As a British person with liberal leanings, the ongoing coverage of the US Republican race to select a presidential candidate is often baffling. Much of this is due to Donald Trump, of course. Donald Trump, the ungodly offspring of a retired golfer and a beligerent tangerine. Donald Trump, a man who once heard the word “unspeakable” and thought “challenge accepted!” Just when you think he couldn’t possibly be more openly offensive towards large groups of people, he reliably proves you wrong a few days later.

Despite this, it seems a large number of people still think he’s the best person to be President, where he can bring about nuclear Armageddon by openly mocking Vladimir Putin’s height at some international summit.

Or is it because of these deeply controversial statements that Trump is doing so well? He’s hardly alone in adopting extreme and controversial positions in an effort to secure the presidential candidate nomination.

This isn’t to suggest we in the UK are above such behaviour. Far from it. While the mainstream media is constantly (and tediously) focusing on the divisions in the Labour party, you can’t miss constant complaints about “Corbynites”, supposedly dedicated followers of Jeremy Corbyn who aggressively defend him and tell you to join the bloody Conservatives if you express any views that are less left wing than those of Lenin himself.

It’s not just politics either; from lefties to libertarians, gamers to gay rights activism, feminism to fandom, if you publicly share an opinion on an issue that many people care about enough to form groups around, you’re bound to get flak from the more “extreme” elements of said groups.

Why, though? Why do groups of otherwise normal people regularly end up producing an enraged fringe element with a hair trigger? If you have a group of friends who like to socialise together and it transpires that one member of the group has a habit of screaming abuse at strangers and picking fights on everyone else’s behalf, said person won’t be invited to the pub as much from then on.

But surprisingly, this doesn’t often happen with large, organised groups. Evidence suggests they tend to make people more extreme than if those people were left to think issues through themselves. This phenomenon is known as Group Polarisation, where rather than conforming to the “average” view of the disparate opinions held by group members, putting them all together in one place pushes people’s views towards the extremes.

There are numerous psychological processes believed to be at work here, and they mostly boil down to the unavoidable fact that other people have big influence over what we think and do, and there’s a growing body of neuroscientific evidence that suggests the brain processes perception of self and membership of groups in very similar ways, meaning the groups we identify with are a big part of our identity.

One consequence of this is explained by the Social Comparison Theory. This is where we judge our own worth by comparison to those we identify with. On top of this, there’s informational influence. The people we engage and interact with, those whose opinions and judgement we value, they are a powerful source of information. Their views, opinions, prejudices, they all impact on our own knowledge and beliefs. So for example, if you really like Star Wars so surround yourself and have discussions with people who also like Star Wars, you’re going to end up liking Star Wars even more, both to make your new community like you and because you’ve heard all their different reasons for why Star Wars is great.

Being accepted by a specific group is fine, but we want to be liked by this group. Social rejection is a genuine fear for us humans, so we instinctively want to make the people we like like us in turn. We also judge our own status and self-worth by how we compare to them. As a result, if there’s one thing everyone in your group agrees on, you tend to agree with it “more”. So if you’re in the “I like Star Wars” community, you obtain approval and improve your status by demonstrating you like Star Wars the most. You learn the most obscure trivia, argue its merits more passionately than others. And so, your original views of “I quite like Star Wars” gradually become more extreme, by dint of being part of a like-minded group.

Unfortunately, one consequence of being a group having such influence over our identities is that any threat to the group is often perceived as a threat to ourselves. People regularly prioritise group harmony above anything else. As such, anything that threatens the group harmony or consensus is viewed extremely negatively. And what threatens your group more than a different group that doesn’t agree with your group consensus, or actually disputes it?

If you’re an enthusiastic member of the Star Wars-loving community, then someone wanders in and says “Actually, Star Trek is much better”, this person will not get an easy time of it from you. They’re challenging the whole reason for the group’s existence, and the group must be defended, so attacking this challenging view is now a major priority. As well as this, there is now an ideal opportunity to impress other group members and improve your standing, by being the most intense and aggressive with your attacking of this insolent intruder. Calm and reasoned debate doesn’t get much of a look in.

If you’ve ever been part of a discussion that quickly descended into a vicious exchange of abuse then you’ve probably experienced this phenomenon.

So our overly-keen brains mean we have several factors, namely identifying with a group, wanting to be part of the group, to be liked by the group, to impress the group and to defend the group. All of these combine to make people more extreme in their views when part of a group, not less.

Studies have shown this can happen readily on the internet (particularly Twitter) , hence a lot of online discourse can quickly descend into raw hostility.

And sadly, whereas you’d hope calm heads and objective opinion would be prioritised for things that truly matter, Group Polarisation has been shown to be no less a problem for really important things, like politics. It’s even more potent if anything, as it’s not a trivial matter anymore, ergo the beliefs of you and your group must be defended even more vigorously.

Add to this the way that psychological mechanisms mean that in politics spin and personality regularly trump (pun intended) logic and reason. As a result the most confident outspoken candidate is seen as better than the calm rational ones, and thus we get candidates who confidently express the most extreme opinions about other groups of people, and those who relate to them support them, rather than disown them.

There’s obviously more to it than this, with countless influences and variables determining people’s views and beliefs regarding others. However, it’s difficult to deny that, thanks to the workings of the brain, identifying as part of a cohesive group can make you more extreme.

Best to play it safe and have no friends or social circles to speak of, like I do. That is definitely a conscious choice on my part.

Shut up, it is!

Dean Burnett is on Twitter but tries to avoid talking to anyone on there, just to be safe. @garwboy