Polarization Processes

Definition

Like the North Pole and the South Pole or the opposite ends of a magnet, poles represent extreme endpoints, and polarization indicates movement toward those extremes. In psychological terms, polarization processes describe movement in individuals' views toward opposite extremes. For example, imagine a group of individuals that includes both moderate supporters and moderate opponents of abortion, and [Page 675]imagine they engage in a discussion of the issue. Imagine further that each side then becomes more extreme in its respective support of, or opposition to, abortion. That movement to more extreme positions is said to reflect polarization because each side has moved to a more extreme pole or endpoint on the relevant continuum. In social psychology, polarization processes have been studied in three domains: group decision making, attitudes, and intergroup perception.

Group Decision Making

Beginning in the 1960s, researchers became interested in how individual judgments could be affected by group discussion. A typical study would present individuals with a number of problems, known as choice dilemmas, in which the task was to indicate a preference for one of two possible solutions to each problem. For example, participants would be asked to indicate the minimum probability that a new company will survive before a prospective employee should accept a position with the company rather than retain an existing job. In the typical design, participants would indicate their responses individually and then engage in a conversation about the problem with other members of a group. The group would be asked to render its unanimous joint decision, and then each member would be asked to indicate, once again, his or her personal response.

The standard finding from such research was that a group would reach a joint decision favoring more risk than the average response of its constituent members. For example, imagine that a group included three members, and one of those members indicated initially that there had to be a 5 in 10 chance that the hypothetical company would succeed before the employee should accept the new position. Imagine another group member indicated a response of 3 in 10, whereas the final member responded with 1 in 10. The average response of the three members would then be 3 in 10. However, after discussion, the group might come to a joint decision of 2 in 10, and individual members' personal responses might also gravitate toward the riskier end of the probability continuum. This finding was labeled the “risky shift” because group discussion tended to push individuals to adopt, on average, riskier solutions to choice dilemmas than they initially favored.

Later research, however, suggested that the nature of the particular dilemma determined whether groups would end up favoring more risk than their average member or, alternatively, would favor more caution. For some choice dilemma items, for example, after group discussion, individuals who had previously expressed mild endorsement of the safe option would end up endorsing an even safer option. Accordingly, instead of the risky shift, the phenomenon became known as group polarization, because groups tended to move individual members to adopt positions that were somewhat more extreme than their initial stances. If those initial positions favored risk, then groups would prompt greater endorsement of risk; if instead, a safe option was preferred, then after group discussion, it would be more preferred.

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