The Attraction of Extreme Stances
People tend towards extreme or absolute views, especially in online conversation. A recent post inspired me and sparked an idea as to why this happens.
I came across a Reddit post today about taking naps during the day. The post itself was not particularly exciting — it’s some interesting info about the benefits of naps with different lengths, but unfortunately has no sources attached and is very oversimplified.
However, what really caught my eye were a couple of the comments. Some people said naps were completely useless for them and could even ruin their day. Others said naps worked wonders, and helped them be more alert and energized.
Since the author of the post expressed a clear stance in support of naps, it’s quite natural for most responses to be either supporting or opposing that stance. You see this all the time on the Internet.
I noticed another common theme between the comments, however. People on both sides of the debate took extreme stances. They weren’t just for or against — most of them were either entirely in support or in complete opposition to taking naps.
I couldn’t help but think — Why? Why were people taking such an extreme stance?
Even if we ignore the fact that most of the evidence that people provided was one-sided and anecdotal, some commenters jumped to massive conclusions.
One of them (as of writing, the top comment) even said the following: “[…] I even forget my work tasks for the day and have to go back to my schedule to check so the memory thing is a myth.”
Excuse me, what?? Just because something doesn’t resonate with your individual experience doesn’t mean it’s a myth. If that’s how we made conclusions about most things, we’d surely be doomed to ignore much of the nuance that makes life both interesting and difficult.
But maybe that’s exactly how we think. Maybe there’s something about human psychology that makes us go towards the extremes.
Extremism as oversimplification
I’ve been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow recently, which talks about errors in human thinking, judgement, and decision-making. One of the central themes is the fact that when we make decisions and form impressions subconsciously (which is most of the time), we tend to be biased towards perceiving the world as simpler than it actually is.
Essentially, we “think” by subconsciously constructing stories about whatever it is we are perceiving — people, situations, or any other type of information. We tend to prefer stories that are more coherent — in other words, simpler and easier to understand and act on.
In practice, this allows us to process information and navigate our environment at an incredible speed, which makes us effective survivors in the savannah. However, this is not as desirable when we have to make conscious decisions that could have consequences for ourselves and others — which happens frequently as we try to navigate the modern world.
With that in mind, adopting an extreme stance in an argument or debate could be a way to oversimplify the problem. This makes the story constructed from the opinion much more coherent.
It is much easier to believe that one side is entirely correct, while the other is entirely wrong. If you believe that, you can safely ignore the complexity inherent in most issues discussed nowadays (including, as you are well aware, that of sleep).
Simply put, thinking that something is a “myth” or “fake news” or “the truth” is very easy compared to accounting for many of the factors that could be influencing the conversation. Nuance is difficult to appreciate without mental effort.
In essence, here’s my intuition: extreme stances are more coherent, and it is therefore more appealing to adopt them. That’s why we see people talking in absolute terms all the time. But as you’ll quickly learn if you browse the comments on Reddit, more often than not extreme stances are not conducive of a healthy conversation.
So what?
I hope this discussion has not been too rant-y. Either way, you might be left thinking — So what?
As always, I’d encourage you to make your own conclusions based on what I’ve discussed.
With that in mind, for me this is liberating. It allows me to not get caught up when reading discussions online. I know that a lot of the time the extreme opinions people express (sometimes aggressively) are just a result of their subconscious decision-making, and not a deliberate effort.
Thinking in these terms allows me to observe and take part in online conversations without being as emotionally attached to them. I think this is something a lot of people struggle with.
It’s also just very interesting for me to think about these things, to analyze, to an extent, the social interactions that I am part of, whether that’s online on in person. Sometimes that’s more than enough of a “so what”. :)
What conclusions did you draw from this? I would love to hear what you think, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment or get in touch.
Attention is a valuable resource. Thank you for investing yours with me.
This article is part 9 of my 50 Bad Articles initiative, where I write 50 crappy articles in 50 days, in an attempt to kickstart my writing journey.
