
Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group - mike_esspe
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/when-good-people-do-bad-things-0612
======
chipsy
This is why "divide and conquer" is such an effective, commonplace strategy
for an aspiring powermonger. Take two groups that are different but not in a
remarked upon fashion. Invent a reason for the side that is not you to be a
"them." Then organize your own side as an "us" combating the perceived
injustice. Now you have an instant follower group at your command, ready to
saddle up and commit heinous crimes for you. Explains all sorts of conflicts -
ethnic, religious, ideological, nationalistic...

Now every time I see people who organize an "us", I start looking for the
"them" to appear. And then I write off the leader as someone up to no good.

~~~
personlurking
And what happens to those who are neither an "us" nor a "them"? They become a
"me"? I prefer being a "me" but that also takes one down the path of possibly
not believing in much and, following that logic, of becoming a cynic of all
"us vs them" paradigms.

We can also look at the digital world and the "together, alone" concept. With
globalization and pop culture, the internet and fewer and fewer entities in
charge of our food/entertainment/etc, we become a "me similar to an us".

Edit: I took out an aside/anecdote.

~~~
jiggy2011
You don't always have the option of not picking a group, see "you're with us
or against us". Each group will demand that you identify with them or treat
you as a member of the other group.

~~~
teddyh
I’m reminded of Philip K. Dick’s _The Chromium Fence_ (1955):

 _’I’m not!’ Walsh shouted futilely. ‘I’m not a Purist and I’m not a
Naturalist! You hear me?’

Nobody heard him._

------
tokenadult
Seeing the discussion here, I'll recommend to the Hacker News readers who
haven't heard about it yet the new book _Mindwise: How We Understand What
Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want_ ,[1] which reviews research on topics
like this and a lot of other mysteries of the human mind. It's a book based on
current experimental research in psychology, but it has had some good editing
to be a readable, interesting popular book that will reliably prompt you to
think about aspects of your thinking you perhaps have not thought about
recently. (I'm reading the book right now, which is why this comes to mind.) I
think reading _Mindwise_ just might help you understand yourself better,
understand your significant other better, understand your co-workers better,
and understand the group dynamics on Hacker News better, and anyway it's fun
to read.

[1]
[http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/html/Mindwise...](http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/html/Mindwise.html)

------
Sharlin
Some related concepts:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-
group_favoritism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_conflict](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_conflict)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-
group_homogeneity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ingroup_identity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ingroup_identity)

And a couple of interesting experiments:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/)

[http://www.news.wisc.edu/598](http://www.news.wisc.edu/598)

~~~
Bulkington
As old as the family, the village. Forgive Western bias, but here's Aristotle:

...that the state is a creation of nature, and that 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," whom Homer denounces—the natural outcast is
forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

Or, of course, the Stanford Prison Experiment:
[http://www.prisonexp.org/](http://www.prisonexp.org/)

More subtly: the notion of American "rugged individualism," and the group with
which many (right-leaning) "indiviudalists" unironically self-identify.

On HN, I suspect there's high participation the group of rational, logical
thinkers who consider themselves superior to the fears and insecurities that
compel the typical "joiner."

~~~
hythloday
_On HN, I suspect there 's high participation the group of rational, logical
thinkers who consider themselves superior to the fears and insecurities that
compel the typical "joiner."_

If this was irony, it was splendidly done.

~~~
Sharlin
Quite so.

[http://www.skepdic.com/biasblindspot.html](http://www.skepdic.com/biasblindspot.html)

------
chrononaut
This reminds me of the German-produced movie 'Die Welle', or 'The Wave'.[0] It
demonstrates the creation and execution of some of these dynamics and how
individuals may be susceptible to strong leaders even though their ideals and
morals differ. It can be found on Netflix and I recommend it to anyone who
found the article interesting.

[0]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/)

~~~
gamegoblin
I second the film recommendation. It's a very well made, and very heavy film.
In addition, to anyone hearing about it for the first time, it's based on the
real life social experiment:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave)

~~~
dantheman
Which was made into a 40 minute film: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-
KRxXJ8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-KRxXJ8) called the wave

------
secfirstmd
Kind of an old story. Studied this year's ago in reference to terrorism. The
concept of "ingroup love and outgroup hate" is a large part of terrorism
radicalisation.

Also in many ways it's a big chunk of regular military training (though not as
extreme) - from boot camp onwards it's "We hate platoon two, we hate battalion
three, we hate non-infantry units etc and we are gonna beat them at XYZ."

I have often thought that when people give theories (many I agree with) on the
reasons behind the long term drop in crime (better policing, abortion,
removing lead paint from houses, change in availability of goods etc) one that
they miss out is the change in social nature. My sense is that social
connections are now weaker, with more individualism and less scope for in/out
group love/hate thus less reason for group related violence - stabbing outside
a bar, murder in retribution for attack on your ingroup etc.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That's a fascinating thought. Perhaps a slightly more optimistic view is not
we are all individuals, but we start to see more and more people as in our
tribe?

Perhaps we are more starting to see ourselves as humans?

~~~
secfirstmd
Yes I also think this is a part of it. As the world becomes more
internationalist and multi-cultural, it makes it harder to dehumanise please
who we now have the chance to communicate with in an instant, read about,
travel to their country etc

~~~
theoh
One of Hofstede's observations is that developed countries tend to be more
individualistic, treating others as individuals rather than in-group or out-
group. There are other correlated features on his individualism-collectivism
dimension, such as the nature and purpose of education. The paper
"Dimensionalizing Cultures" covers this in depth.

------
shurcooL
This is why I like to consider myself to belong to the group of humans and
dislike further specialization based on gender, where you're born, etc.

We're on the same team.

~~~
lumpypua
Your brain handles ingroup/outgroup behavior automatically. These are not
conscious behavioral choices. As far as your brain is concerned, we're not on
the same team.

How you choose to act given that understanding of your biology is of course up
to you.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes and no. If you try to avoid labeling yourself as a "member of group X"
you'll find that you can avoid a lot of ingroup/outgroup behavior situations.
It isn't always easy or possible, but it's something striving for. Pick your
groups wisely.

------
Houshalter
The Robbers Cave Experiment is really interesting:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/)

I have found the whole concept of "in-group vs out-group" to be very useful in
explaining a great deal of human behavior. Humans evolved as hunter-gather
tribes and all of our social instincts are from that. We have empathy for our
friends and family, but it has an off switch labelled "enemy" or even
"stranger". More than that, we are actually compelled to hate the out-group,
or follow the in-group, far more than we would otherwise do.

The reason politics sucks is that everyone is trying to identify with a tribe
more than they are rationally debating policies. The reason racism, ethnic
conflicts, and even wars happen is we consider the other side a rival tribe
that is a threat to us.

------
pistle
I'm not sure I see the article and study as saying much or discovering
anything new.

The phenomena is obvious. The motivations, at a rational, cognitive level are
also obvious though.

Within a group, there is comfort, love, protection, identity, etc.

Others, outside the group, are a threat to all that endorphin-releasing
meeting of needs and/or desires. Of course there are physical (psycho-
chemical) reinforcements to the behavior. I would have been surprised to NOT
find brain activity of the sort.

We are social creatures through natural selection and, despite modernity's
recontextualizing of what our clans look like, we should very well expect a
very plastic ability of individuals to storm+norm+form groups which then are
"protected" by degrading the power of those not in the group.

Would it be a terrible analogy to say this echo's the brain's feedback loop
for sugary foods? We are wired to gorge on sugar when we find it. Food
marketers apply psychological levers based around how that feedback loop is
molded by our modern, human existence.

[http://foodporn.com](http://foodporn.com)

I want waffles...

~~~
crimsonalucard
True, but the studies offer statistical numbers to solidify what would
otherwise be generalizations. Science!

------
pygy_
tl;dr: oxytocin is a double-edged sword.

[http://www.pnas.org/content/108/4/1262.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/108/4/1262.full)

 _# Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism

## Abstract

Human ethnocentrism—the tendency to view one's group as centrally important
and superior to other groups—creates intergroup bias that fuels prejudice,
xenophobia, and intergroup violence.

Grounded in the idea that ethnocentrism also facilitates within-group trust,
cooperation, and coordination, we conjecture that ethnocentrism may be
modulated by brain oxytocin, a peptide shown to promote cooperation among in-
group members.

In double-blind, placebo-controlled designs, males self-administered oxytocin
or placebo and privately performed computer-guided tasks to gauge different
manifestations of ethnocentric in-group favoritism as well as out-group
derogation.

Experiments 1 and 2 used the Implicit Association Test to assess in-group
favoritism and out-group derogation.

Experiment 3 used the infrahumanization task to assess the extent to which
humans ascribe secondary, uniquely human emotions to their in-group and to an
out-group.

Experiments 4 and 5 confronted participants with the option to save the life
of a larger collective by sacrificing one individual, nominated as in-group or
as out-group.

Results show that oxytocin creates intergroup bias because oxytocin motivates
in-group favoritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group derogation.

These findings call into question the view of oxytocin as an indiscriminate
“love drug” or “cuddle chemical” and suggest that oxytocin has a role in the
emergence of intergroup conflict and violence._

~~~
judk
From an adaptivity point of view, makes sense that oxytocin would strengthen
social bonds that exist for other reasons ("kin" or simacrula thereof), not
create bonds with everyone.

------
forgingahead
The problem with articles like this is that it is so easy to make claims like
this without explaining the reason for the converse, ie, the status quo. Why
do people belong to groups in the first place?

Without mentioning that, we very easily end up in a place where we have an
article espousing a world view ("Belonging to a group is bad") that is very
appealing to a demographic (Hacker News readers) who are very susceptible to
those views since their natural state is to mimic the implicit outcome of the
article. Specifically, HN readers are generally engineers and programmers, who
are more likely to be introverts, and so less likely to easily fit in with
groups, so this article validates their existing status (proven by the
comments -- "I'm enlightened! I don't belong to a group!")

There are very good benefits to being part of a group, not limited to things
like containing the excesses and rampant desires of the individual, so it's a
shame articles like this don't try to present a balanced viewpoint.

------
rasz_pl
"You Are Not So Smart" podcast had a whole episode about this subject (Robbers
Cave Experiment):

"The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight"

[http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-
asymm...](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-asymmetric-
insight/)

------
GazNewt
You don't say

------
dang
Title changed to a bit of the first paragraph that appears more informative.

------
interstitial
Belonging to HN makes people more likely to think they know everything and
every solution is software based.

------
dingdangdong
Luckily we have never seen that behaviour here on HN, hey?

I would say that the holier than thou, more righteous than thou, more PC than
thou attitudes here on HN all fall foul of how the main core 'regulars' treat
anyone else with a different point of view.

Want to know why they call it a hell-ban? Because HN is curating it's own view
of hell and banning others help reinforce their own self made wallowing.

~~~
tokenadult
Are you open to the idea that "anyone else with a different point of view"
might also be treating the "main core 'regulars'" on Hacker News as an
outgroup that they don't really see as fellow human beings with thoughts and
emotions and their own understanding of the world?

