How Change Happens

by Cass R Sunstein

  Social Comparison

  The second explanation begins with the claim that people want to be perceived favorably by other group members and to perceive themselves favorably. Once they hear what others believe, they adjust their positions in the direction of the dominant position. They may want to signal, for example, that they are not cowardly or cautious, especially in an entrepreneurial group that disparages these characteristics, and hence they will frame their position so that they do not appear as such by comparison to other group members.

  With respect to risk-taking activities, people want to occupy a certain position in comparison to others; before they hear what other people think, they might well assume that they do in fact occupy that position. But when they hear what other people think, they often find that they occupy a somewhat different position, and they might shift accordingly. The result is to press the group’s position toward one extreme or another and to induce shifts in individual members.

  Something similar happens in other contexts. People may wish, for example, not to seem too enthusiastic or too restrained in their enthusiasm for affirmative action, feminism, or an increase in national defense; hence their views may shift when they see what other group members think. The result will be both choice shifts and group polarization. Thus individuals move their judgments to preserve their image for others and for themselves. A key claim here is that information alone about the actual positions of others—without discussion—will produce a shift. Evidence has confirmed this fact; mere exposure induces a substantial risky shift (though it is less substantial than that produced by discussion—about half as large).14 This effect helps explain a shift toward caution (the cautious shift) as well.

  Corroboration and Confidence

  The third explanation points to the relationship among corroboration, confidence, and extremism.15 Those who lack confidence and who are unsure what they should think tend to moderate their views. It is for this reason that cautious people, not knowing what to do, are likely to choose the midpoint between relevant extremes. But if other people seem to share your view, you might become more confident that your view is right—and hence move in a more extreme direction.

  Refinements

  I now turn to some refinements, complicating the basic account of group polarization. For purposes of understanding the relationship among that phenomenon, organizations, and democracy, the central points are twofold. First, it matters a great deal whether people consider themselves part of the same social group as other members; a sense of shared identity will heighten the shift, and a belief that identity is not shared will reduce and possibly eliminate it. Second, deliberating groups will tend to “depolarize” if they consist of equally opposed subgroups and if members have a degree of flexibility in their positions.

  Statistical Regularities

  Of course, not all groups polarize; some groups end up in the middle, not toward either extreme. Note that in Stoner’s original experiments, one of the twelve deliberating groups showed no polarization at all. Nor is it hard to understand why this might be so. If the people defending the original tendency are particularly unpersuasive, group polarization is unlikely to occur. If the outliers are especially convincing, groups may even shift away from their original tendency and in the direction held by few or even one. (Twelve Angry Men is a vivid exploration of this possibility.)

  Moreover, external constraints or an external “shock” sometimes may prevent or blunt group polarization. Group members with well-defined views on a certain issue (gun control, separation of church and state, intervention in foreign nations) may be prone to polarize, but to maintain political effectiveness—and even basic credibility—they will sometimes maintain a relatively moderate face, publicly or even privately. Groups that have started to polarize in an extreme direction may move toward the middle to promote their own legitimacy or because of new revelations of one kind of another. In some times and places, political parties have done exactly that.

  Affective Factors

  Affective factors are quite important in group decisions, and when manipulated such factors will significantly increase or decrease polarization. If group members are linked by affective ties—if they know and like each other—dissent is significantly less frequent. The existence of affective ties thus reduces the number of divergent arguments and also intensifies social influences on choice. Hence people are less likely to shift if the direction advocated is being pushed by unfriendly group members; the likelihood of a shift and its likely size are increased when people perceive fellow members as friendly, likeable, and similar to them.16 A sense of common fate and intragroup similarity tend to increase group polarization, as does the introduction of a rival out-group.17

  The confidence of particular members also plays an important role. Indeed, part of the reason for group polarization appears to be that as a class, extreme positions tend to be less tractable and more confidently held. This point is an important complement to explanation based on information and persuasive arguments: the persuasiveness of arguments, not surprisingly, depends not simply on the grounds given, but also on the confidence with which they are articulated. (Consider here both juries and multimember courts.) Group polarization can also be fortified through exit, as members leave the group because they reject the direction in which things are heading. If exit is pervasive, the tendency to extremism will be greatly increased.

  Identity and Solidarity

  In a refinement of particular importance to politics and daily life, it has been found to matter whether people think of themselves, antecedently or otherwise, as part of a group having a degree of connection and solidarity. If they think of themselves in this way, group polarization is all the more likely, and it is also likely to be more extreme.18 Thus when the context emphasizes each person’s membership in the social group engaging in deliberation, polarization increases.

  This finding is in line with more general evidence that social ties among deliberating group members tend to suppress dissent and thus to lead to inferior decisions.19 This should not be surprising. If ordinary findings of group polarization are a product of social influences and limited argument pools, it stands to reason that when group members think of one another as similar along a salient dimension, or if some external factor (politics, geography, race, sex) unites them, group polarization will be heightened.

  Depolarization and Deliberation without Shifts

  Is it possible to construct either groups that will depolarize—that will tend toward the middle—or groups whose members will not shift at all? Both phenomena seem to be real in actual deliberating bodies. In fact, the persuasive arguments theory implies that there will be depolarization if and when new persuasive arguments are offered that are opposite to the direction initially favored by group members. Depolarization, rather than polarization, will also be found when the relevant group consists of individuals drawn equally from two extremes.20 Thus if people who initially favor caution are put together with people who initially favor risk-taking, the group judgment will move toward the middle.

  Group members with extreme positions generally change little as a result of discussion or shift to a more moderate position. Consider a study21 consisting of six-member groups specifically designed to contain two subgroups (of three persons each) initially committed to opposed extremes; the effect of discussion was to produce movement toward the center. One reason may be the existence of partially shared persuasive arguments in both directions.22 Interestingly, this study of opposed subgroups found the greatest depolarization with obscure matters of fact (e.g., the population of the United States in 1900)—and the least depolarization with highly visible public questions (e.g., whether capital punishment is justified). Matters of personal taste depolarized a moderate amount (e.g., preference for basketball or football, or for colors for painting a room).23

  These findings fit well with the account of group polarization that stresses information and persuasive arguments. When people have a fi
xed view of some highly salient public issue, they are likely to have heard a wide range of arguments in various directions, producing a full argument pool, and an additional discussion is not likely to produce movement. With respect to familiar issues, people are simply less likely to shift at all. And when one or more people in a group know the right answer to a factual question, the group is likely to shift in the direction of accuracy. For “eureka” problems—where the right answer produces a kind of click or spark of recognition—we will not find group polarization. That is one reason that groups tend to be good at solving crossword puzzles.

  Regularities

  These remarks suggest some simple conclusions about how and when group discussion will move predeliberation opinions. Views based on a great deal of thought are least likely to shift; depolarization can occur with equal subgroups tending in opposite directions; groups will usually shift in the direction of an accurate factual judgment if one or more members knows the truth; if views are not firmly held but there is an initial predisposition, group polarization is the general rule. The effects of discussion are also likely to depend on members’ perception of the group and of their relationship to it. If a group consists of “people,” less polarization is likely than if it consists of “Republicans” or “defenders of the Second Amendment” or “opponents of American imperialism.”

  Depolarization may well occur in groups with equal subgroups having opposite tendencies. But this is less likely and less pronounced (1) if subgroup members have fixed positions and (2) if subgroup members know that they are members of identifiable groups and that their codiscussants are members of different identifiable groups.

  Life’s Polarization Games

  Studies of group polarization involve one-shot experiments. We will turn shortly to group polarization in the real world, but first let us examine an intriguing implication of the experiments, one with special importance for democratic deliberation involving people who meet with each other not once, but on a regular basis.

  If participants engage in repeated discussions—if, for example, they meet each month, express views, and take votes—there should be repeated shifts toward, and past, the defined pole. Thus, for example, if a group of citizens is thinking about genetic engineering of food, the minimum wage, or Islamic terrorism, the consequence of their discussions over time should be to lead in quite extreme directions. In these repeated polarization games, deliberation over time should produce a situation in which individuals hold positions more extreme than those of any individual member before the series of deliberations began. In fact, the idea of iterated polarization games seems far more realistic than the processes studied in one-shot experiments.

  There appears to be no study of such repeated polarization games, but the hypothesized outcome is less fanciful than it might seem. In the jury study referred to earlier, deliberating groups frequently came up with punishment ratings as high as or even higher than that any individual held predeliberation. And it is not difficult to think of real-world groups in which the consequence of deliberation over time appears to be to shift both groups and individuals to positions that early on they could not possibly have accepted. Iterated polarization games are an important real-world phenomenon.

  But this raises two questions: (1) Why and when do groups stop polarizing? (2) Why and when do they end up at a certain point and go no further, or even shift in the opposite direction? Nothing in the literature on group polarization adequately answers these questions, but it is possible to speculate that polarization often ends or reverses as a result of some external shock—as, for example, when new members add new arguments or when the simple self-interest of political leaders produces a shift in direction or when new circumstances, of fact or value, alter the perspectives and incentives of group members. Social cascades often change direction as a result of such external shocks, as through the release of new information; the same processes seem to terminate or to reverse group polarization.

  Polarizing Events

  Group polarization has a large effect on many deliberating groups and institutions. Consider, for example, the political and social role of religious organizations. Such organizations tend to strengthen group members’ religious convictions, simply by virtue of the fact that like-minded people are talking to one another.24 Religious groups amplify the religious impulse, especially if group members are insulated from other groups, and on occasion the result can be to lead people in quite bizarre directions. Whether or not this is so, political activity by members of religious organizations is undoubtedly affected by cascade-like effects and by group polarization. In a related vein, survey evidence shows that dramatic social events, like the assassination of Martin Luther King and civil rights disturbances, tend to polarize attitudes, with both positive and negative attitudes increasing within demographic groups.25 More generally, discussion will often harden attitudes toward outsiders and social change; thus proposals “for establishment of a halfway house or a correctional facility have typically elicited private apprehensions which, after discussion, become polarized into overt paranoia and hostility.”26

  It is easy to produce examples of professional polarizers or polarization entrepreneurs—political activists who have as one of their goals the creation of spheres in which like-minded people can hear a particular point of view from one or more articulate people and participate, actually or vicariously, in a deliberative discussion in which a certain point of view becomes entrenched and strengthened. For those seeking to promote social reform, an extremely promising strategy is to begin by promoting discussions among people who tend to favor the relevant reform; such discussions are likely to intensify the underlying convictions and concerns. As an example from a few decades ago, consider the extraordinary success of Lois Marie Gibbs, a Love Canal resident who became the principal force behind the national concern over abandoned hazardous waste dumps.27 Gibbs engaged self-consciously in efforts to mobilize citizens around that issue, partly by promoting discussions of like-minded people—first in small groups, then in larger ones. The areas of environmental protection and civil rights are filled with leaders who took advantage of cascade-like processes and group polarization.

  Polarization is also likely to be produced by outlets or hosts with distinctive positions, generally shared by the relevant audience. Because the results of group polarization cannot be evaluated in the abstract, nothing need be dishonorable in these efforts. What can be said, in the abstract, is that attempts to ensure discussion among people with similar predispositions may be strikingly successful in increasing the confidence of individual participants and in moving them toward more extreme positions. In any society, would-be social reformers do well to create forums, whether in-person, over-the-air, in cyberspace, or in print, in which people with similar inclinations speak frequently with one another and can develop a clear sense of shared identity.

  Out-Groups

  Group polarization has particular implications for insulated out-groups; these might be political groups, ethnic groups, or groups defined in any other identifiable way. Recall that polarization increases when group members identify themselves along some salient dimension—and especially when the group can define itself by contrast to another group. Out-groups are in this position—of self-contrast to others—by definition. Excluded by choice or coercion from discussion with others, such groups may become polarized in quite extreme directions, often in part because of group polarization. In the midst of Communist rule, for example, the anticommunist underground was subject to polarization—sometimes undoubtedly for the better, but sometimes for the worse. Whenever an outgroup is isolated, its members often will have a feeling of shared identity and a sense of humiliation. Extremism on the part of outgroups (including murders and suicides, as by terrorists) is a possible result, especially if we consider the fact that extreme groups show comparatively greater polarization.

  The tendency toward polarization among outgroups helps explain special concern about ha
te speech. There is indeed reason to fear the consequences of such speech; group polarization shows why. An understanding of group polarization simultaneously raises some questions about the idea that certain group discussions produce “consciousness raising.” It is possible, at least, that the consequence of discussion is not only or mostly to raise consciousness (an ambiguous idea to be sure), but to produce group polarization in one direction or another—and at the same time to increase confidence in the position that has newly emerged. This does not mean that consciousness is never raised; undoubtedly group discussion can identify and clarify problems that were previously repressed or understood as an individual rather than social product (see chapter 1). But nothing of this sort is established by the mere fact that views have changed and coalesced and are held, post-discussion, with a high degree of confidence.

  An understanding of group polarization also casts light on the imposition of liability for criminal conspiracy, which in most jurisdictions can be added to the penalty for the substantive offense. It is tempting to think that this kind of “doubling up” is indefensible, a form of overkill. But if the act of conspiring leads people moderately disposed toward criminal behavior to be more than moderately disposed, precisely because they are conspiring together, it makes sense, on grounds of deterrence, to impose extra, independent penalties. Some courts have come close to recognizing this point in discussing the imposition of distinct sanctions on conspiracies.28