Could this be the birth of Free Republic 2.0?

[auntpurl]

985. Thought I'd add, JPR is the best example yet of group polarisation

We've talked about this several times throughout the primaries. Here's a post I made in the Hillary group back in the beginning of March:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110770936

And here's another post from June:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2174436

Some basic info about group polarisation from my March post:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization

A well-supported theory of social psychology:

"Group polarization is the phenomenon that when placed in group situations, people will make decisions and form opinions to more of an extreme than when they are in individual situations. The phenomenon has shown that after participating in a discussion group, members tend to advocate more extreme positions and call for riskier courses of action than individuals who did not participate in any such discussion."

In conjunction with the social comparison theory:

"The social comparison theory, or normative influence, 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 a little more extreme. In doing so, individuals support the group’s beliefs while still presenting themselves as admirable group "leaders"."

Real-life applications of group polarization - The Internet:

"In a study conducted by Sia et al. in 2002, group polarization was found to occur with online (computer-mediated) discussions. In particular, this study found that group discussions, conducted when discussants are in a distributed (cannot see one another) or anonymous (cannot identify one another) environment, can lead to even higher levels of group polarization compared to traditional meetings. This is attributed to the greater numbers of novel arguments generated (due to persuasive arguments theory) and higher incidence of one-upmanship behaviors (due to social comparison)."



The dynamic on JPR is so far gone into group polarisation that people who don't conform to the most vile, hateful expressions against Hillary are hounded and demonised. Another psychological theory is called subjective group dynamics - this is the idea that group members will ostracise other members if they don't conform to the more extreme group norms (even more so than they would an outsider). Both of these points are well-represented on JPR. Fascinating from a psychological point of view, even if toxic from a social point of view.