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Why Extremist Views Dominate
For many people — more than you might think — public and political dialogue seems dominated by extreme views that don't resonate.
A new study suggests a possible reason: People with extreme views seem more willing to share their opinions than others, but only if they believe, even falsely, that their views are popular.
However, the research looked at only a narrow topic range and involved just college students, so more study would be needed to reveal whether the findings apply broadly to other age groups and beliefs.
Still, the findings are intriguing.
The upshot of the research: Students who held extreme views on the use of alcohol on campus were more likely than others to voice their views. The key to their bold approach, scientists found, was that they tended to believe their views actually represented a majority, when that was not in fact the case.
That situation can set up a self-feeding cycle that promotes the voicing of extreme views on one side of an issue and causes moderate and even extremists on the other side to stay relatively quiet.
"When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are in the majority, they are more willing to express themselves," said Kimberly Rios Morrison, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University. Those who take the extreme version of their group's viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group, Morrison figures.
The studies
In a series of studies, Morrison and her co-author, Dale Miller of Stanford University, found that college students who were extremely pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others, even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about alcohol use.
"Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their opinion was much more popular than it actually was," she said. "They seemed to buy into the stereotype that college students are very comfortable with alcohol use."
The results were detailed recently in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
The studies were done at Stanford, where alcohol use is prohibited in common areas of all freshman dorms. In the first study, 37 students were asked to rate their own views about this policy on a scale from 1 (very strongly opposed) to 9 (very strongly in favor).
The average students' own views were near the mid-point of the scale, but most rated the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol than themselves.
"There's this stereotype that college students are very pro-alcohol, and even most college students believe it," Morrison said. "Most students think of themselves as less pro-alcohol than average."
In the next two studies, students again rated themselves on similar scales that revealed how pro-alcohol they were. They were then asked how willing they would be to discuss their views on alcohol use with other Stanford students.
In general, students who were the most pro-alcohol were the most likely to say they wanted to express their views, compared to those with moderate or anti-alcohol views.
A telling twist
Then researchers added a twist, giving participants fake data that indicated that other Stanford students held relatively conservative, anti-alcohol views. When extremely pro-alcohol students viewed this data, they were less likely to say they were willing to discuss alcohol usage with their fellow students.
"It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their views on the issue," Morrison said.
Interestingly, however, students who had more extreme anti-alcohol views still did not desire to express them, even after seeing the data that suggested a majority of their fellow students agreed with them.
"Their views that they are in the minority may be so deeply entrenched that it is difficult to change just based on our one experiment," Morrison said. "In addition, they don't have the experience expressing their opinions on the subject like the pro-alcohol extremists do, so they may not feel as comfortable."
The findings suggest possible parallels in politics, Morison figures.
She cites a hypothetical community that tends to be moderate politically, but leans slightly liberal. People with more extreme liberal views in the community may be more likely than others to attend publicly visible protests and display bumper stickers espousing their liberal views, because they think the community supports them.
A self-feeding cycle might ensue.
"Everyone else sees these extreme opinions being expressed on a regular basis and they may eventually come to believe their community is more liberal than it actually is," Morrison said. "The same process could occur in moderately conservative communities.
http://www.livescience.com/culture/0...ist-views.html
Election in Canada please tell me what is going to happpen now and why people in Canada are becoming nore conservative.
That study sounds politically idiotic. It seems to practically encourage a sort of attitude that really people are all "moderates" uninterested in politics, political change, or even political debate. I'm not saying that their data are falsified, or even that their conclusions are utterly without merit; but at very least the article is pretty bad.
Not all. Just most. And it's true.
Your dismissal of the study as "idiotic" actually helps make the OP's point. You don't agree with it after thinking about it for 3 minutes, so it is "idiotic."
Not "flawed" or "misleading" or "invalid," but "idiotic."
"Idiotic" was particularly in reaction to "extremely liberal" - liberal in the context used here, it's a meaningless phrase.
for personally knowing a considerable number of moderate i can confirm that, they are scared shitless of extremists from all sides and that stop them from telling what on their mind.
for exemple, where i live a Lot of people dodge the subject of seperatism with the canada beccause there is a important number of extremist who are more likely than psychologicly intimidate them.
WHY kléber, WHY!!!!!!!
I think that holds some water.
A lot of people seem to agree with, even accept, many radical ideas, but are turned-off by the radicals. In many instances, I can't blame them.
Well I'm lookin real hard and I'm trying to find a job but it just keeps gettin tougher every day
I don't know about the article but my experience is liberals and socialists can never debate with conservatives.
The conservatives will say so explain how the businesses control the government, how the prison industrial complex works , how the government is for the rich and capitalist . how the US supported dictator , liberals and socialists control every thing.
It happence here all too often.
I hope one day this devide of the left and right will be of the past.
Election in Canada please tell me what is going to happpen now and why people in Canada are becoming nore conservative.
But that itself suggests that opposite of the implicit notion here, that people are just sort of intrinsically against any radical change, or ideas. The fact that people don't like radicals, people with radical ideas, need have almost nothing to do with those radical ideas per se. There are lots of obvious problems even with radical leftists - esoteric conversations, a general distaste for actual workers, etc. At any rate, radicalism is relative. Lots of 'ordinary people' from medieval Europe would be considered radical religious fanatics by modern standards. I think we can reasonably say that the majority of Palestinians have "extreme" views about Israel. And as class consciousness changes (which it does), there will be a significant increase in "extreme" views by ordinary workers about capitalism.
I think if there's any ominous force pressuring people in a particular political direction, it's the entire ideological apparatus of capitalist society; which, for example, strongly discourages committed political beliefs by workers (especially in particular segments of the working class and there's a particular character to "anti-politics" in any case - but that's another couple conversations).
Last edited by jake williams; 26th October 2009 at 04:31.
Extremism isn't the problem, it's the types of extremism and how that extremism is practiced that's the problem.
Muslim extremism causes terrorism; Christian extremism causes homophobia; racist extremism causes hate-crimes; etc.
But what if we spent our time building and cultivating a new extremism, love extremism. Things like emptying our entire wallets when a homeless person asks for a dollar, talking to and helping someone who's obviously hurting when everyone else around just ignores the person.
These are real situations and very simple yet revolutionary actions that we can take. The more we do them and the more common we make them, the closer we'll be to a new society.
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
Yeah, it's probably true. Most people don't really give a fuck when it comes down to it. That attitude is far from harmless, and will be its own extreme.
'Extremism' as a concept is like 'Left' as a concept - based on old-fashioned and (I think) muddled thinking, an ideology. If there's a fire in a town, is it 'extreme' to want to put it out entirely and 'moderate' to just put out some of it? We live in a world dominated by one not-very-numerous class which has somehow to stop all the other people taking back the stolen product of their work, and the answer is ideology, 'commonsense' or what ever old nonsense means 'things are the way they are and will stay like that'. Any ideas that are not in tune with capitalist dominance are presented as 'extreme', and always will be. It is a way people can live with themselves, particularly if they know you are right - doing something about it is 'too extreme'!
What are you talking about? get your head out of the clouds.
No its not, its just being nice, the reason the homeless are homeless is not because people arn't nice.
About so called extremism, its just a term the ruling class and media uses to paint beliefs they don't agree on. For example, in the united States the idea of Socialism is "extreme" however when you look at the world and how people think, its not at all, only extreme to the ruling class.
Likewise with the "extremism" that I mentioned.
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
I am an extremist. We need extemity to change the world to be a better place.
Actually a quite crappy study. It is based on the American experience, where polarisation seems to be the norm. In Europe and much of the rest of the world, politics seem to converge to some kind of centre. In general elections, politicians are generally battling about centrist voters, not fringe voters.
Historical exceptions is for example the Weimar Republic where it ended up with nazis against comintern-backed marxist-leninists.
Thats not extremism, no one thinks love is extreme, its just a non-answer, a meaningless catch phrase.
Students who are extremely anti-alcohol aren't to believe data just because you present it to them. If you showed me data that 90% of people in America support gay marriage, I'd know you are lying.
Who would actually believe most students are strongly opposed to alcohol use? I think the study has some rather questionable methodology with this notion of a "fake study." The mind can know something is "not right" even if it can't consciously place what the problem is.
Only to those who haven't fallen in it
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
You do realize this is a social revolutionary forum right, not oprah.
Yeah and I understand what you mean; love can be a very abstract thing and has no universal definition because everyone's idea of love is relative. I can understand scoffing at the idea of using love as a revolutionary tactic but I think it's possible and will continue to pursue it.
Previously Green Apostle
[FONT=Arial]A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. --Henry Rollins[/FONT]
