Reading a couple of books on communication recently, I have been struck by the powerful way in which group identity shapes the ideas we hold - above even self-interest, or reason, or idealism.
You can convince someone to believe or do something if you convince them that 'this is what people like me think/do'. As Chip and Dan Heath say in their book Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck: ‘…in forming opinions, people seem to ask not “What’s in it for me?” but, rather, “What’s in it for my group?’
This may be surprising, given that we usually assume that self-interest is people’s principal motivation for doing things. Rather, a form of group self-interest proves to be a more powerful motivating factor. Read more
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