The identity threat of outgroups

As another election draws near, the bifurcation of our country continues to grow. While that’s ok to a small degree, as we should believe in what we believe in, it generally goes much further than it should.

A big reason for this is the creation of ingroups and outgroups; either you’re like us or you’re not. In his book “ Supercommunicators “, author Charles Duhigg explains it like this:

“Our social identities push us unthinkingly to see people like us-what psychologists call our ingroup-as more virtuous and intelligent, while those who are different-the out-group-as suspicious, unethical, and possibly threatening. Social identities help us relate to others, but they can also perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice.”

How are these outgroups created? Often from people intentionally trying to distance themselves. From the book:

But there was one behavior, in particular, that consistently made people uncomfortable and upset: If a speaker said something that lumped a listener into a group against her or his will, the discussion would likely go south. Sometimes speakers would assign listeners membership in a group they didn’t like-”You’re rich, so you know most rich people are snobs”- and the listener would be offended by the insinuation they were snobbish. Sometimes a speaker would deny someone membership in a group…