RUSSELL WANGERSKY: The herd mentality

Altruism and ambition may have more connections than just their first letters.

And some of those connections just aren’t healthy.

More to the point, altruism may be less than what it seems, while ambition may hold more sway behind peoples’ “ethical” positions than you actually realize.

We live in morally charged times, where, it seems, plenty of people are choosing to break connections and even friendships to demonstrate their fealty to their own group, whether it be on the right wing side of the ledger, or the left.

The odd thing is, we’ve also reached a point where people are willing to fake the moral high ground, or lie about it, just to publicly be seen standing on it.

Anyone who’s ever seen or been in a high school clique knows exactly how it works: if everyone’s being cruel to someone outside the group, you cement your place in the clique by being even nastier than everyone else.

A recent study, called “The Evolutionary Psychology of Conflict and the Function of Falsehoods,” looked at exactly that: “Specifically, we focus on how the occurrence of intergroup conflict throughout human evolutionary history has built psychological motivations into the human mind to spread information that (a) mobilize the ingroup against the outgroup, (b) facilitate the coordination of attention within the group and (c) signal commitment to the group to fellow ingroup members.”

Truth doesn’t matter: what matters is using information, even inaccurate information, to reach those goals.

In other words, people are motivated to boost themselves in the groups they are in, even if that means spreading false information to demonstrate their dedication to the cause.

Another recent study, “Moral Grandstanding and Political Polarization: A Multi-Study Consideration,” also looks at the question of the motives behind some “moral” stands: “The present work posits that social motives, particularly status seeking in the form of moral grandstanding, are likely at least partially to blame for elevated levels of affective polarization and ideological extremism in the U.S.”

You can find science or research to back up a whole bunch of ideas, but in this case, you also implicitly know it’s true. Anyone who’s ever seen or been in a high school clique knows exactly how it works: if everyone’s being cruel to someone outside the group, you cement your place in the clique by being even nastier than everyone else.

But you’re not necessarily that nasty, and later on — especially later on in life, older, wiser and more self-assured — you may look back and not even be able to fathom how you could have been that mean.

One thing the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear is just what kind of social animals most of us are — there are outliers, of course, but the bulk of people like to be a part of a group. It feels right.

Social connections matter. And sometimes people strengthen those connections by making themselves look good, or strangely, by deliberately making others look bad. Their own social image or “brand” — and how that cements them inside their chosen group — is more important than the truth. Sometimes, it’s more important than anything, especially if ambition is the fuel that’s driving your own particular train. (Let alone the ones who strategically use righteousness for personal profit.)

The television series “Twin Peaks” had it right: the owls are not what they seem.

Truth is, people aren’t what they seem, either.

It’s something to keep in mind, whether you’re inside a group, gleefully firing out at others for their “failings”, or outside, being fired upon.

What can you do in a world that seems more polarized with each passing day?

Listen, be thorough, analyze, assess. Keep your mind open to opposing viewpoints.

And be kind.

It’s the one piece of your own behaviour you never have to regret.

Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.