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By Newsweek Editors
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Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein's new book analyzes how polemical thinking feeds on itself: when we're with like-minded people, soft views harden, and we begin to resist challenges to our ideas. The best bits:
In 2005, Sunstein asked liberals and conservatives to write down their views on social issues (gay unions, climate change). Subjects were then split into like-minded groups for 15 minutes. Almost all became more dogmatic in their views. This is called "group polarization."
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Terrorist networks thrive on group polarization. The surest way to build an extremist group, or a cult, is to separate its members from society by cultivating a sense of suspicion about nonmembers.
In the 1971 "Stanford Prison Experiment," students played "prisoners" and "guards" in a mock jail on campus. Some guards terrorized inmates, and appeals to their reason often backfired, demonstrating a tendency to become more entrenched when challenged, not less.
The Web unites—and it polarizes. Online, it's possible to filter news into what Sunstein calls the "Daily Me": a flow of information that only reinforces one's previously held opinions.
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