Group Polarization Paper

In the United States, our legislative process relies on individuals working together in groups. This group work is an important part of our government, but the process is definitely affected by group behavior. In groups, there is a thing called deindividuation where people lose control of themselves, lose self-awareness, and it is mostly because in groups people feel more anonymous. In groups, some conditions can make people want to rise up to their full potential, while others feel tempting to “free ride” on the work that others put in. When people in groups all rise to their full potential, getting work done becomes easier. When people in groups expect everyone else to put work in, getting work done is more difficult. Group efforts can have

This could be happening in the legislative process, where all the group members have ideas, but feel that their own ideas are not good enough/don’t matter so they don’t share them. If group members all benefit equally even if they all don’t contribute, some of the members might slack off. Without proper motivation and intentions or comfortable with the group, members might free ride off of others’ efforts.
The idea of group polarization stems from initial differences between people growing. These differences increase a lot over time. Group polarization occurs when beliefs and attitudes in a group of people who think exactly the same grow stronger because they’re being discussed in a group with similar views. Group polarization can be beneficial when the result is bringing awareness to and resolving big/bad issues. But, it can be bad such as when groups become more prejudice by only expressing ignorant views and ignoring anyone who feels

With more contact between people, prejudices tend to subside as time passes. When knowing someone for extended periods of time, acceptance is finally achieved and people are more likely to support one another. Also, indirect contact can reduce prejudice, whether it’s listening to stories from relatives, etc. Sometimes contact is avoided because of fear of being ignored or shut down, but if people get more courage to interact with one another, prejudices can disappear and good relations can come out of