In this day and age, people are relying more and more on social media to provide them with information. As we approach the presidential election, there is an increase in social media interaction with regards to the differing candidates. Memes with quotes and images of the candidates are shared and re-shared. What effect does this have on people’s relationships with each other as well as their political beliefs?
I know for me, I have found some people who I avoid their posts because I am afraid of making a comment that would upset them because of my differing opinions. There are other people on my social media that I have come to realize I have more in common with them because of the political views they share. This is in line with the suggested view that people use media to increase positive feelings towards members of similar affiliations (Ponder & Haridakis, 2015).
Social media also removes the person’s ability to waver between two or three candidates because it established a herd mentality that motivates a person to choose between political positions. They constantly are exposed to their friends and families posting for or against candidates, influencing their opinions. The need to be involved in a cohesive group causes the person to become involved in Groupthink conditions.
As people watch their friends and family post about political views, they tend to rationalize the opinions of others as being good and true based on their relationships with those people. They strive to have similar opinions and create a unanimous front, often to the point of censoring their own doubts or frustrations.
Groupthink can be a difficult problem to overcome and can raise many difficulties. It negatively effects the person’s ability to make decisions. Some of the negative consequences listed by Schneider et al. include an incomplete survey of objectives and a failure to examine the risks of the preferred choice. (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012) Another risk of Groupthink is that people will stop researching alternatives and will develop an uneducated bias towards a political ideal or candidate.
This election provides a very interesting selection of candidates and some very strong moral objections to many of them for many people. This is causing people to become very outspoken in their political ideas. People are eliminating friends on Facebook in an effort to create a more unanimous front on their Facebook feed and eliminating the possibility of receiving alternative viewpoints on the candidates.
Hopefully the almost “herd mentality” caused by this Groupthink will not cause there to be a President that will lead our country to misfortune. I am not writing this in favor of any political candidate or to cause a political debate over the candidates, I am only interested in the social aspects that social media has had on this election.
References
Ponder, J., & Haridakis, P. (2015). Selectively Social Politics: The Differing Roles of Media Use on Political Discussion. Mass Communication and Society, 18(3), 281-302. doi:10.1080/15205436.2014.940977
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology (Second Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE publications.
Tags: #Groupthink, #herdmentality, #politics, #socialmedia, psych424
Your comment regarding your fear of making certain political posts that may offend certain “friends” relates to some of the points of Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan’s (2008) research. They discussed how many people, particularly adolescents and young adults, use social media profiles as a way of essentially testing personalities. When they receive positive feedback they are more likely to incorporate those aspects in to their identity (Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008). When applied to your comments regarding political views, I would imagine that positive feedback on a particular political perspective may reinforce that opinion during identity formation. Likewise, it would stand to reason, that negative feedback could cause someone to potentially reevaluate certain perspectives. I think this process can be both positive and negative. If for instance, a person is posting hateful messages and receiving positive feedback, they may be more likely to incorporate that type of negative behavior in to their personal identities in real life. At the same time, perhaps the exposure to varying viewpoints will lead to a broadening of someone’s personal perspective to be more inclusive and less extreme.
References
Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on MySpace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446-458.
It’s intriguing to look at the dynamic of online communities and consider it a totally separate culture. The heard mentality you talk about is something that no generation had. The openness and acceptance of online communities is something that makes the internet a great place, but leads to this groupthink issue. The problem comes when these groups are swayed so easily by each other, for or against another candidate. The ease that a candidate can influence a huge group has never been so easy. A simple tweet can be the difference between support or opposition. The problem is only made worse by the mainstream media promoting who they want to see as president. This pushes people to seek other means of getting information, which leads them to the internet. In a world where we have so much information at our finger tips, it is hard to see what is real and if our decisions are being made for us or by the group.
Good post, made me think.