How your Group Identity hijacks your Personal Identity.

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” -George Carlin

It’s like any other morning in your house and you are flipping through the newspaper, the Headline mentions a new social welfare scheme your government is planning to implement. You feel the government shouldn’t waste money on such schemes and instead construct a new freeway to increase the economic activity. You flip the page and see a news article about a crime being committed by an immigrant and conclude that ever since your country took in refugees, the crime in your country has gone way up. You glance at the editorials to find a scathing news piece critiquing your religious practices, and you think to yourself that your religion is in danger. Finding the regular news sobering, you instead turn to the sports column in the end and find that your favourite team won the game last night and you feel ecstatic. Chances are that someone else reacted exactly the opposite way to the same news articles. Why does this happen? Unbeknownst to you, your group identity colours the way you perceive the information presented to you. Group identity refers to a person’s sense of belonging to a particular group. Most of the time this identity lurks deep within our human psyche and influences our actions and thoughts. It’s rarely an overt form of expression.

If you have ever shared a post on political activism you didn't completely believe in, supported a hashtag you couldn't strongly identify with, then you know what it feels like to succumb to group identity. But why do we do it? Why do we try so hard to fit into a group?

Man, for the longest time has been a social animal. From the advent of the Cognitive Revolution( Communication via language), homo sapiens have always lived and travelled in groups. Living in groups ensured survival and reproduction along with the timely availability of food. One could fall asleep in the wild knowing that someone in the tribe will wake them up in the event of danger. Tribal polity eventually led to the development of distinct cultures, myths and legends that a certain tribe member came to strongly identify with. So not only did the group provide him with tools to survive but it also gave him a group identity. Young boys and girls had to go through elaborate rituals and tests in order to be recognized as a valuable member of the tribe. The necessity to belong to a group has been biologically coded into us and our mammalian brain has somehow convinced us into thinking that being part of a group equals survival.

But times have changed, we don’t live in the wild, dodging death on a daily basis anymore. No village elder in a tribal headgear indoctrinated me into the society. We have moved out of closely-knit communities that were the norm in the pre-industrial era to live in densely populated urban cities as individual citizens. In fact, we are more individualistic now than we ever were in entire human history. The Man may have shed his tribal lifestyle but the need to belong to a group has never been more potent. So we invented a new type of groups to identify with, such as race, religion, political affiliation, socio-economic classes. This neo grouping has given rise to new kinds of phenomena like prejudice, stereotyping, Ingroup-Outgroup bias.

These new groups didn’t seem to provide any evolutionary advantage, meaning that they weren’t necessary for our survival but were important nonetheless. The industrial era ensured modern man was isolated from his rural community, so it was obvious that he felt alienated and didn’t know his place in society. These new groups left no stone unturned in filling that gap. So in a way we never managed to shed our tribal character, we just replaced it with newer more refined versions of tribes. This led to fundamental changes in how we view ourselves and how we view others in relation to us:

As long as the individuals in groups engage in rational discourse and are comfortable with their beliefs being subjected to scrutiny, groups can actually be beneficial. But this is rarely the case, as individuals become ardent followers of the group, they tend to discard beliefs that are contradictory to their collective ideology. Here’s how groups can hijack your personal identity:

Interpersonal relations that rely on group identities can be deteriorating to the social fabric. There is a general mistrust among the individuals. As a result, it is a major hindrance to social harmony. Even in times of conflict, due to diametrically opposite viewpoints, groups can’t engage in rational discourse. Given the lack of consensus among them, they rarely reach an amicable solution. This explains the polarisation of masses along ideological lines and inherent conflicts that arise due to it.

At an individual level, group identities are far more destructive. It took us many millennia and a lot of experimentation to grow out of our tribal mindsets and become the self-enlightened individuals that we are now. Various constitutions around the world today provide their citizens with inalienable rights and grant them a plethora of liberties. A single individual today could do the work of an entire tribe with the help of technology and human ingenuity. To give all that up for a little sense of belongingness seems like a betrayal to our genealogy. It is necessary that we preserve our rationality and not become an agent of a group.

There are ways we can avoid becoming a prisoner of our own group identity. First, we need to thoroughly educate ourselves on the issue at hand. Listen to the other side before coming to a judgement. Being open to counterarguments on the said issue makes sure that we haven't made a hasty decision. Secondly, Inter-group contact, which means healthy interaction between opposite groups should be encouraged. This can help shatter the stereotypes negatively associated with the rival group.

Our distinctiveness and diversity are the essence of human civilization, they have always existed and will continue to exist till the end of time. So in a way, it's impossible to shed our group identity. That doesn’t mean we can’t tame it to our will. It is thus necessary that we preserve our rationality and sanity and not get embroiled in petty ideological battles. So next time a polarising social movement asks you to pick a side, don’t jump at the chance but rather sit back and introspect.

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This essay was originally published as part of Tiffany Sostar’s pandemic-themed zine, “Succulent.” Support Tiffany’s work, or download the full zine here. “Momma, are we nevering right now?” My…