Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide
by Cass R. Sunstein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Cass R. SunsteinEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-13
ISBN: 0195378016
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide
Book Review: Excellent. The OIRA is going to be in excellent hands. Read why.
Summary: 5 Stars
Sunstein will soon run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This Agency conducts cost benefit analysis of regulations. So, it is interesting to know Sunstein mindset. Sunstein is also the coauthor of the excellent Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness where he fleshes out his political philosophy of Liberal Paternalism. After reading those two books, you get a feeling that the OIRA will be in extremely capable hands. Sunstein has a powerful and inquisitive intellect. He is also an excellent writer as his books are very easy to read despite covering rather dry topics.
Homogeneous groups polarize as they cause like-minded people to strengthen their positions by eliminating the balancing safeguard from diverging opinions. Sunstein demonstrates that no category individuals is exempt from this behavior. Even Federal judges were victim of it as their verdict were politically more polarized when they belonged to an homogeneous political panel (all three Judges from same political party) vs when they were not.
Regarding risk taking endeavors, if individuals are moderate risk avoiders after deliberating they will become more so. If they are moderate risk takers, the group will render them more extreme risk takers.
Group polarization occurs because individuals only exchange information that reinforces their initial views and exclude info that does not. Group polarization is stealthy. You join a group of like-minded people. You approve of what they say. Before you know it they turned you into an extremist.
The Bush Administration was an insular polarizing group. Independent views were not solicited. A better model is Abraham Lincoln "Team of Rivals" that Obama is emulating. Here independent minded experts are nominated to create an internal debate with a broad range of opinions. Similarly, well functioning corporate boards contain clashing viewpoints and challenging questions. These points are a tribute to the power of checks and balances including the value of creating Teams of Rivals even in domains in which leaders usually seek team players.
Local communities are subject to polarization as people cluster into areas of like-minded people and become adamant about our political views as depicted by Bill Bishop in The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Similarly, corporations are polarizing groups where employees are exaggerating the positive outlook of their employers and are dismissive of competitors.
Group polarization can go terribly wrong. Sunstein explains the Rwanda genocide, the Holocaust, terrorism, Abu Ghraib abuses through group polarization leading to violent extremism. He refers to the social experiments of Milgram, where normal people gave others really high electric shocks just to answer questions. He also refers to Zimbardo Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided in two groups: guards and prisoners. The guards became so cruel, the experiment was aborted to preserve the welfare of the "prisoners." The underlying finding is that given circumstances moral people can do horrible things. This issue has triggered a debate between the "dispositionists" and the "situationists." The dispositionists believe cruelty is a matter of individual disposition. The situationists believe it is a matter of situation. This is a Nature vs Nurture argument. Milgram and Zimbardo experiments are red flags that normal people can become cruel. However, people did observe "good" guards that were not cruel in the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib. But, where these few saints exceptions that confirm the rule? To study this further, read Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
Sunstein also connects the dots between group polarization and Irving Janis Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. The two concepts overlap. But, he states that group polarization better explains extremism (moving one's opinion towards an extreme) than groupthink. But, in many group decisions the two concepts are identical.
Sunstein indicates information cascades cause investment bubbles. Robert Shiller calls them social contagion; whereby we start believing something because everybody else does. In the late 90s, we thought the sky was the limit for Internet stocks. See Shiller Irrational Exuberance. Just three years later we jumped into the next information cascade: home prices always go up. See Shiller The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It.
Information cascades also entail peer pressure. He calls those reputational cascades. You are afraid to hold a diverging opinion from the consensus so as to not become socially ostracized. He uses the global warming view that it will produce catastrophic harm in the very near term as an example. Such a reputational cascade was typefied by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Bjorn Lomborg wrote a balanced rebuttal Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage). But, the rhetorical debate was over before it began. Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' became a worldwide reputational cascade recompensing Gore with a Nobel Price and an Oscar Award. Meanwhile, Bjorn Lomborg remained in obscurity outside of Denmark.
Sunstein covers terrorism in depth. He refers to the excellent work of Krueger in What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (New Edition) indicating that terrorists are not who we think. They are well educated often middle class and not mentally ill. But, they often live in societies that lack civil rights and liberties. And, terrorism becomes a last resort form of political protest for the ones who are inclined to violence (the disposisionist argument resurfaces). Group polarization within terrorist groups plays a huge role. Per Sunstein terrorists are not born, they are normal individuals who become polarized.
To prevent group polarization, Sunstein promotes free flow of information so that a group checks its position against external references, conducting cost-benefit analysis. Group diversity is also key so diverging opinions are expressed.
Sunstein explains the The Wisdom of Crowds with the Condercet Jury theorem. Groups generate better overall decisions than individuals so long as the Majority rule is used and each person is more likely than not to be correct. If either of those conditions are not met than group decisions are worst than individuals.
Dictatorships are less successful than democracies in war because democracies have better access to information. Careful studies show that democracies do well in fighting wars in part because they do not start wars if they are not likely to win them.
Summary of Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide
Why do people become extremists? What makes people become so dismissive of opposing views? Why is political and cultural polarization so pervasive in America?In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism. Sunstein marshals a wealth of evidence that shows that when like-minded people gather in groups, they tend to become more extreme in their views than they were before. Thus when liberals group get together to debate climate change, they end up more alarmed about climate change, while conservatives brought together to discuss same-sex unions become more set against same-sex unions. In courtrooms, radio stations, and chatrooms, enclaves of like-minded people are breeding ground for extreme movements. Indeed, Sunstein shows that a good way to create an extremist group, or a cult of any kind, is to separate members from the rest of society, either physically or psychologically. Sunstein's findings help to explain such diverse phenomena as political outrage on the Internet, unanticipated "blockbusters" in the film and music industry, the success of the disability rights movement, ethnic conflict in Iraq and former Yugoslavia, and Islamic terrorism.
Providing a wealth of real-world examples--sometimes entertaining, sometimes alarming--Sunstein offers a fresh explanation of why partisanship has become so bitter and debate so rancorous in America and abroad.
Praise for the hardcover:
"A path-breaking exploration of the perils and possibilities created by polarization among the like-minded."
--Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-author of unSpun and Echo Chamber
"Poses a powerful challenge to anyone concerned with the future of our democracy. He reveals the dark side to our cherished freedoms of thought, expression and participation. Initiates an urgent dialogue which any thoughtful citizen should be interested in."
--James S. Fishkin, author of When the People Speak
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