Wednesday, December 1, 2010

C. S. Lewis on the concept of group polarization

Group Polarization 
“the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.” 

“Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to avow them and half doubtful if they can after all be right. Put me back among my friends and in half an hour – in ten minutes – these same views and standards become once again indisputable. The opinion of this little circle, while I am in it, outweighs that of a thousand outsiders: as friendship strengthens, it will do this even when my friends are far away. For we all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men ‘after our own heart.’ Only they really know our mind and only they judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we dread.” – C. S. Lewis


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