Pete Larson

If you are wondering why so many people have lost their minds? Identity Fusion: It's when our individual self gets subsumed by our group identity. We hand over our thinking to the group. Your tribe does more to determine your morality than your morality does to determine your tribe. Researchers found that our political affiliation predicts our moral beliefs. Politics shape "how individuals rationalize what is right and what is wrong." The researchers summarized their findings: "We will switch our moral compass depending on how it fits with what we believe politically." Sound familiar? People changing their views to go wherever the group goes... What makes someone susceptible to identity fusion? -Low self-esteem -Low cognitive complexity -Higher levels of loneliness -Someone has a very rigid view of the world. Research tells us that we often grasp onto groups to fill a void. We feel lonely, isolated, without significance, direction or meaning... and we fill that void with something that promises security. But it's the fake, cheap superficial kind. We latch onto groups, become ideologues because it makes us FEEL something again...in a world that increasingly numbs us. We feel alive....like we're a part of something...like we are doing something meaningful when we defend our group or leader on the internet... Even though we're just screaming at clouds or into a void. In a world where we've increasingly made people feel numb, alone, and hopeless...identity fusion is rampant. It's the cheap solution to a more complex problem. When there's near-complete overlap between our self and group identity, we look for where the group goes to understand the appropriate belief or action. Our brain, the expert rationalizer, then convinces us that it's our individual belief or idea after the fact. It's the shortcut to a false sense of stability. Our groups tell us what matters, what to be concerned with, and what to value. It's how gangs thrive. In communities where chaos is high and socioeconomic status and opportunities are low, gangs step in to fill the void. In a review on the subject, law professor James Hardie-Hick suggested that "gangs can serve to reduce the existential uncertainties that accompany social exclusion and marginalization.” Gangs provide a stable identity and form of social status when many in the community are without either. For the rest of us, the entanglement with others is just as powerful. We see the same effect with online “gangs. As psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman pointed out, “Some fans (reach) such an attachment to a celebrity that the celebrity can never do any wrong and even the most hateful things are justified, excused, and even adored…with individual relationships we call this toxic.” So if you're looking around and thinking that regardless of the political aisle, it seems like the extremes on any side all end up abandoning their actual professed values and adopt some strange dogmatic approach where they echo and validate whatever the group now says... This is why. We need to stop fusing our identities with groups or leaders. You can like or love something, but be careful what you marry. We've settled for fitting-in, instead of genuine belonging. I go deeper into this in Chapter 8 of Win the Inside Game: Find Belonging Without Fusing. Check out the book: amzn.to/4ko22re