The Six Ways Groupthink is Dividing Our Country

An in-depth look at how our culture and technologies created the perfect storm for groupthink failure.

Back in 2015, I wrote about how design needs to work with media to overcome groupthink failure. This piece, is titled, Can a Redesign of-News Media Change the Way We Think?. Recent events have brought this issue to the forefront again, and it’s critical that we question how a redesign of our news and social media systems can help us understand each other better.

This current piece has evolved over the past few weeks, almost in real time as news and information have come forward about the Muller investigation, indictments, Russian-based bots, and how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data to focus messaging towards creating a culture war in America.

Bigger and bigger problems
We have arrived at a place where we are sitting in one gigantic groupthink failure. We know that social media networks create polarized communities and it’s these groups that were targeted by the details of the Mueller indictments.

When we look at the allegations against the foreign Russian-state sponsored operatives, it appears that they hacked the voters’ behaviors that power the election process. It’s alleged that with the support from the data firm, Cambridge Analytica, they used the methodologies that drive our marketing and product engagement to promote their message. They obtained psychographic profiles of Facebook users to predict people’s behavior to create further divisions in our country. The Russian-based bots and fake news promotions were activated by this data. The fact they could weaponize our social media using marketing and advertising methodology is the point of this discussion.

The road to our hearts and brains is not a linear one. Through multi-tiered media channels, brands have perfected how to build trust towards their values and messages. They collect detailed psychographic and ethnography data to create user profiles to design engagement systems that morph us into habit-forming followers of their products. Personalized experiences and messages are fed to us by algorithms that are powered to grab our views. This is engineered addiction that uses technology and our cultural behaviors to create the perfect storm for groupthink failure.

Marketing strategies and methodologies have been turned against us. We need to research the issues that have created this environment, so we can design the proper systems to combat the behaviors that caused it. Six categories have been identified as the reasons that have made us susceptible to fake news and for the creation of groupthink failure. They are all linked to the technology and the culture of behaviors that shape our current environment.

Habit-forming marketing and products
Unintended consequences
Culture of convenience
Loss of context
Evolution of news media and its impact on decision making
Personality differences

Groupthink
We all have a set of cognitive biases that shape our opinions, beliefs, fears, and actions. This is how we make our judgments and decisions. These biases create groupthink and are strengthened by the repetitive nature and content of our news and media channels.

For those not familiar with groupthink. Groupthink is defined as a “mode of thinking in which individual members of small cohesive groups tend to accept a viewpoint or conclusion that represents a perceived group consensus, whether or not the group members believe it to be valid, correct, or optimal. Groupthink reduces the efficiency of collective problem solving within such groups.”

In the Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie 2014 Harvard Business Review article titled “Making Dumb Groups Smarter,” Sunstein and Hastie state that “It is no exaggeration to say that herding is a fundamental behavior of human groups. When it comes to group decisions and information flow, the favored term among social scientists is ‘cascade’—a small trickle in one direction that soon becomes a flood.” It’s this natural herding instinct that brings us together as groups. Our social media and news channels, combined with a culture of convenience further solidify the push towards groupthink failure.

Focusing on human-centered design
We live in a world where we are constantly connected to each other as well as our products and brands. Companies have worked very hard to earn our trust and get into our minds, homes, and relationships. Brands build trust and habits so that their messaging, values, and offerings give us what we need to feel inspired to purchase and use more stuff. These brands and product companies have spent a lot of time and effort understanding behaviors; WHO they are communicating with, WHY they want to reach these people, and HOW they are connecting with that message. The design thinking process focuses on collecting and analyzing this information to define the points that connect, shape, and inspire people’s behaviors.

The process of design is defined as the purpose or planning the creation of a product, a service, or a system with the intention of improving the human experience concerning a specified problem by modifying people’s behavior. The design process is focused on identifying behaviors that are affected by our culture and technology so that relevant experience can be created for a specific user.

A review of the Mueller indictments presents the following accusations. You can see how this was a focused attack on our minds using marketing methods. It was designed to create an emotional push towards to groupthinking and it succeeded.

Russian trolls reached out to groups to coordinate, support, and stage political activities and rallies.
They created fraudulent social media accounts that impersonated fake and real people, then paid for ads that sponsored the posts.
Created and paid for advertisements on social media and other channels.

Tools and unintended consequences
Marketing and advertising experts understand how to alter behaviors and perceptions. Brands make connections to inspire and excite. Their tools are content, design, digital and social media platforms, traditional media such as print, and human influencers.

Tools are used for a particular purpose and have a primary function. They can solve a specific problem and or fulfill a human need. This is a broad definition, and many objects, appliances, and technologies fit within this definition. The hammer and paint brushes are obvious physical tools. Our household appliances fall into this category as well. Technology like smartphones or email serve a specific purpose in our lives and are certainly included as well. The question, “What’s in your toolbox?” can mean different things to different people. Marketing uses system or process tools that are used to inspire and engage users.

However, it doesn’t matter what kind of tool you are using, there are unintended consequences associated with all our tools and technologies.

Automobiles provide a good example. A car’s purpose is to give us the ability to travel from one place to another. However, many people have been injured or died in automobile related accidents. This is unintended from its original purpose. The automobile industry has addressed these accidents and deaths by implementing innovations towards safety equipment such as anti-lock brakes, airbags, and driver assistance technologies. This has updated cars to help them keep us safer as we drive. However, tools are only as good as the people are that use them. In 2016, 40,200 died in accidents involving motor vehicles. This was a 7% increase from the previous year, which makes the two-year increase the highest jump in fatalities in almost 50 years. This increase is believed to be caused by the increase in the numbers of people driving and our mobile phone usage while we are driving. For cars to be truly safe, we need to change our behaviors towards the usage of mobile device apps, alcohol impairment, and seatbelts.

These days, it seems that we look first at how our tools can help us solve our problems before we change our behaviors. In the end, revisions based solely on our tools and technology are not enough. User awareness and behaviors go hand in hand with our tools and technology. As our culture and user behaviors change, our tools need to be updated, and vice versa.

For example, the shift from an agrarian culture an urban one created cities with sidewalks. You now needed a bigger hammer, like a jackhammer, to work on the sidewalks. But, using a jackhammer requires new skills and knowledge to know how to use it. This is true of Facebook as well. Facebook’s mission statement is to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”* Facebook brings people together, but the groups that were formed have become an echo chamber for like-minded ideas and conversations. The Russian-state sponsored operatives exploited this unintended consequence to Facebook’s purpose.

Twitter’s role in this groupthink failure is exacerbated by their exact mission statement, which is, “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Twitter is the poster child for this conversation. As our culture became less aware of the difference between real and fake news, Twitter opened the floodgates for fake news and groupthink failure. The Twitter platform exists to give people the ability to share thoughts without thinking too long or hard about it.

If our technology and tools fail to maintain updates and provide user education that’s aligned with culture changes, then unintended consequences will continue.

*This thought does not include Facebook’s business model or value proposition to its board or investors. What companies do to make money and what the unintended consequences are towards human needs and behaviors is a related, but different conversation.

The culture of convenience
Marketing hacks our brains with personalized messaging and experiences every day. These experiences have created a bigger problem for us, a culture of convenience.

Our daily lives have been shaped to expect experiences from our products and technology that provide us convenience. We are overrun with easy to use, single-use products and technologies to make daily tasks easier and faster, and connect us to people and information quicker. Convenience can give us freedom and a sense of empowerment, but convenience also comes at a cost. According to Tim Wu, Columbia University law professor and author of The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads, we are living in a period that will “conveniencize individuality.” From the Sony Walkman, the VCR, Amazon, to our autonomous cars, our technology products have created behaviors that have built a culture of convenience.

The iPhone was designed as the “one device.” It brought together email, internet, and entertainment into one tool. Because of this unified functionality, our smartphones have become the beacon of our convenience experience. Professor Wu shares the following warning. “Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We are at risk of making most of our life experiences a series of trolley rides.” In other words, what all this convenience has removed from us is context. Context and meaning are now hidden behind SEO and algorithms. When I was growing up, my brother and I used to study maps of the area. We looked at the roads, highways, and neighborhoods in our region. That gave the context of the area. These days, map apps guide us from point A to B. They show us the fastest route on a little screen that’s disconnected to the physical world. We’ve sacrificed the knowledge of context for the experience of convenience.

Media evolution
Loss of context and convenience behaviors are an important factor in this groupthink discussion, but to complete the system, we need to add in the evolution of our news media and what it added to our culture. This began with the introduction of cable TV and the initiation of the 24-hour news cycle. This change lowered the quality of the news as organizations rushed to get stories out to compete with the number of views and to build ratings. Combined with the television advertising business model, the sensationalization of the news diluted its content and wrapped the presentation of our news in an envelope of theater. As blogs sites become more and more mainstream, these outlets of political and ideological beliefs solidified the path towards the polarization of our society.

The combination of convenience and sensationalized news has stripped away our ability to know what’s real news and taken away our curiosity. A 2016 Stanford study of the more than 7,800 students found that there was a “stunning and dismaying consistency” in their failure to understand the difference between advertising and news articles. Additionally, when presented with doctored images and photography, or memes, they had no interest or motivation or seek out additional information on them and to verify their sources. They accepted the image as fact.

Once you link the culture of convenience and the loss of context to diluted news and add the heavy influence of social media, one can add up the pieces and see how we have arrived at this state.

The problem with people
People feel too much, and these feelings get us into trouble. In the TV series, Star Trek, Spock never got in trouble when he was “logical,” but look out, when his human side came out. Feelings are how we connect to each other and how products connect to us. Feelings are also at the core of the Star Wars saga. Feel positive and open-minded, and you’re a Jedi. Too much negativity and you’re a Sith Lord.

The problem is, it’s easier to feel negativity, pessimism, and threatened. When we are presented with information and facts, research shows that people understand and interpret this information differently if it goes against our beliefs, group identity, or moral values. This turns that information into a personal threat. This anxiety bolsters our separation into like-minded groups. https://aeon.co/essays/humans-are-wired-for-negativity-for-good-or-ill

Our brains are wired to process negativity faster and more thoroughly than positive experiences. We also retain and remember negative experiences for longer periods of time. According to Peter Ditto, Ph.D., a social psychologist at the University of California, Irvine “It takes more information to make you believe something you don’t want to believe than something you do.” Professor Clifford Nash, of Stanford University, shares the following, “we tend to ruminate more about unpleasant events — and use stronger words to describe them — than happy ones.” Survival evolution may have had a role in this behavior since survival requires urgent attention to possible bad outcomes but less urgent towards good ones.

Personalities matter
To simplify, two general types of people; strategic optimists and defensive pessimists exist. How these types handle negativity and anxiety is part of the groupthink conversation. Strategic optimists see the best possible outcome, then work to make it happen. Conversely, defensive pessimists worry about things that can go wrong. They are more protective of themselves and their interests. Another way to look at the divide and behaviors is by reviewing the traits of strategic optimists and defensive pessimists. How do these different types react to anxiety? Pessimists see negative events as personal, permanent, and pervasive issues. Optimists react to negativity with practice and improvement. Strategic optimists and defensive pessimists succeed under different circumstances and one is not better than the other. However, how we communicate with each side is important.

Additionally, research provides evidence that Democrats and Republicans use different cognitive processes when they think about risk. “Conservatism, apparently, helps to protect people against some of the natural difficulties of living,” says social psychologist Paul Nail of the University of Central Arkansas. “The fact is we don’t live in a completely safe world. Things can and do go wrong. But if I can impose this order on it by my worldview, I can keep my anxiety to a manageable level.” How people manage, this anxiety is important and how we speak to those anxieties is critical to engagement and how they understand the issues, facts, and context. Additionally, people interpret facts differently when they go against their beliefs, their values and, their group identity. This means that people are more likely to quickly share something through social media without thinking too much about it. This is another reason how fake news is easy to spread. Political bias is not partisan. The issues are similar on both sides; the difference lies in how each side is affected or inspired by information or facts.

At the core is how each side manages their anxieties towards safety and survival. Fake news and memes pull at our emotional strings and push us further into opposite corners. We’re bombarded by information, and, the safest place to be is in our groupthink echo chambers and there lies the problem. We need to create the systems that build environments so each personality type can embrace curiosity and create behaviors that focus on understanding and learning context.

Another related set of research focuses on “egocentric discounting” or the “Dunning-Kruger effect.” ) Both talk about how false confidence in ourselves allows us to believe that we are completely knowledgeable towards a set of facts and information. This prevents us from having an open mind towards a difference of opinion and stops us from reaching out to get advice. These all certainly have a connection to groupthink failure. Further conversations need to be facilitated to see how it’s best to overcome these types of behavioral biases.

A further dialog on behaviors could link the research of The Wisdom of Crowds to how expertise and diversity within groups can drive better decision making within groupthink.

Moving forward by creating trust through stories
Stories combine facts and figures with a narrative that creates an authentic relationship with the user. Our brains react differently to stories than simple facts. When we hear a story, our neural activities increase, and you are 22 times more likely to remember what you’re hearing and experiencing. This is also critical to getting people to want to know more and to listen to others. If we want to build trust between people and information or between people themselves, we need to create stories that are suited for their personalities.

Brands and products all have stories associated with them. Design as the connector between these businesses or products, and the human interface is influential in the way the narrative of the experience is created and told the user. These stories not only help us understand the value and purpose of the brand or technology, but they also inspire us to trust and desire the service or value proposition. Therefore, it is critical that designers step forward and take a bigger role and responsibility in creating ethical products that share brand messaging on how they are used safely and responsibly. For example, Subaru is a pet-friendly, outdoor-oriented brand that is focused on driver safety and zero-waste manufacturing. To educate and inspire people at their brand, Subaru shares a consistent values-based narrative across the different communication channels that they use to engage their customers. From the pre-Super Bowl Puppy Bowl to the “Love” and family-focused advertising, and the documentary that promoted their partnership with the National Parks Service zero landfill waste initiative, Subaru uses many different channels and content to educate and bring awareness towards their purpose-driven values.

A place to start
Russian-state sponsored operatives identified and implemented marketing methods and data to hack our behaviors and push us towards groupthink failure. The purpose of this essay was to begin a conversation on how we can flip these methods around to focus them on bringing people together. Brands are masters at developing the most relevant messaging, content, and media channels for the user. They tell stories that change behaviors based on the culture and technologies of the times. To avoid further groupthink failure, we need to turn the process around and seek to create behaviors that will promote the evolution of a more human-centered culture and ethical technologies. This would put the focus on shaping an environment that prioritizes human-centered needs. Industrial revolutions create rapid changes to our technology and culture, and we need to link these changes to people’s anxiety and understanding of their new environment.

A call to arms
To help us avoid groupthink we need leadership to promote a path forward. This is a complicated problem, and there is no one size fits all solutions. What’s clear is that we cannot look at one specific technology, tool, or platform to solve the problem of groupthink. It’s past time to bring together the leaders of news, social media, education, marketing, with the support of psychologists, social scientists, anthropologists, and experts in groupthink to discuss the ways new ecosystems can be developed to bring us together

There are steps happening that are trying to help the situation. Organizations like Civic Nation are working on purpose-driven messaging through partnerships with advertising and marketing agencies. News organizations such as The New York Timesand The Washington Post both have fact-checking videos, information, and infographics. Websites such as PolitiFact and Snopes, evaluate and fact-check news and claims. Facebook and Twitter claim they are taking steps to try and eliminate fake news. There are countries that have implemented media literacy campaigns. Bloomberg News has partnered with Twitter to share news stories on the platform. However, these pieces need to be connected to create an effective top down, bottom up ecosystem that changes our behaviors and perceptions.

The content of this piece was created from what I have learned through my experiences as a brand designer and design strategist. I linked this knowledge with the research on each of the topics that are mentioned in the essay. I am inspired to continue learning more about how behaviors are affected by technology and culture. With all the problems that we have, why are we spending so much time talking about machine learning and AI, when we should be working towards teaching humans?

This discussion is a worthy one to have and hopefully we can find a catalyst that will bring people together to have this conversation. We have reached a groupthink perfect storm, and it’s critical that we take a holistic view of how we need to redesign our tools for the 21st century and beyond.

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