Hypothesis: Interactions Over the Internet Between Diametrically Opposed American Cultural Groups Insinuates/Accelerates Abnormal Social Behaviors Based on Each Group's Negative Perceptions of the Other.
Or rather, Group A makes crazy exaggerated memes of Group B and B unconsciously accepts them, acts them out, and does their own memes of Group A who also unconsciously accepts them and acts them out. The result, crazier groups and crazier memes.
I spent most of the past 19 years outside the US. Upon return I found the nation’s far left and right wings somehow immensely larger and yet somehow crazier.
In casting for an answer, I remembered a book called
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman, published 2008. In Chapter 5 they detailed an experiment where 51 men received biographical thumbnails of different women and pictures of those women they never met. The bios were correct; the pictures were not. The researchers selected photos of other women. The researchers instructed the men to call these women and fill out a survey on how they rated the women’s intelligence, wit, etc. Unsurprisingly, men with the prettiest women pictured rated them the highest. The kicker is that researchers recorded the conversations and played them back with the men’s conversation edited out to a test audience. The audience didn’t know either the men or women nor did they receive bios or pictures. They filled out the same survey and in it they generally agreed with the mens’ assessments. The experiment objectively proved women responded in accordance to men's subjective attitudes to them over the telephone despite those attitudes being based on fake pictures and expectations.
The actual experiment is
Social Perception and Interpersonal Behavior: On the Self-Fulfilling Nature of Social Stereotypes, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977, Vol 35, No 9, 656-666 by Mark Snyder (Univ. of Minnesota), Ellen Bersheid, (Univ. of Minnesota), and Elizabeth Decker Tanke (Univ. of Santa Clara). Here is a link to it:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.335.3131&rep=rep1&type=pdfSo my hypothesis is that in the past 20 years the internet has taken off, both sides of the US cultural debates have been negatively influencing each other. Doing so with overheated accusations, rhetoric, slanders, theories, arcane hothouse admiration society terms, memes, etc. over online forums, chat rooms, and social media. And that these are eroding the different groups’ self perceptions, behaviors, and logical capacities. Such interactions prior to the internet were done in social settings such as bars, clubs, at protests, and newspaper letters to the editors page. If valid, the hypothesis may be extended to include previously neutral parties or general sympathizers drawn to one group in after insults/labeling by another.
I can imagine many reasons why this hypothesis may be invalid.
Sway is popular reading, not a professional social psychology publication. Much may be altered, misinterpreted; accentuated for sensationalism and sales. The experiment itself is 42 years old and may present issues to modern social psychologists based on its suppositions, logic, experimental methodology, even the experimenters’ characters after the fact. Not to mention the influence of more current studies and experiments that may supersede or inform it. (Though I haven't heard of any.)
What do you think? Is it a viable hypothesis? If so, is there a way to test it?
Note: It's not important to me in responding on who's wrong or right on the different sides of the political spectrum. Nor is it a matter of which side is first at fault for making the other crazy. I know it's hard but let's leave that out.
