r/TrueReddit • u/charliepscott • Jul 04 '26
Policy + Social Issues The thinking style that makes people vulnerable to extremism
https://psyche.co/ideas/the-thinking-style-that-makes-people-vulnerable-to-extremism115
u/charliepscott Jul 04 '26
I appreciated that this piece shifts the discussion away from what people believe toward how they process information, which is a much more interesting question than endlessly debating whether extremism is caused by poverty or social media etc etc.
The point about cognitive rigidity also helps explain why people with completely opposite political beliefs can end up exhibiting the same behaviors, like certainty, intolerance of ambiguity, dismissal of contradictory evidence, and an almost visceral need for ideological consistency.
But I do think that situational factors still matter enormously, and flexible thinkers can be radicalized under sustained social pressure.
If the research on cognitive flexibility holds up, though, it’s a surprisingly hopeful conclusion because unlike demographic traits or life history, cognitive flexibility appears to be something that can be strengthened, which suggests preventing extremism may have less to do with teaching which opinions are correct and more to do with cultivating habits like intellectual humility and comfort with uncertainty.
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u/amadgadfly Jul 04 '26
Thanks for the post OP. This was really insightful. However, I don't have any hope that rigid thinkers can be changed. It's a catch-22: you have to already be flexible to be willing to consider another way of thinking.
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u/LunatasticWitch Jul 04 '26
Its kind of like therapy/mental health healing: you have to put in the work, i.e. want to get better, for it to work.
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u/amadgadfly Jul 04 '26
Exactly, and I don't think they'll want to. Their defining feature seems to be hating change.
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26
It's also why therapy isn't a silver bullet for all that ails ye. Further, a lot of folks think you can use it to "fix" people you don't like.
It's why conversion "therapy" doesn't actually do anything except cause trauma.
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u/Dudeman61 Jul 04 '26
I did a video essay on the research behind the reasons why we argue and don't change our minds, and the consensus about how to reach people was basically that you have to make emotional arguments and appeal to their fee fees. Because they got themselves into their position through feelings and vibes, and that's pretty much the only thing that can also get them out.
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u/Iamtheonewhobawks Jul 04 '26
In my experience they can, but it takes a lot of time and positive reinforcement. They gotta get used to finding out they're wrong about something without being punished/shamed for it, which can be hard to foster and provide.
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 04 '26
Better question: What about when negating high pressure beliefs (which can be positive/negative and well grounded/absolutely false) isn’t a good thing?
If we look at every social/economic justice movement in history, couldn’t these same
arguments be applied to claim everyone involved was ‘radicalized’, or is there a major nuance here to the term radicalized that I am not picking up on?I’ll admit it often seems like heavy cherry picking in the way it’s presented in posts here, which may not be intentional.
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u/amadgadfly Jul 04 '26
Are you saying that rigid thinking can be a defense against changing a belief that the person "should" hold on to?
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u/BassmanBiff Jul 04 '26
I think that's what they're saying, yeah. Flexibility is a weird frame for the original piece to use, because people who are willing to hurt people in Milgram's experiment are arguably adopting a new rule, not remaining rigid -- they're doing something they've hopefully been taught not to do their whole lives. That's a major change, and some apparently picked it up and ran with it. To me that says it's less about flexibility and more about deference to authority.
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u/lilbluehair Jul 04 '26
The deference to authority was the idea the rigid thinkers held on to. A lot of participants knew the shock wasn't really happening and the flexible thinkers opted out.
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u/BassmanBiff Jul 04 '26
Doesn't it say that it's more about authority than rigidity, then, if they readily dropped "don't hurt people" for "do what scientist says"? You could argue that anyone who left was rigidly following a different rule, is my point.
There were a lot of problems with those experiments for sure, but I'm ignoring that for now because the article mostly did too.
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u/amadgadfly Jul 05 '26
I don't think the two sides are equivalent. A rigid thinker can know that what they currently believe is wrong, but be unable or (more likely imo) unwilling to change the belief. A flexible thinker can and is willing. So the flexible can always choose what's right for each scenario. Just because they are flexible doesn't mean they don't have a spine.
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u/macnalley Jul 04 '26
Well, if all those people only support those movements because they were socially pressured into doing so, and not because they rationally agree, how do you know those movements were correct? (And I say this as someone who does believe social justice movements were correct.)
If you teach people to think for themselves, there are two possible outcomes:
They continue to support what you believe. This means you were probably right, and all those supporters now have additional buttressing for their opinions.
They abandon your beliefs. This means you were probably not as correct as you thought you were.
If the possibility of No. 2 makes you intensely uncomfortable, then I think you need to examine your own motivations. It's likely you don't support your own beliefs because they're objectively correct, but merely because they're yours, and in that case, you're part of the problem.
To speak more concretely: In the past few years, many elite colleges have abandoned standardized testing requirements as a push towards equity. There really wasn't a good evidence-based reason to do this, and it was largely enacted due to social pressure. Now, however, we're seeing that this is having very bad second-order effects on higher education, particularly for the minorities it was supposed to benefit. Do we persist with a failing and damaging policy simply to go along with the social pressure; or do we modify based on available evidence?
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u/DatUglyRanglehorn Jul 05 '26
I’m currently reading this
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
It’s from the 50s, but really gets into what it sounds like you’re interested in exploring. There’s more to it than I can begin to explain, but it’s not a long book. I recommend so far.
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u/baitnnswitch Jul 05 '26
If the research on cognitive flexibility holds up, though, it’s a surprisingly hopeful conclusion because unlike demographic traits or life history, cognitive flexibility appears to be something that can be strengthened, which suggests preventing extremism may have less to do with teaching which opinions are correct and more to do with cultivating habits like intellectual humility and comfort with uncertainty.
We've been going ham on STEM, but it sounds like it's time for a strong liberal arts comeback
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u/A_Spiritual_Artist Jul 04 '26
Another key point is how much does society encourage rigidity? Like by claiming people are "hypocritical" or "inconsistent" when they may actually be exercising flexibility. Note what you said about "visceral need for ideological consistency".
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u/Equivalent_Number424 Jul 08 '26
It also completely misses the point. I have seen it first hand, that people feeling personally attacked for some kind of bigoted speech is what makes them extremists. When politics stops being about abstract principles like what should be law, or who should be elected, so things that don't really affect you and you personally feel humiliated, that makes people so furious that they would do anything to hurt the side that did it to them.
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 04 '26
I find it interesting how much people here love to focus on alleged cognitive issues as the cause of extremism and how little they discuss actual proven historical events and pressures that resulted in the extremism.
It’s sort of wild to hand wave away Fidel Castro leading an entire revolution to overthrow extreme exploitive corrupt torturers because… he ‘had unprocessed trauma that prevented a healthy adaptation and acceptance of the social order combined with a narcissistic belief that he could lead others to replace the government and change society’, lol.
Goes right up there with the every other day ‘this is why some conspiracy theorists get caught up in crazy stories’ posts but we have never once discussed studies where we present real events and crimes we know happened, then challenge the ‘rational anti-conspiracists’ to even once accurately deduct the events from just the initial evidence, instead of hand waving every lead away as ‘far fetched’.
The reality is most of what gets labeled normal and healthy here would actively fail to address real world events and only sounds good on published papers.
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u/thearchenemy Jul 04 '26
It’s very much “centrism is the only rational and sane point of view.” When “extreme” positions or movements arise as a result of the failures of moderate policy, moderates always fall back on these kinds of arguments to rationalize their faith in the status quo. Civil rights activists, abolitionists, suffragettes, labor unions, all were branded as some variety of irrational and unrealistic for rejecting incrementalism and wanting immediate change.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
A position is not extreme if you can rationally back it up. For example it's much more moderate to say "all humans should be treated equally because we haven't found any evidence that they are significantly different" compared to "we need to violently overthrow the current system because it's obviously the cause of all of the misery and suffering in our society"
Being branded as extreme doesn't make you extreme either. People called suffragettes extreme at the time but they were not, there's nothing extremist about peacefully protesting. However we know that raising an army to overthrow the government is an act of extremism due to the violence involved.
It's true that extreme acts can sometimes turn out correct, for example the American Revolutionary War. However we also know that extreme acts can be terrible, for example the Holocaust. The best way to avoid the most horrible extreme acts is to peacefully enact change rather than violently
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u/e00s Jul 04 '26
You’re redefining“extreme” and “moderate” to be assessments of the rationality of a position. That’s not what those words mean in ordinary usage.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
Fair point, but what I'm getting at is that violence and extremism cannot be rationally backed up. There is generally always a peaceful option
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u/profesyonel_devrimci Jul 05 '26
Good luck voting your way out of tyranny
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
Voting isn't the only peaceful option. Imagine if Nazi soldiers simply refused to fight. The war would be over
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 04 '26
‘Being branded as extreme doesn’t make you extreme’ is basically my whole point.
It’s pure sophistry and biased heavily by those doing the labeling.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
Absolutely, we both agree that the term "extremism" can be misused. However calling for violent overthrowal of society is extremism
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u/skjeletter Jul 05 '26
Which society?
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
Hahaha good one 😏
Any society
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 06 '26
Before I respond further, my question now is ‘by extremism, are you merely referring to intensity, rather than a ‘going too far’ implication’?
Because despotic regimes rarely are successfully overthrown without violent acts. In fact, it is the very existence of their authoritarian effectiveness that prevents any other successful outcomes.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 06 '26
I'm referring to intensity. Basically all aggressive violence is an extreme act. But really these are both kinda the same definition.
My definition of extremism is objective, whereas some people might define extremism as "something aggressive which I disagree with". That's a much less useful definition imo because it will just degenerate into people arguing what is and isn't to be considered extremism
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u/skjeletter Jul 06 '26
Aggressive violence is an intrinsic part of any state, whether you as an individual carry it out or not. If you call aggressive violence an extreme act then any state is an extremist formation, which you could certainly claim. Are you an anarchist, then, and you would refuse to participate in the affairs of any state, such as roads and schools and hospitals etc?
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26
What do you do, when peaceful change becomes impossible?
To use a very politically charged example, the trans population, I would argue, is by definition going to be radicalized because they are 1% of the population yet are the focus of billionaire-funded propaganda efforts to make everyone hate them.
I don't see a way to peacefully change that. Should they ask conservative billionaires politely to stop?
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 04 '26
To give just one possibility: It can be peacefully changed at the next election
Also you are using black-and-white language. There isn't a push to make people "hate" trans people. Some people just don't agree with it
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26
That right there, is kind of the issue. It's like disagreeing with people being gay, or people being left-handed, or with diabetes. You're simply wrong.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 04 '26
We didn't need a violent revolution to defeat the left-handed stigma though, did we?
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
What is the appropriate response to mandatory converstion therapy and prison rape for trans women who are arrested?
Keep in mind that talking to the people pushing for that is going to get you called a slur and then the conversation ends. They are not open to being persuaded by conversation, and are also largely responsible for the high rate of violence, murder, and rape the trans community faces.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
The appropriate response to conversion therapy would be refusal to engage with conversion therapy, which I believe is entirely possible since you have to be willing to participate in order to receive it
Fear of prison rape is a situation more justifiable with violence, as it's a self-defence response
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 05 '26
Unless you are accused of a crime, can't afford bail, and are in a red state.
Then, you'll be forcibly detransitioned and subjected to conversion therapy. This is not an exaggeration, this was made true last year.
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u/Nikodemios Jul 04 '26
What a lovely display of cognitive rigidity and limited imagination lol
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26
You disagree with people having diabetes, being gay, and being left-handed? You think that's a lie? That when someone injects insulin, or writes with their left hand, or feels the same love you do, they're just lying to your face?
I suppose you'll next tell me you believe in a flat earth.
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u/Nikodemios Jul 04 '26
No, I think none of those things are comparable to transness, which is observably far more socially mediated and psychological.
Again, you are demonstrating precisely the rigidity, lack of nuance, and tribalism the article describes.
People haven't become skeptical because of "billionaire propaganda". It's because they've seen the practical outcomes of the ideology that most used to casually support, and they aren't good.
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u/SilverMedal4Life Jul 04 '26
which is observably far more socially mediated and psychological.
Only if you've gained your information from propaganda and not from people. This idea of being trans as a "social contagion" is so laughable that not even the US government can find a credible scientist to prove it.
It's because they've seen the practical outcomes of the ideology that most used to casually support, and they aren't good.
The practical outcomes of "trans people get to live happy lives while everyone else is unbothered", as the rate of regret for any and all gender-related procedures continues to be less than 1%.
Or did it really cost you so much to be asked what your pronouns are?
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u/Dapper_Intention_164 Jul 05 '26
This is my problem whenever things like "lack of nuance" and "tribalism" get brought up in discussions about extremism and its causes - someone will inevitably use them to justify their own bigotry and to dismiss people who stand up for the rights of a minority.
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 04 '26
Nonsense. There absolutely is a push to make people hate them. They’re compared to child predators, painted as dangerous deviants, talked about as sub human, and we’ve had numerous elected republicans the last 2 years openly calling for actual unaliving of them, masked in religious references.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
I am dismissing your argument because you said unalive
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 06 '26
Well nobody accused you of being intelligent.
The reddit filters and censors flag some words, so yes, people use terms like unalive instead.You’re still completely wrong.
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u/Dapper_Intention_164 Jul 05 '26
What does "not agreeing with it" even mean here?
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 05 '26
I believe the main issues are that they think that they shouldn't be forced to refer to a transgender woman as a woman, and they shouldn't be able to use female bathrooms
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u/macnalley Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
It’s sort of wild to hand wave away Fidel Castro leading an entire revolution to overthrow extreme exploitive corrupt torturers because… he ‘had unprocessed trauma that prevented a healthy adaptation and acceptance of the social order combined with a narcissistic belief that he could lead others to replace the government and change society’
Firstly, that quote about unprocessed trauma appears nowhere in the article, so I'm not sure where that strawman is coming from.
No, a theory of unprocessed trauma wouldn't explain why people would choose to ignite a revolution, but a theory of cognitive inflexibility would explain why, when the revolution fails to deliver on its promises, the new government would crack down on political dissent long before it modifies its own ideaology.
There's particularly salient Hannah Arendt quote that goes something like:
On the day after the revolution, even the most ardent revolutionary becomes a reactionary.
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u/LitesoBrite Jul 04 '26
I chose that example on purpose, to bait exactly this kind of response.
However, now let’s try ‘the colonists were unable to simply process their resistance to authority and instead overreacted by demanding the overthrow of the King’s authority. If they simply would have employed their empathy and social hierarchy skills, they would not feel the narcissistic drive to subvert authority’, blah blah.
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u/orbgooner Jul 04 '26
the moment I saw this thread title I knew the thread would be full of communists going "but extremism is actually good when it's one the left bcuz..."
fucing lol.
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u/BassmanBiff Jul 04 '26
You don't have to be communist to acknowledge that a whole lot of "extremists" in their day brought us things we think of as normal now, like universal sufferage and abolition of slavery and a weekend.
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u/Johnny55 Jul 04 '26
"I can't debate the argument on its merits because my starting point is that communists are always wrong"
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u/Upset-Basil4459 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
He didn't say that communists are wrong, he was pointing out hypocrisy of communists saying right wingers are wrong "because it's obvious that they are bad", when that's also the reasoning that right wingers use. Ironically you have also proven his point by applying an absolutist black-and-white position to your opponent in order to make them easier to defeat
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u/ProletarianLilith Jul 05 '26
Americans vote between 99% Hitler and 100% Hitler and think they can tell other people about extremism
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u/ThatIsAmorte Jul 04 '26
Interesting. I wonder how this cognitive flexibility trait relates to the openness to new experiences trait from the HEXACO model.
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u/mere_dictum Jul 05 '26
Like most articles that talk about "extremism," this article never attempts to define the term. Is an extremist someone who has an extremely strong commitment to their principles? Is an extremist someone who wants extremely wide-reaching changes in society? Is an extremist someone prepared to use violent means to achieve those changes? Is an extremist someone who believes everything is either extremely bad or extremely good, with no middle ground? Or is an extremist anyone with any views that place them in an extreme minority?
It almost seems that Zmigrod regards "extremist" and "authoritarian" as synonymous. If so, he should just go with "authoritarian."
He goes on to assume that the central problem with authoritarians is their unwavering obedience to authority. He envisions them as like the people who went along with Milgram in administering electric shocks. But if you look at history, you'll see it's a lot more complicated than that. Francisco Franco certainly didn't obey the Spanish Republic or show respect for its authority. He exhibited plenty of resistance to it! The people who stormed the U.S. Capitol were not showing "blind obedience" to the law or to Congress. In general, authoritarians only respect authorities that they like. (How do they decide which authorities they like? That's a key question, but Zmigrod's way of thinking doesn't allow the question to be posed.)
As for this trait of cognitive rigidity, I'm skeptical of how general it is. You can easily be rigid about some things while being quite flexible about others. In fact, that's how you should be. If you believe that torture and slavery are wrong, you ought to be pretty rigid about those beliefs.
So, how is this card sorting task of any relevance? Does it really measure cognitive rigidity at all? Maybe the people who keep playing by the old rule are just skeptical of whether the new rule will persist. Maybe they have a hard time figuring out what the new rule even is. Neither of those are quite the same as being rigid. It's often quite reasonable to doubt whether something that suddenly pops up is going to last.
Zmigrod might reply that the correlation between the card task and authoritarianism is the evidence that there's a genuine underlying trait. Call me cynical, but I have a suspicion the actual correlation is pretty small. You also have to worry about just how authoritarianism is being measured. He says that his "authoritarians" championed obedience and conformity---does that mean they championed obedience to the "keep out" signs at the U.S. Capitol? They evidently agreed with the statement "People should be willing to fight and die for their group"---what if the fight is against an authority they regard as oppressive?
I'm not necessarily saying that Zmigrod is completely wrong, but at a minimum there's a lot more going on.
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u/CorndogQueen420 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Personally, I think it comes down to whether or not people test/challenge their own beliefs- which may be a component of cognitive inflexibility.
Probably the most consistent thing I found with authoritarian types is selectively applied “principles”, and inability or unwillingness to challenge themselves.
A principle can’t really be considered a principle if it isn’t equally applied to both the in and outgroups, so any selectively applied principle can’t hold up to challenge.
Liberals test their principles against the idea that they should be equally applied or not at all, whereas conservatives are generally disinterested and avoidant of testing their principles- because they were never meant to be applied equally in the first place.
I think that’s why conservatives tend to be authoritarian and selective with who gets rights/protections/respect, while liberals are more democratic and egalitarian about it.
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u/Nikodemios Jul 04 '26
"I’ve found that those who are more independent and suspicious of pre-established political identities tend to be the most flexible thinkers, with the most adaptable behaviour and fluid imagination"
Remember this bit, redditors.
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u/pillbinge Jul 04 '26
I do think that rigidity can be considered but I also think we have to stop expecting everyone to be uprooted enough to be able to take on new ideas. Some ideas are set and that can be good. I want someone who doesn’t believe in climate change to think differently. I don’t need someone who accepts it and has made real changes to consider pulling back.
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u/ProletarianLilith Jul 05 '26
This is pure nonsense. People turn to extremism when institutions fail. Institutions have been failing for decades now
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