Us Versus Us in the U.S.

Humans have a distinct nature as a result of their evolutionary history and, in particular, the process of natural selection. The germ of this idea is actually quite simple. Psychological mechanisms that provided an advantage for survival are genetically passed along to future generations. Those mechanisms may, or may not, be functional in the current environment—which barely resembles that which humans evolved in. For the most part, evolutionary theorists agree that human nature is mismatched for the modern landscape, resulting in a plethora of physical, psychological, and social ailments.

Alas, human cooperation—or the lack thereof—in the United States. What does evolutionary psychology say about that? We hear pleas for bipartisanship from both Democrats and Republicans (the left versus the right), yet they can not be further apart and the rift increases with time. Certainly the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic would be expected to elicit a bipartisan response. Shouldn’t it be us versus this problem that can potentially annihilate us physically and economically? No such luck. To the contrary, both sides double down on the party lines in their approach to these problems (e.g., no masks—or masks all the time even in non-crowded areas outside—despite reasonable empirical concerns about both extreme positions). As Maureen Dowd (New York Times) and others have observed, an individual's response to a particular event is shaped more by their pre-existing political beliefs than the event itself. In fact, one's position can even flip to accommodate group unity. Even a hint of objectivity has been thrown out the window.

As students of evolutionary psychology know, this is entirely predictable given what is known about human nature. Humans did not evolve as one happy, cooperative species. To the contrary, they evolved to be part of a smaller group that is in conflict with other groups. So-called us-versus-them psychological mechanisms had enormous benefits and thus are adaptations. Why? It’s simple. Like other species, we competed fiercely for limited resources. Humans' us-versus-them psychological mechanism—leading to individuals forming groups and competing with other groups for resources and power—is a human universal because those who behaved this way out-survived and out-reproduced those who were universally cooperative. As a result, it is the more evolutionary successful individuals (increased survival and reproduction) whose genes exist in contemporary humans. How did it work? It increased within group cohesion but at the expense of out-group conflict. Case in point: Yankee fans get along quite well with each other at their home stadium but pity that displaced rival Red Sox fan rooting for their team whose safety becomes tenuous indeed in a situation that is largely inconsequential.

The fact that humans behave as expected in light of an empirical view of human nature is not surprising. All species generally behave as expected. Would your best guess be that a dog would prefer vegetarian food? I think not. That is not consistent with their evolutionary history.

The current problem is not so much that this mechanism exists, but it is now exacerbated by technology that is triggering it in a way that evolution could not have prepared us for. Our brain has not evolved to deal with the likes of social media, cable news, etc., which are supernormal stimuli—the equivalent of high fat and sugary foods. Ice cream, soda, and cookies taste great but are somewhat addictive and are associated with negative physical consequences (e.g., obesity, diabetes). Likewise, stimuli eliciting moral outrage towards other groups such as watching FOX or CNBC, or following the news feeds created by machine learning in one’s social media portal, is intoxicating as these increase within-group cohesion but further amplify out-group differences, leading to further polarization (we’re right—they’re wrong!). As expected, social group dynamics—much of it playing out on social media platforms—have emerged to further maximize this process. You are either with me or against me! There is no room for nuanced opinions. The most extreme positions are the most disseminated (e.g., re-tweeted). Most concerning, these us-versus-them supernormal stimuli will not be going away—to the contrary, they will be improved upon to have even more impact in the same direction.

But here is the most significant problem. United States citizens are a group. Our collective fate is a function of our ability to operate as a cohesive group to solve enormous problems (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic, climate-related catastrophes, competition with other countries). Perhaps what is most transparent is our government's inability to get anything done at a legislative level because we break down into two relatively equal groups who are unwilling to yield an inch to the other side (of course, your group is flexible—that’s what your us-versus-them mechanism convinces you to be true). It has become a perpetual tug-of-war with teams of equal strength. How will this play out as we attempt to move forward in a constructive way that requires cooperation? Not very well if we cannot understand and move beyond these evolved group dynamics.

The first step to move forward is to acknowledge the problem. But the most important step will be to be guided by what scientists know to be our human nature, something seemingly never taken into account in considering policy creation, in order to think about how we can best design a modern landscape to move forward in a way that is beneficial to all of us. That may be a particularly difficult challenge for a democratic society that requires cooperation by citizens who evolved to not be so cooperative in a landscape that has put the us-versus-them mechanism on steroids.

As a start, something we can all do is to try to keep in mind that it’s you too—not just them—creating this problem. In fact, your knee-jerk reaction to not accept this statement is exactly what the us-versus-them mechanism evolved to do—lead you to believe it is not true to further perpetuate the polarization! That's the genius of natural selection.