learning to fit in to a new culture is a challenging task itself, but on the whole it is an easier task for teachers to work with than oppositional motivation.

methodological individualism

In the social sciences, methodological individualismis the principle that subjective individual motivation explains social phenomena, rather than class or group dynamics which are (according to proponents of individualistic principles) illusory or artificial and therefore cannot truly explain market or social phenomena. Methodological individualism is often contrasted with methodological holism.

Stages of Socialization

Individuals and groups change their evaluations and commitments to each other over time. There is a predictable sequence of stages that occur in order for an individual to transition through a group; investigation, socialization, maintenance, resocialization, and remembrance. During each stage, the individual and the group evaluate each other which leads to an increase or decrease in commitment to socialization. This socialization pushes the individual from prospective, new, full, marginal, and ex member. Stage 1: Investigation This stage is marked by a cautious search for information. The individual compares groups in order to determine which one will fulfill their needs (reconnaissance), while the group estimates the value of the potential member (recruitment). The end of this stage is marked by entry to the group, whereby the group asks the individual to join and they accept the offer. Stage 2: Socialization Now that the individual has moved from prospective member to new member, they must accept the group's culture. At this stage, the individual accepts the group's norms, values, and perspectives (assimilation), and the group adapts to fit the new member's needs (accommodation). The acceptance transition point is then reached and the individual becomes a full member. However, this transition can be delayed if the individual or the group reacts negatively. For example, the individual may react cautiously or misinterpret other members' reactions if they believe that they will be treated differently as a newcomer. Stage 3: Maintenance During this stage, the individual and the group negotiate what contribution is expected of members (role negotiation). While many members remain in this stage until the end of their membership, some individuals are not satisfied with their role in the group or fail to meet the group's expectations (divergence). Stage 4: Resocialization If the divergence point is reached, the former full member takes on the role of a marginal member and must be resocialized. There are two possible outcomes of resocialization: differences are resolved and the individual becomes a full member again (convergence), or the group expels the individual or the individual decides to leave (exit). Stage 5: Remembrance In this stage, former members reminisce about their memories of the group, and make sense of their recent departure. If the group reaches a consensus on their reasons for departure, conclusions about the overall experience of the group become part of the group's tradition.

Indoctrination

Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies (see doctrine). Humans are a social animal inescapably shaped by cultural context, and thus some degree of indoctrination is implicit in the parent-child relationship, and has an essential function in forming stable communities of shared values. In the political context, indoctrination is often analyzed as a tool of class warfare, where institutions of the state are identified as "conspiring" to maintain the status quo. Specifically the public educational system, the police, and mental health establishment are a commonly cited modus operandi of public pacification. In the extreme, an entire state can be implicated. George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four famously singled out explicit, state-mandated propaganda initiatives of totalitarian regimes. Opinions differ on whether other forms of government are less doctrinaire, or merely achieve the same ends through less obvious methods. The precise boundary between education and indoctrination often lies in the eye of the beholder. Some distinguish indoctrination from education on the basis that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned. As such the term may be used pejoratively or as a buzz word, often in the context of political opinions, theology, religious dogma or anti-religious convictions. Even so, the word itself, which came about in its first form in the 1620s as endoctrinate, meaning to teach or to instruct, modeled from French or Latin. The word only gained the meaning of imbueing with an idea or opinion in the 1832. The term is closely linked to socialization; however, in common discourse, indoctrination is often associated with negative connotations, while socialization functions as a generic descriptor conveying no specific value or connotation (some choosing to hear socialization as an inherently positive and necessary contribution to social order, others choosing to hear socialization as primarily an instrument of social oppression). Matters of doctrine (and indoctrination) have been contentious and divisive in human society dating back to antiquity. The expression attributed to Titus Lucretius Carus in the first century BCE quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum (what is food to one, is to others bitter poison) remains pertinent.

Informational influence (persuasive arguments theory)

Informational influence, or persuasive arguments theory, has also been used to explain group polarization, and is most recognized by psychologists today. The persuasive arguments interpretation holds that individuals become more convinced of their views when they hear novel arguments in support of their position. The theory posits that each group member enters the discussion aware of a set of items of information or arguments favoring both sides of the issue, but lean toward that side that boasts the greater amount of information. In other words, individuals base their individual choices by weighing remembered pro and con arguments. Some of these items or arguments are shared among the members while some items are unshared, in which all but one member has considered these arguments before. Assuming most or all group members lean in the same direction, during discussion, items of unshared information supporting that direction are expressed, which provides members previously unaware of them more reason to lean in that direction. Group discussion shifts the weight of evidence as each group member expresses their arguments, shedding light onto a number of different positions and ideas. Research has indicated that informational influence is more likely with intellective issues, a group goal of making correct decision, task-oriented group members, and private responses. Furthermore, research suggests that it is not simply the sharing of information that predicts group polarization. Rather, the amount of information and persuasiveness of the arguments mediate the level of polarization experienced. In the 1970s, significant arguments occurred over whether persuasive argumentation alone accounted for group polarization. Daniel Isenberg's 1986 meta-analysis of the data gathered by both the persuasive argument and social comparison camps succeeded, in large part, in answering the questions about predominant mechanisms. Isenberg concluded that there was substantial evidence that both effects were operating simultaneously, and that persuasive arguments theory operated when social comparison did not, and vice versa.

Rules for Institutions (Becker, 1998)

Lawrence C. Becker (1998) described certain rules that govern the behavior of institutions, in his formulation including roles, social conventions, and actual societal institutions. They included . . . Participation Rules: who is included and their level of involvement. Teleological Factors: institution's reason for being and goals. Deontological Rules: allowable or required conduct, including entitlements and responsibilities. Valuational Commitments: aims, interests, acts, products, traits, achievements, and abilities valued by the institution given its telos. Generative and Transformative Rules: institution's legislative processes. Administrative Rules: institution's executive and police powers and adjudicative processes. Regulative Policies, Practices, and Rules: institution's modus operandi in implementing its rules. Legitimation Assumptions: grounds for recognizing a given commitment, policy, practice, rule, or assumption as one of the institution's own. Connectedness: extent and nature of relations between members. Closure: extent to which participants are related only to each other and not to individuals outside the group. Mutuality Levels: extent to which individuals recognize themselves and each other as participants, make and recognize reciprocal contributions to each others' lives, have a common understanding of the nature of the group, and have univalent responses to it and each other. Reference: Becker, L.C. (1998). A New Stoicism

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg expanded on the earlier work of cognitive theorist Jean Piaget to explain the moral development of children, which he believed follows a series of stages. Kohlberg defined three levels of moral development: - preconventional - conventional, and - postconventional. Each level has two distinct stages. During the preconventional level, a child's sense of morality is externally controlled. Children accept and believe the rules of authority figures, such as parents and teachers, and they judge an action based on its consequences. During the conventional level, an individual's sense of morality is tied to personal and societal relationships. Children continue to accept the rules of authority figures, but this is now because they believe that this is necessary to ensure positive relationships and societal order. During the postconventional level, a person's sense of morality is defined in terms of more abstract principles and values. People now believe that some laws are unjust and should be changed or eliminated.

Four Drive Theory of Motivation (Lawrence & Nohria, 2002)

Lawrence and Nohria (2002) postulated four basic drives that motivate human behvaiors: D1: Drive to Acquire. Both material goods, as well as immaterial things like status, power, and influence. D2: Drive to Bond. Form relationships and interact with other people. D3: Drive to Learn. Explore new areas of life, practice new skills, and satisfy curiosity. D4: Drive to Defend. Protect what is "ours," and drive away threats to our safety and security. Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria (2002). Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices

Moral reasoning (moral development)

Moral reasoning, also known as moral development, is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. Children can make moral decisions about what is right and wrong from a young age; this makes morality fundamental to the human condition. Moral reasoning, however, is a part of morality that occurs both within and between individuals. Prominent contributors to this theory include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. The term is sometimes used in a different sense: reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, such as those commonly obtained in a court of law. It is this sense that gave rise to the phrase, "To a moral certainty;" however, this idea is now seldom used outside of charges to juries. Moral reasoning can be defined as being the process in which individuals try to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong by using logic. This is an important and often daily process that people use when trying to do the right thing. For instance, every day people are faced with the dilemma of whether to lie in a given situation or not. People make this decision by reasoning the morality of their potential actions, and through weighing their actions against potential consequences.

Moral sense theory (moral sentimentalism)

Moral sense theory (also known as moral sentimentalism) is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics concerning the discovery of moral truths. Moral sense theory typically holds that distinctions between morality and immorality are discovered by emotional responses to experience. Some take it to be primarily a view about the nature of moral facts or moral beliefs (a primarily metaphysical view)—this form of the view more often goes by the name "sentimentalism". Others take the view to be primarily about the nature of justifying moral beliefs (a primarily epistemological view)—this form of the view more often goes by the name "moral sense theory". However, some theorists take the view to be one which claims that both moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions. Popular historical advocates of some version of the moral sense theory or sentimentalism include the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), David Hume (1711-1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790). Some contemporary advocates include Michael Slote, Justin D'Arms, Daniel Jacobson, Jesse Prinz, and perhaps John McDowell. Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard endorse a non-cognitivist form of sentimentalism.

Moral sense theory (moral sentimentalism)

Moral sense theory (also known as moral sentimentalism) is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics concerning the discovery of moral truths. Moral sense theory typically holds that distinctions between morality and immorality are discovered by emotional responses to experience. Some take it to be primarily a view about the nature of moral facts or moral beliefs (a primarily metaphysical view)—this form of the view more often goes by the name "sentimentalism". Others take the view to be primarily about the nature of justifying moral beliefs (a primarily epistemological view)—this form of the view more often goes by the name "moral sense theory". However, some theorists take the view to be one which claims that both moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions.Popular historical advocates of some version of the moral sense theory or sentimentalism include the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), David Hume (1711-1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790). Some contemporary advocates include Michael Slote, Justin D'Arms, Daniel Jacobson, Jesse Prinz, and perhaps John McDowell. Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard endorse a non-cognitivist form of sentimentalism.

Ochlocracy

Ochlocracy (Greek: romanized: okhlokratía; Latin: ochlocratia) or mob rule is the rule of government by mob or a mass of people, or, the intimidation of legitimate authorities. As a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus, meaning "the fickle crowd", from which the English term "mob" originally was derived in the 1680s. Ochlocracy is synonymous in meaning and usage to the modern, informal term "mobocracy", which arose in the 18th century as a colloquial neologism.

openness to experience

Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model. Openness involves five facets, or dimensions, including active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity. A great deal of psychometric research has demonstrated that these facets or qualities are significantly correlated. Thus, openness can be viewed as a global personality trait consisting of a set of specific traits, habits, and tendencies that cluster together.There are social and political implications to this personality trait. People who are highly open to experience tend to be liberal and tolerant of diversity. As a consequence, they are generally more open to different cultures and lifestyles. They are lower in ethnocentrism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and prejudice. Openness has a stronger (negative) relationship with right-wing authoritarianism than the other five-factor model traits (conscientiousness has a modest positive association, and the other traits have negligible associations). Openness has a somewhat smaller (negative) association with social dominance orientation than (low) agreeableness (the other traits have negligible associations). Openness has a stronger (negative) relationship with prejudice than the other five-factor model traits (agreeableness has a more modest negative association, and the other traits have negligible associations). However, right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation are each more strongly (positively) associated with prejudice than openness or any of the other five-factor model traits. Recent research has argued that the relationship between openness and prejudice may be more complex, as the prejudice examined was prejudice against unconventional, low status groups (for example sexual and ethnic minorities) and that people who are high in openness can still be intolerant of those with conflicting world views. In regards to conservatism, studies have found that cultural conservatism was related to low openness and all its facets, but economic conservatism was unrelated to total openness, and only weakly negatively related to the Aesthetics and values facets. The strongest personality predictor of economic conservatism was low agreeableness (r= -.23). Economic conservatism is based more on ideology whereas cultural conservatism seems to be more psychological than ideological and may reflect a preference for simple, stable and familiar mores.

Sentimentalism vs. Rationalism

Philosophically, sentimentalism was often contrasted to rationalism. While 18th-century rationalism corresponded itself with the development of the analytic mind as the basis for acquiring truth, sentimentalism hinged upon an intrinsic human capacity to feel and how this leads to truth. For the sentimentalist this capacity was most important in morality (moral sense theory). Sentimentalists contended that where the rationalists believed morality was founded upon analytic principles (i.e. Immanuel Kant's "Categorical Imperative") these principles could not be adequately founded in the empirical nature of humans—such as observing a sad image or expressing a strong emotion physically. Therefore, one could not obtain a sound moral theory. However, by developing the moral sensibility and fine tuning the capacity to feel, a person could access a sound moral theory by building from an intrinsic human nature, which each person possessed. Sentimentalists were, thus, often seen as relating to the schools of humanism and empirical ethical intuitionism.

historical debt

Points to the effects of historical injustices that have propagated continued inequity in a society in the form of contemporary injustices such as multigenerational poverty and illiteracy as well as political and social disenfranchisement. Examples of nations with profound historical debt include the United States because of its poor treatment of African Americans and Native Americans and Australia for its mistreatment of indigenes.

Power distance

Power distance is the strength of societal social hierarchy—the extent to which the lower ranking individuals of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. It is primarily used in psychological and sociological studies on societal management of inequalities between individuals, and individual's perceptions of that management. People in societies with a high power distance are more likely to conform to a hierarchy where "everybody has a place and which needs no further justification". In societies with a low power distance, individuals tend to try to distribute power equally. In such societies, inequalities of power among people would require additional justification. Dutch Psychologist Geert Hofstede was the first to conduct a major cross cultural study on power distance. He created the Power Distance Index as a way of measuring whether a country has high, moderate, or low power distance. In a country with high power distance, someone in a position with a lot of power, is respected and looked up to while in a country with low power distance, someone in a position of power is not viewed or treated with such a high level of respect.

Haidt's Elephant and Rider

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt introduced a useful analogy for thinking about behaviour change. Haidt argues that we have two sides: an emotional side (the Elephant), and an analytical, rational side (its Rider). Haidt's analogy has it that the Rider is rational and can therefore see a path ahead while underneath him, the Elephant provides the power for the journey. However the Elephant is irrational and driven by emotion and instinct. If you're familiar with Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, you might also call these System One and System Two. It's also not a million miles away from Steve Peters' The Chimp Paradox. Chip and Dan Heath also reference the rider and the elephant in their book Switch: How to change things when change is hard. They explain: "Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider's control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He's completely overmatched." Using this analogy it's clear why adopting new behaviours can be so hard. We especially like it as it applies to changing behaviour from an individual point of view, but can also be applied to leading change in organisations. What should we do to keep in control of the Elephant? As the rational Rider we might know where we want to go, but we need to motivate the Elephant by tapping into emotion. Finally to improve the chances of the Elephant staying on course, shorten the distance and remove any obstacles.

the potent narcotic of reassuring simplicity (Ginnetty, 2003)

Psychologist Paul Ginnetty's description of Rush Limbaugh fans lack of critical thinking and intellectual discrimination as expressed in his 2003 article "Limbaugh's fans are certain they're right." The expression reaffirms the negative consequences of the human preference for simplified explanations that do not tax cognitive energies. From the article: "There are seldom any real disagreements between the host and the already converted choir to which he bombastically preaches. Their collective nickname says it all - they are the well-scrubbed ranks of "ditto-heads" - people who can be counted on to shout "amen," who have little to add but a grateful and admiring "ditto." Sadly, the tradeoff seems to be worth it for them. What they sacrifice in terms of individuality and intellectual integrity is seemingly more than offset by the potent narcotic of reassuring simplicity." Ginnetty, Paul (Nov. 12, 2003). "Limbaugh's fans are certain they're right." Newsday.

selective perception

Selective perception is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs. For example, a teacher may have a favorite student because they are biased by in-group favoritism. The teacher ignores the student's poor attainment. Conversely, they might not notice the progress of their least favorite student. Selective perception is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to in media messages while ignoring opposing viewpoints. It is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit to tend to "see things" based on their particular frame of reference. It also describes how we categorize and interpret sensory information in a way that favors one category or interpretation over another. In other words, selective perception is a form of bias because we interpret information in a way that is congruent with our existing values and beliefs. Psychologists believe this process occurs automatically.

self-licensing

Self-licensing (aka moral self-licensing, moral licensing, licensing effect, moral credential effect) is a term used in social psychology and marketing to describe the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security in one's self-image or self-concept tends to make that individual worry less about the consequences of subsequent immoral behavior and, therefore, more likely to make immoral choices and act immorally. In simple terms, self-licensing occurs when people allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive first; for example, drinking a diet soda with a greasy hamburger and fries can lead one to subconsciously discount the negative attributes of the meal's high caloric and cholesterol content. A large subset of this effect, the moral credential effect, is a bias that occurs when a person's track record as a good egalitarian establishes in them an unconscious ethical certification, endorsement, or license that increases the likelihood of less egalitarian decisions later. This effect occurs even when the audience or moral peer group is unaware of the affected person's previously established moral credential. For example, individuals who had the opportunity to recruit a woman or African American person in one setting were more likely to say later, in a different setting, that a job would be better suited for a man or a Caucasian person. Similar effects also appear to occur when a person observes another person from a group they identify with making an egalitarian decision. Self-licensing can have negative societal consequences since it has a permissive effect on behaviors such as racial prejudice and discrimination, selfishness, poor dietary and health habits, and excessive energy consumption.

Self-licensing

Self-licensing (aka noble cause corruption, moral self-licensing, moral licensing, licensing effect, moral credential effect) is a term used in social psychology and marketing to describe the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security in one's self-image or self-concept tends to make that individual worry less about the consequences of subsequent immoral behavior and, therefore, more likely to make immoral choices and act immorally. In simple terms, self-licensing occurs when people allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive first; for example, drinking a diet soda with a greasy hamburger and fries can lead one to subconsciously discount the negative attributes of the meal's high caloric and cholesterol content. A large subset of this effect, the moral credential effect, is a bias that occurs when a person's track record as a good egalitarian establishes in them an unconscious ethical certification, endorsement, or license that increases the likelihood of less egalitarian decisions later. This effect occurs even when the audience or moral peer group is unaware of the affected person's previously established moral credential. For example, individuals who had the opportunity to recruit a woman or African American person in one setting were more likely to say later, in a different setting, that a job would be better suited for a man or a Caucasian person.[8] Similar effects also appear to occur when a person observes another person from a group they identify with making an egalitarian decision. Self-licensing can have negative societal consequences since it has a permissive effect on behaviors such as racial prejudice and discrimination, selfishness, poor dietary and health habits, and excessive energy consumption.

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses. Social conditioning represents the environment and personal experience in the nature and nurture debate. Society in general and peer groups within society set the norms which shape the behavior of actors within the social system. Though society shapes individuals; however, it was the individual who made society to begin with and society in turn shaped and influenced us. Emile Durkheim who really played an important role in the theory of social facts, explained and talked how what was once a mere idea which in this case Durkheim is talking about society has turned out to be a thing which basically controls and dictates us.

social constructionism

Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. The theory centers on the notion that meanings are developed in coordination with others rather than separately within each individual. Social constructionism questions what is defined by humans and society to be reality. Therefore, social constructs can be different based on the society and the events surrounding the time period in which they exist. An example of a social construct is money or the concept of currency, as people in society have agreed to give it importance/value. Another example of a social construction is the concept of self/self-identity. Charles Cooley stated based on his Looking-Glass-Self theory: "I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am." This demonstrates how people in society construct ideas or concepts that may not exist without the existence of people or language to validate those concepts. There are weak and strong social constructs. Weak social constructs rely on brute facts (which are fundamental facts that are difficult to explain or understand, such as quarks) or institutional facts (which are formed from social conventions). Strong social constructs rely on the human perspective and knowledge that does not just exist, but is rather constructed by society.

social facilitation

Social facilitation is defined as improvement in individual performance when working with other people rather than alone. In addition to working together with other people, social facilitation also occurs in mere presence of other people. Previous research have found that individual performance are improved by coaction, performing a task in presence of others who are performing a similar task, and as well as having a mere audience while performing a certain task. An example of coaction triggering social facilitation can be seen in instances where cyclists' performances are improved when cycling along with other cyclists as compared to cycling alone. An instance where having an audience triggers social facilitation can be observed in a situation where weightlifter lifts heavier weight in the presence of an audience. Social facilitation has occasionally been attributed to the fact that certain people are more susceptible to social influence, with the argument that personality factors can make these people more aware of evaluation.

Social information processing

Social information processing refers to a theory of how individuals, especially children, establish (or fail to establish) successful relationships with society. Studies show that the parts of the brain which are active during the whole social interaction, are the amygdala, ventromedial frontal cortices, and right somatosensory-related cortex and others. In a social situation, children match the facial expressions of anonymous people with memories of past experiences. This helps them perceive the mood or apparent nature of the person they have to interact with. Besides the facial give-aways, factors like body language can also play an important role in determining how to behave in a social situation. When children encounter a social situation, a series of mental operations takes place before they respond. First they perceive the various features of the situation and comprehend the relevant ideas. Second, they try to attribute the information to every participant. Third, they generate answers and fourth, they select a response to finally act out the behavior. There are two general forms of information processing: emotion and cognition. This can be explained by emotions being based on motivation, and cognition on knowledge. This notion can explain situations in society as it reflects how individuals are influenced by one another. There are various social behaviors children process in sequence which include deciphering and understanding social signs, outlining goals, creations of response, decision of action, and behavior of action. This is the process model for children according to social information processing.

social invisibility

Social invisibility refers to a group of people in the society who have been separated or systematically ignored by the majority of the public. As a result, those who are marginalized feel neglected or being invisible in the society. It can include elderly homes, child orphanages, homeless people or anyone who experiences a sense of ignored or separated from society as a whole.

Social mobility

Social mobility refers to one's ability to move their status either up or down within the social stratification system, as compared with their family's status in early life. Some people with achieved status have improved their position within the social system via their own merit and achievements. Someone may also have achieved status that decreases their position within the social system, such as by becoming a notorious criminal. In a society that one's position in that society can change due to their actions, either increase or decrease, that society can be referred to as an Open System. A Closed System society would not allow Social mobility as easily as an Open System.

Social network analysis (SNA)

Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes (individual actors, people, or things within the network) and the ties, edges, or links (relationships or interactions) that connect them. Examples of social structures commonly visualized through social network analysis include social media networks, memes spread, information circulation, friendship and acquaintance networks, business networks, social networks, collaboration graphs, kinship, disease transmission, and sexual relationships. These networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines. These visualizations provide a means of qualitatively assessing networks by varying the visual representation of their nodes and edges to reflect attributes of interest. Social network analysis has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology. It has also gained a significant following in anthropology, biology, demography, communication studies, economics, geography, history, information science, organizational studies, political science, social psychology, development studies, sociolinguistics, and computer science and is now commonly available as a consumer tool (see the list of SNA software).

social parasitism (free rider problem)

Social parasitism is a pejorative that is leveled against a group or class which is considered to be detrimental to society. The term comes from the ancient Greek (parásitos), "one who lives at another's expense, person who eats at the table of another," used to label the social offender. (The English language borrowed the word/concept "parasite" as a social label in the 1530s; the later use of "parasite" as a biological metaphor developed from the early 17th century.)

social rituals and practices

Social practices, rituals and festive events are habitual activities that structure the lives of communities and groups and that are shared by and relevant to many of their members. They are significant because they reaffirm the identity of those who practise them as a group or a society and, whether performed in public or private, are closely linked to important events. Social, ritual and festive practices may help to mark the passing of the seasons, events in the agricultural calendar or the stages of a person's life. They are closely linked to a community's worldview and perception of its own history and memory. They vary from small gatherings to large-scale social celebrations and commemorations. Each of these sub-domains is vast but there is also a great deal of overlap between them.

social self-organized feedback loops

Social self-organized feedback loops occur when outputs are connected to inputs producing change in response to both. The underlying mechanism is the cycling of information through a closed system. The internal and external components of the feedback loop periodically occur together. Internal components include the social control of one group by another, more powerful group, as prevalent feeling of loss of personal control and responsibility, and the need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere. External conditions include socioeconomic stressors, cultural and political crises, religious strife, and moral upheaval. A conjuncture of such events and conditions can lead a system to self-organize, grow, reach a peak, and then collapse. In cases of accusations, the density of accusation drives the feedback loop to self-organize and reach criticality. Regardless of focus, social feedback loops virtually always represent multi-causality and the intermeshing of diverse elements, making them reminiscent of chaos and complexity theories.

Social theory

Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies (e.g. positivism and antipositivism), the primacy of either structure or agency, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as "social criticism" or "social commentary", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing. Social theory by definition is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze modernity as it has emerged in the past few centuries. Social theory as it is recognized today emerged in the 20th century as a distinct discipline, and was largely equated with an attitude of critical thinking and the desire for knowledge through a posteriori methods of discovery, rather than a priori methods of tradition. Social thought provides general theories to explain actions and behavior of society as a whole, encompassing sociological, political, and philosophical ideas. Classical social theory has generally been presented from a perspective of Western philosophy, and often regarded as Eurocentric. Theory construction, according to The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, is instrumental: "Their goal is to promote accurate communication, rigorous testing, high accuracy, and broad applicability. They include the following: absence of contradictions, absence of ambivalence, abstractness, generality, precision, parsimony, and conditionality." Therefore, a social theory consists of well-defined terms, statements, arguments and scope conditions.

Strain Theory (Merton, 1938)

Strain theory is a sociology and criminology theory developed in 1938 by Robert K. Merton. The theory states that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve socially accepted goals (such as the American dream), though they lack the means. This leads to strain which may lead the individuals to commit crimes, examples being selling drugs or becoming involved in prostitution, to gain financial security. Structural: this refers to the processes at the societal level which filter down and affect how the individual perceives his or her needs, i.e. if particular social structures are inherently inadequate or there is inadequate regulation, this may change the individual's perceptions as to means and opportunities; orIndividual: this refers to the frictions and pains experienced by an individual as he or she looks for ways to satisfy his or her needs, i.e. if the goals of a society become significant to an individual, actually achieving them may become more important than the means adopted.

behavioral immune system

The behavioral immune system is a phrase coined by the psychological scientist Mark Schaller to refer to a suite of psychological mechanisms that allow individual organisms to detect the potential presence of disease-causing parasites in their immediate environment, and to engage in behaviors that prevent contact with those objects and individuals. These mechanisms include sensory processes through which cues connoting the presence of parasitic infections are perceived (e.g., the smell of a foul odor, the sight of pox or pustules), as well as stimulus-response systems through which these sensory cues trigger a cascade of aversive affective, cognitive, and behavioral reactions (e.g., arousal of disgust, automatic activation of cognitions that connote the threat of disease, behavioral avoidance). Within the psychological sciences, there is extensive research linking the behavioral immune system to a variety of prejudices—including prejudices against people who aren't actually diseased but are simply characterized by some sort of visual characteristics that deviate from those of a subjectively prototypical human being. The disease-avoidant processes that characterize the behavioral immune system have been shown to contribute to prejudices against obese individuals, elderly individuals, and people with physical disfigurements or disabilities. The behavioral immune system also has consequences at a cultural level of analysis. Under ecological circumstances in which diseases are more prevalent, people also tend to display more reticent and socially restricted forms of behavior, and human cultures are defined by more conservative norms and value systems. The behavioral immune system appears to contribute to xenophobia and ethnocentrism. One implication is that these prejudices tend to be exaggerated under conditions in which people feel especially vulnerable to the potential transmission of infectious diseases.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial movement can influence emotional experience. For example, an individual who is forced to smile during a social event will actually come to find the event unlikely enjoyable.

realistic conflict theory

The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination. Realistic conflict theory (initialized RCT), also known as realistic group conflict theory (initialized RGCT),[1][2] is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict.[3] The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition over limited resources, and it also offers an explanation for the feelings of prejudice and discrimination toward the outgroupthat accompany the intergroup hostility. Groups may be in competition for a real or perceived scarcityof resources such as money, political power, military protection, or social status. Feelings of resentment can arise in the situation that the groups see the competition over resources as having a zero-sums fate, in which only one group is the winner (obtained the needed or wanted resources) and the other loses (unable to obtain the limited resource due to the "winning" group achieving the limited resource first). The length and severity of the conflict is based upon the perceived value and shortage of the given resource. According to RCT, positive relations can only be restored if superordinate goals are in place.

Logic of Populism (Baggini, 2016)

The logic of populism is toxic to political pluralism, because it simply denies the possibility of meaningful disagreement about issues of major political significance. Populism is . . . - diametrically opposed to pluralism - promotes a single set of values instead of a plurality - offers simplistic solutions instead of complex compromises - represents the people as a uniform whole rather than a community of diverse communities and individuals - in place of reason, it puts conviction - in place of evidence, the seeming self-evidence of commonsense. Julian Baggini (2016), The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World

Deindividuation: Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE)

The most recent model of deindividuation, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), was developed by Russell Spears and Martin Lea in 1995. The SIDE model argues that deindividuation manipulations can have the effect of decreasing attention to individual characteristics and interpersonal differences within the group. They outlined their model by explaining that social identity performance can fulfill two general functions: Affirming, conforming, or strengthening individual or group identities.Persuading audiences into adopting specific behaviors. This model attempts to make sense of a range of deindividuation effects which were derived from situational factors such as group immersion, anonymity, and reduced identifiability. Therefore, deindividuation is the increased salience of a group identity that can result from the manipulation of such factors. The SIDE model is in contrast to other deindividuation explanations which involve the reduced impact of the self. Further explanations by Reicher and colleagues state that deindividuation manipulations affect norm endorsement through not only their impact on self-definition, but also their influence on power relations between group members and their audience. Classical and contemporary approaches agree on the main component of deindividuation theory, that deindividuation leads to "anti-normative and disinhibited behavior" as seen in Dissociative identity disorder, or split personalities.

norm of reciprocity

The norm of reciprocity requires that we repay in kind what another has done for us. It can be understood as the expectation that people will respond favorably to each other by returning benefits for benefits, and responding with either indifference or hostility to harms. The social norm of reciprocity often takes different forms in different areas of social life, or in different societies. All of them, however, are distinct from related ideas such as gratitude, the Golden Rule, or mutual goodwill. See reciprocity (social and political philosophy) for an analysis of the concepts involved. The norm of reciprocity mirrors the concept of reciprocal altruism in evolutionary biology. However, evolutionary theory and therefore sociobiology was not well received by mainstream psychologists. This led to the revitalisation of reciprocal altruism underneath the new social psychological concept, norm of reciprocity. Reciprocal altruism has been applied to various species, including humans, while mainstream psychologists use the norm of reciprocity to only explain humans.

Social comparison theory (normative influence theory)

The social comparison theory, or normative influence theory, has been widely used to explain group polarization. According to the social comparison interpretation, group polarization occurs as a result of individuals' desire to gain acceptance and be perceived in a favorable way by their group. The theory holds that people first compare their own ideas with those held by the rest of the group; they observe and evaluate what the group values and prefers. In order to gain acceptance, people then take a position that is similar to everyone else's but slightly more extreme. In doing so, individuals support the group's beliefs while still presenting themselves as admirable group "leaders". The presence of a member with an extreme viewpoint or attitude does not further polarize the group. Studies regarding the theory have demonstrated that normative influence is more likely with judgmental issues, a group goal of harmony, person-oriented group members, and public responses.

woozle effect

The tendency to automatically use previous info and data as part of our thinking process even if the previous info and data are fundamentally flawed or even flat out wrong.

political correctness

The term political correctness (adjectivally: politically correct; commonly abbreviated PC) is used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Since the late 1980s, the term has come to refer to a preference for inclusive language and avoiding language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting groups of people considered disadvantaged or discriminated against, especially groups defined by sex or race. In public discourse and the media, it is generally used as a pejorative, implying that these policies are excessive or unwarranted. Early usage of the term by leftists, in the 1970s and '80s, was as self-critical satire; usage was sarcastic and ironic, rather than a name for a serious political movement. It was considered an in-joke among leftists for those who were too rigid in their strict adherence to political orthodoxy. The modern pejorative usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late 20th century. This usage was popularized by a number of articles in The New York Times and other media throughout the 1990s, and was widely used in the debate surrounding Allan Bloom's 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind. The term gained further currency in response to Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals (1990), and conservative author Dinesh D'Souza's 1991 book Illiberal Education. Commentators on the political left in the United States contend that conservatives use the concept of political correctness to downplay and divert attention from substantively discriminatory behavior against disadvantaged groups. They also argue that the political right enforces its own forms of political correctness to suppress criticism of its favored constituencies and ideologies. In the United States, the term has played a major role in the "culture war" between liberals and conservatives.

swiftboating

The term swiftboating (also swift-boating or swift boating) is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) because of their widely publicized—and later discredited—campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry. Since the political smear campaign that the group conducted against Kerry, the term has come into common use to refer to a harsh attack by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal, and unfair. The Swift Boat Veterans and media pundits objected to this use of the term to define a smear campaign.

Tragedy of the Anti-commons (Heller, 1998)

The tragedy of the anticommons is a type of coordination breakdown, in which a single resource has numerous rightsholders who prevent others from using it, frustrating what would be a socially desirable outcome. It is a mirror-image of the older concept of tragedy of the commons, in which numerous rights holders' combined use exceeds the capacity of a resource and depletes or destroys it. The "tragedy of the anticommons" covers a range of coordination failures including patent thickets, and submarine patents. Overcoming these breakdowns can be difficult, but there are assorted means, including eminent domain, laches, patent pools, or other licensing organizations. The term originally appeared in Michael Heller's 1998 article of the same name and is the thesis of his 2008 book. The model was formalized by James M. Buchanan and Yong Yoon. In a 1998 Science article, Heller and Rebecca Eisenberg, while not disputing the role of patents in general in motivating invention and disclosure, argue that biomedical research was one of several key areas where competing patent rights could actually prevent useful and affordable products from reaching the marketplace.

tyranny of small decisions (Kahn, 1966)

The tyranny of small decisions is a phenomenon explored in an essay of the same name, published in 1966 by the American economist Alfred E. Kahn. The article describes a situation in which a number of decisions, individually small and insignificant in size and time perspective, cumulatively result in a larger and significant outcome which is neither optimal nor desired. It is a situation where a series of small, individually rational decisions can negatively change the context of subsequent choices, even to the point where desired alternatives are irreversibly destroyed. Kahn described the problem as a common issue in market economics which can lead to market failure. The concept has since been extended to areas other than economic ones, such as environmental degradation, political elections and health outcomes. A classic example of the tyranny of small decisions is the tragedy of the commons, described by Garrett Hardin in 1968 as a situation where a number of herders graze cows on a commons. The herders each act independently in what they perceive to be their own rational self-interest, ultimately depleting their shared limited resource, even though it is clear that it is not in any herder's long-term interest for this to happen.

wisdom of repugnance (Kass, 1998)

The wisdom of repugnance or "appeal to disgust", also known informally as the yuck factor, is the belief that an intuitive (or "deep-seated") negative response to some thing, idea, or practice should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful or evil character of that thing. Furthermore, it refers to the notion that wisdom may manifest itself in feelings of disgust towards anything which lacks goodness or wisdom, though the feelings or the reasoning of such 'wisdom' may not be immediately explicable through reason. The term "wisdom of repugnance" was coined in 1997 by Leon Kass, chairman (2001-2005) of the President's Council on Bioethics, in an article in The New Republic, which was later expanded into a further (2001) article in the same magazine, and also incorporated into his 2002 book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity. Kass stated that disgust was not an argument per se, but went on to say that "in crucial cases... repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate." Leon R. Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans, 32 Val. U. L. Rev. 679 (1998).

Theodore G. Bilbo (1877-1947)

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (October 13, 1877 - August 21, 1947) was an American politician who twice served as governor of Mississippi (1916-20, 1928-32) and later was elected a U.S. Senator (1935-47). A filibusterer whose name was synonymous with white supremacy, like many Southern Democrats of his era, Bilbo believed that black people were inferior; he defended segregation, and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Deindeviduation: Theories

Theories of deindividuation propose that it is a psychological state of decreased self-evaluation and decreased evaluation apprehension causing antinormative and disinhibited behavior. Deindividuation theory seeks to provide an explanation for a variety of antinormative collective behavior, such as violent crowds, lynch mobs, etc. Deindividuation theory has also been applied to genocide and been posited as an explanation for antinormative behavior online and in computer-mediated communications. Although generally analyzed in the context of negative behaviors, such as mob violence and genocide, deindividuation has also been found to play a role in positive behaviors and experiences. There still exists some variation as to understanding the role of deindividuation in producing anti-normative behaviors, as well as understanding how contextual cues affect the rules of the deindividuation construct. Deindividuation is losing the sense of self in a group.

Provenance of Moral Judgments (Haier, 2012)

To understand how "universal moral taste receptors" are expressed in specific moral judgments, Haidt (2012) contends that we must explore humans common evolutionary heritage, the histories of individual cultures, and childhood socialization of individuals within their respective cultures. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

tribalism (general)

Tribalism implies the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates one member of a group from the members of another group. Based on strong relations of proximity and kinship, members of a tribe tend to possess a strong feeling of identity. Objectively, for a customary tribal society to form there needs to be ongoing customary organization, enquiry and exchange. However, intense feelings of common identity can lead people to feel tribally connected. The distinction between these two definitions for tribalism, objective and subjective, is an important one because while tribal societies have been pushed to the edges of the Western world, tribalism, by the second definition, is arguably undiminished. A few writers have postulated that the human brain is hard-wired towards tribalism by its evolutionary advantages, but that claim is usually linked to equating original questions of sociality with tribalism.

Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition (1989), Howard Margolis

What happens when we think? How do people make judgments? While different theories abound—and are heatedly debated—most are based on an algorithmic model of how the brain works. In Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment (1989), Howard Margolis builds a fascinating case for a theory that thinking is based on recognizing patterns and that this process is intrinsically a-logical. Margolis gives a Darwinian account of how pattern recognition evolved to reach human cognitive abilities. Illusions of judgment—standard anomalies where people consistently misjudge or misperceive what is logically implied or really present—are often used in cognitive science to explore the workings of the cognitive process. The explanations given for these anomalous results have generally explained only the anomaly under study and nothing more. Margolis provides a provocative and systematic analysis of these illusions, which explains why such anomalies exist and recur. Offering empirical applications of his theory, Margolis turns to historical cases to show how an individual's cognitive repertoire—the available cognitive patterns and their relation to cues—changes or resists changes over time. Here he focuses on the change in worldview occasioned by the Copernican discovery: not only how an individual might come to see things in a radically new way, but how it is possible for that new view to spread and become the dominant one. A reanalysis of the trial of Galileo focuses on social cognition and its interactions with politics.

Self-categorization and social identity

While these two theories are the most widely accepted as explanations for group polarization, alternative theories have been proposed. The most popular of these theories is self-categorization theory. Self-categorization theory stems from social identity theory, which holds that conformity stems from psychological processes; that is, being a member of a group is defined as the subjective perception of the self as a member of a specific category. Accordingly, proponents of the self-categorization model hold that group polarization occurs because individuals identify with a particular group and conform to a prototypical group position that is more extreme than the group mean. In contrast to social comparison theory and persuasive argumentation theory, the self-categorization model maintains that inter-group categorization processes are the cause of group polarization. Support for the self-categorization theory, which explains group polarization as conformity to a polarized norm, was found by Hogg, Turner, and Davidson in 1990. In their experiment, participants gave pre-test, post-test, and group consensus recommendations on three choice dilemma item-types (risky, neutral, or cautious). The researchers hypothesized that an ingroup confronted by a risky outgroup will polarize toward caution, an ingroup confronted by a caution outgroup will polarize toward risk, and an ingroup in the middle of the social frame of reference, confronted by both risky and cautious outgroups, will not polarize but will converge on its pre-test mean. The results of the study supported their hypothesis in that participants converged on a norm polarized toward risk on risky items and toward caution on cautious items. Another similar study found that in-group prototypes become more polarized as the group becomes more extreme in the social context. This further lends support to the self-categorization explanation of group polarization.

cultural cognition of risk (cultural cognition)

cultural cognition of risk, sometimes called simply cultural cognition, is the hypothesized tendency to perceive risks and related facts in relation to personal values. Research examining this phenomenon draws on a variety of social science disciplines including psychology, anthropology, political science, sociology, and communications. The stated objectives of this research are both to understand how values shape political conflict over facts (like whether climate change exists, whether gun control increases crime, whether vaccination of school girls for HPV threatens their health) and to promote effective deliberative strategies for resolving such conflicts consistent with sound empirical data. The cultural cognition hypothesis holds that individuals are motivated by a variety of psychological processes to form beliefs about putatively dangerous activities that match their cultural evaluations of them. Persons who subscribe to relatively individualistic values, for example, tend to value commerce and industry and are inclined to disbelieve that such activities pose serious environmental risks. Persons who subscribe to relatively egalitarian and communitarian values, in contrast, readily credit claims of environmental risks, which is consistent with their moral suspicion of commerce and industry as sources of inequality and symbols of excessive self-seeking. Scholars have furnished two types of evidence to support the cultural cognition hypothesis. The first consists of general survey data that suggest that individuals' values more strongly predict their risk perceptions than do other characteristics such as race, gender, economic status, and political orientations. The second type of evidence consists in experiments that identify discrete psychological processes that connect individuals' values to their beliefs about risk and related facts. Such experiments suggest, for example, that individuals selectively credit or dismiss information in a manner that reinforces beliefs congenial to their values. They also show that individuals tend to be more persuaded by policy experts perceived to hold values similar to their own rather than by ones perceived to hold values different from them. Such processes, the experiments suggest, often result in divisive forms of cultural conflict over facts, but can also be managed in fashions that reduce such disagreement.

virtue signaling

demonstrating that you're a part of the in-group or against the out-group. Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values. Academically, the phrase relates to signalling theory and describes a subset of social behaviors that could be used to signal virtue—especially piety among the religious. In recent years, the term has been more commonly used within groups to criticize those who are seen to value the expression of virtue over action.

social signaling

development of complex social-signaling capabilities that allowed for a quick and safe means to evaluate/resolve conflict and manage potential collaborations. Indeed, our social signalling capacities are more powerful than most individuals realize as they viscerally impact not only the person we are interacting with but our own physiology as well—most often at the pre-conscious level. Slow-motion film analysis has robustly revealed that we react to changes in body movement, posture, and facial expressions of others during interactions without ever knowing it. Indeed, we are constantly social-signaling when around others (e.g., via micro-expressions, body movements)—even when deliberately trying not to. For example, 'silence' can be just as powerful as 'non-stop talking'. Plus, for our very early ancestors living in harsh environments the cost of not detecting a 'true' disapproval signal was too high to ignore—since tribal banishment was essentially a death sentence from starvation or predation (see Lonely Apes Die). As a consequence, we are constantly scanning the facial expressions and vocalizations of other people for signs of disapproval and are biologically predisposed to construe the intentions of others as disapproving—especially when social-signals are ambiguous. This means we are essentially a socially-anxious species.

ideology

ideology is a collection of normative beliefs and values that an individual or group holds for other than purely epistemic reasons. In other words, these rely on basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis. The term is especially used to describe systems of ideas and ideals which form the basis of economic or political theories and resultant policies. In these there are tenuous causal links between policies and outcomes owing to the large numbers of variables available, so that many key assumptions have to be made. In political science the term is used in a descriptive sense to refer to political belief systems. The term was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it in 1796 as the "science of ideas" during the French Reign of Terror by trying to develop a rational system of ideas to oppose the irrational impulses of the mob. However, in contemporary philosophy it is narrower in scope than that original concept, or the ideas expressed in broad concepts such as worldview, The Imaginary and in ontology. In the sense defined by French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, ideology is "the imagined existence (or idea) of things as it relates to the real conditions of existence."

implicit bias

implicit bias, or implicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. Measurement of this effect has been termed as pseudoscience by some peers. Implicit stereotypes are shaped by experience and based on learned associations between particular qualities and social categories, including race and/or gender. Individuals' perceptions and behaviors can be influenced by the implicit stereotypes they hold, even if they are unaware/unintentionally hold such stereotypes. Implicit bias is an aspect of implicit social cognition: the phenomenon that perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes operate without conscious intention. The existence of implicit bias is supported by a variety of scientific articles in psychological literature. Implicit stereotype was first defined by psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald in 1995.

deindividuation (social psychology)

in contemporary social psychology, deindividuation refers to a diminishing of one's sense of individuality that occurs with behavior disjointed from personal or social standards of conduct. For example, someone who is an anonymous member of a mob will be more likely to act violently toward a police officer than a known individual. In one sense, a deindividuated state may be considered appealing if someone is affected such that he or she feels free to behave impulsively without mind to potential consequences. However, deindividuation has also been linked to "violent and anti-social behavior."

I Am a Strange Loop (2007), Douglas Hofstadter

in his book I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter argues that the inverted spectrum argument entails a form of solipsism in which people can have no idea about what goes on in the minds of others—contrary to the central theme of his work. He presents several variants to demonstrate the absurdity of this idea: the "inverted political spectrum", in which one person's concept of liberty is identical to another's concept of imprisonment; an inverted "sonic spectrum" in which low musical notes sound like "high" ones and vice versa (which he says is impossible because low sounds can be felt physically as vibrations); and a version in which random, complex qualia such as riding a roller coaster or opening presents are reversed, so that everyone perceives the world in radically different, unknowable ways. I Am a Strange Loop is a 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter, examining in depth the concept of a strange loop to explain the sense of "I". The concept of a strange loop was originally developed in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach. "In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference." — Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop

social vulnerability

in its broadest sense, social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability to multiple stressors and shocks, including abuse, social exclusion and natural hazards. Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values. Because it is most apparent when calamity occurs, many studies of social vulnerability are found in risk management literature.

echo chamber

in news media, echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system. By visiting an "echo chamber", people are able to seek out information which reinforces their existing views, potentially as an unconscious exercise of confirmation bias. This may increase political and social polarization and extremism. The term is a metaphor based on the acoustic echo chamber, where sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure. Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect on the Internet within social communities is cultural tribalism.

Elite Theory of Democracy

in political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power—and that this power is independent of democratic elections. Through positions in corporations or on corporate boards, and influence over policy-planning networks through financial support of foundations or positions with think tanks or policy-discussion groups, members of the "elite" exert significant power over corporate and government decisions. The basic characteristics of this theory are that power is concentrated, the elites are unified, the non-elites are diverse and powerless, elites' interests are unified due to common backgrounds and positions and the defining characteristic of power is institutional position. Elite theory opposes pluralism (more than one system of power), a tradition that assumes that all individuals, or at least the multitude of social groups, have equal power and balance each other out in contributing to democratic political outcomes representing the emergent, aggregate will of society. Elite theory argues either that democracy is a utopian folly, as it is traditionally viewed in the conservative Italian tradition, or that democracy is not realizable within capitalism, as is the view of the more Marxist-compatible contemporary elite theory permutation. Even when entire groups are ostensibly completely excluded from the state's traditional networks of power (historically, on the basis of arbitrary criteria such as nobility, race, gender, or religion), elite theory recognizes that "counter-elites" frequently develop within such excluded groups. Negotiations between such disenfranchised groups and the state can be analyzed as negotiations between elites and counter-elites. A major problem, in turn, is the ability of elites to co-opt counter-elites.

idenity

in psychology, identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person (self-identity) or group (particular social category or social group). Categorizing identity can be positive or destructive. A psychological identity relates to self-image (one's mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality. Consequently, Weinreich gives the definition: "A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future"; this allows for definitions of aspects of identity, such as: "One's ethnic identity is defined as that part of the totality of one's self-construal made up of those dimensions that express the continuity between one's construal of past ancestry and one's future aspirations in relation to ethnicity.

Outrage factor

in public policy, outrage factor is public opposition to a policy that is not based on the knowledge of the technical details. The term "outrage factor" originates from Peter Sandman's 1993 book, Responding to Community Outrage: Strategies for Effective Risk Communication. "Outrage factors" are the emotional factors that influence perception of risk. The risks that are considered involuntary, industrial and unfair are often given more weight than factors that are thought of as voluntary, natural and fair. Sandman gives the formula: Risk = hazard + outrage

group polarization

in social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. These more extreme decisions are towards greater risk if individuals' initial tendencies are to be risky and towards greater caution if individuals' initial tendencies are to be cautious. The phenomenon also holds that a group's attitude toward a situation may change in the sense that the individuals' initial attitudes have strengthened and intensified after group discussion, a phenomenon known as attitude polarization. Group polarization is an important phenomenon in social psychology and is observable in many social contexts. For example, a group of women who hold moderately feminist views tend to demonstrate heightened pro-feminist beliefs following group discussion. Similarly, studies have shown that after deliberating together, mock jury members often decided on punitive damage awards that were either larger or smaller than the amount any individual juror had favored prior to deliberation. The studies indicated that when the jurors favored a relatively low award, discussion would lead to an even more lenient result, while if the jury was inclined to impose a stiff penalty, discussion would make it even harsher. Moreover, in recent years, the Internet and online social media have also presented opportunities to observe group polarization and compile new research. Psychologists have found that social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter demonstrate that group polarization can occur even when a group is not physically together. As long as the group of individuals begins with the same fundamental opinion on the topic and a consistent dialogue is kept going, group polarization can occur. Research has suggested that well-established groups suffer less from polarization, as do groups discussing problems that are well known to them. However, in situations where groups are somewhat newly formed and tasks are new, group polarization can demonstrate a more profound influence on the decision-making.

Social Disorganization Theory

in sociology, the social disorganization theory is a theory developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories. The theory directly links crime rates to neighbourhood ecological characteristics; a core principle of social disorganization theory that states location matters. In other words, a person's residential location is a substantial factor shaping the likelihood that that person will become involved in illegal activities. The theory suggests that, among determinants of a person's later illegal activity, residential location is as significant as or more significant than the person's individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender, or race). For example, the theory suggests that youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods participate in a subculture which approves of delinquency, and that these youths thus acquire criminality in this social and cultural setting.

moral panic

moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among many people that some evil threatens the well-being of society. A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue - usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media". In recent centuries the mass media have become important players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged in sensationalism or in muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic. Stanley Cohen states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory paedophiles, belief in ritual abuse of women and children by satanic cults, concerns over the effects of music lyrics, the war on drugs, and other public-health issues.

Cultural Stockholm Syndrome (Jordan, 2019)

occurs when a person entrenched in a hegemonic culture begins to exhibit support for or belief in aspects of the dominant culture that they previously disavowed or rationally dismissed. Does not include those who maintain their antithetical beliefs surreptitiously in order to survive in a given culture. For some individuals who have experienced a disruption of, or detachment from, familial or other cultural influences, the ability to adopt a rational perspective allowing for resistance to Cultural Stockholm Syndrome may be better developed, leaving them feeling as if they exist in an alternate social and cultural dimension similar to a character in a horror movie who can see the monster behind the façade while others cannot. While the state may be intellectually liberating, it can cause significant anxiety and a sense of alienation. Frank G. Jordan Jr. (2019)

tribalism (neotribalism, group polarization)

pejorative sense: a situation in which people feel greater allegiance and loyalty to their own ethnic group than to a state as a whole. In terms of conformity, tribalism has been defined as a "subjectivity" or "way of being" social frame in which communities are bound socially beyond immediate birth ties by the dominance of various modalities of face-to-face and object integration. Ontologically, tribalism is oriented around the valences of analogy, genealogy and mythology. That means that customary tribes have their social foundations in some variation of these tribal orientations, while often taking on traditional practices (e.g. Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and modern practices, including monetary exchange, mobile communications, and modern education. Accirding to Kevin LaPlanche (2018), social networks of people who share common interests or other features, and who (ideally) enjoy the many benefits of social connection through interaction and participation within these networks.This usage combines two independent features that are not always combined in the literature:being a member of a social group based on shared characteristics and interestsbeing a beneficiary of psychological and physical benefits in virtue of participation in such groups.

imagined community

the invented sense of connection and shared traditions that underlies identification with a particular ethnic group or nation whose members likely will never all meet. gined Communities. An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities, to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. The media also creates imagined communities, through usually targeting a mass audience or generalizing and addressing citizens as the public. Another way that the media can create imagined communities is through the use of images. The media can perpetuate stereotypes through certain images and vernacular. By showing certain images, the audience will choose which image they relate to the most, furthering the relationship to that imagined community. According to Anderson, creation of imagined communities became possible because of "print capitalism". Capitalist entrepreneurs printed their books and media in the vernacular (instead of exclusive script languages, such as Latin) in order to maximize circulation. As a result, readers speaking various local dialects became able to understand each other, and a common discourse emerged. Anderson argued that the first European nation-states were thus formed around their "national print-languages."

tribal morality

the moral paradigm adhered to by a tribe or tribalistic group. Tribal morality is a natural outgrowth of communal living and works to enhance group solidarity but can have concerning social effects as identified by Charles Wright (2019): "Scholars concerned with dialogical understanding and the negotiation of fundamental ethical disagreement in pluralistic modern societies have drawn attention to the intimate relationship among dialogue, perspective taking and mutual understanding. However, while these capacities endure as modern moral ideals, evolutionary biological accounts of social cooperation and social scientific investigations of human behaviour both suggest that humankind's ideals may have outstripped its evolved moral sensibilities. While these sensibilities are well suited to maintaining co-operative relations among members of the same social group, in the case of outsiders, the propensity is instead to withdraw moral recognition and to treat the outsider as a thing." Reference Charles Wright (2019), "Tribal Morality and the Ethical Other: The Tension Between Modern Moral Aspirations and Evolved Moral Dispositions"

social bond theory

the proposition that the probability of deviant behavior increases when a person's ties to society are weakened or broken.