New York Times
In a commencement address at the Naval Academy last month, President Trump revisited a familiar theme. He remarked to the graduates: “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Winning is such a great feeling. Nothing like winning – you got to win.” He later repeated the idea: “Victory, winning, beautiful words, but that is what it is all about.”
This focus on victory is not new for Mr. Trump. During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump promised that under his leadership the audience would “get bored with winning.” He predicted that his fans would grow “so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go, ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore,’” and “I’m going to say, ‘I’m sorry but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning.’”
The focus on winning is not incidental. It caters to a very primal need among humans to feel that we’re part of a group whose status is high and protected. This winning “we” is often a divisive concept, turning Americans against their fellow citizens. The story of how American politics has grown ever more focused on partisan victory instead of the greater good of the nation has two major components.
First, it is fundamental human nature to want our groups to win. Social psychological research pioneered by the Polish psychologist Henri Tajfel (who survived six years in a Nazi prison camp) worked to determine why groups of people try to destroy each other. Through a series of experiments called the "minimal group paradigm," Mr. Tajfel tried to locate the weakest level of group identification, the point at which people would not discriminate against an opposing group.
To his surprise, he couldn’t find it.
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No matter how he divided up the subjects in his study (overestimators versus underestimators, Klee-lovers versus Kandinsky-lovers), they had a bias for the group they were in and a bias against the group they weren’t members of.
In a money allocation task, participants were given a choice between both groups receiving the maximum amount of money, or the subjects’ in-group receiving less than the maximum, but more than the out-group. People reliably chose group victory.
Mr. Tajfel explained this by linking our group status to our individual status. When our group wins, we feel like winners. When our group loses, we feel like losers. And we’re willing to sacrifice real resources for that sense of victory.
Mr. Tajfel’s subjects, however, had relatively weak attachments to their groups. Partisans have much stronger attachments.
This desire for winning exists in all social group members, most fiercely among those who feel that their group status is threatened or fragile. When it comes to Democrats and Republicans, status threats — that is, elections — are frequent and highly visible. They are also increasingly part of the discussion of legislation, with the news media reporting on which side “won” a vote on a particular bill.
This partisan competition is not new. What is new is the second part of the story. As individuals, we hold multiple identities (being white is an identity, as is being a farmer, a man or a runner). Some are more important than others, and the most important are the ones whose status is threatened. In recent decades, our most salient identities have moved into alignment with our parties.
In a commencement address at the Naval Academy last month, President Trump revisited a familiar theme. He remarked to the graduates: “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Winning is such a great feeling. Nothing like winning – you got to win.” He later repeated the idea: “Victory, winning, beautiful words, but that is what it is all about.”
This focus on victory is not new for Mr. Trump. During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump promised that under his leadership the audience would “get bored with winning.” He predicted that his fans would grow “so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go, ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore,’” and “I’m going to say, ‘I’m sorry but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning.’”
The focus on winning is not incidental. It caters to a very primal need among humans to feel that we’re part of a group whose status is high and protected. This winning “we” is often a divisive concept, turning Americans against their fellow citizens. The story of how American politics has grown ever more focused on partisan victory instead of the greater good of the nation has two major components.
First, it is fundamental human nature to want our groups to win. Social psychological research pioneered by the Polish psychologist Henri Tajfel (who survived six years in a Nazi prison camp) worked to determine why groups of people try to destroy each other. Through a series of experiments called the "minimal group paradigm," Mr. Tajfel tried to locate the weakest level of group identification, the point at which people would not discriminate against an opposing group.
To his surprise, he couldn’t find it.
No matter how he divided up the subjects in his study (overestimators versus underestimators, Klee-lovers versus Kandinsky-lovers), they had a bias for the group they were in and a bias against the group they weren’t members of.
In a money allocation task, participants were given a choice between both groups receiving the maximum amount of money, or the subjects’ in-group receiving less than the maximum, but more than the out-group. People reliably chose group victory.
Mr. Tajfel explained this by linking our group status to our individual status. When our group wins, we feel like winners. When our group loses, we feel like losers. And we’re willing to sacrifice real resources for that sense of victory.
Mr. Tajfel’s subjects, however, had relatively weak attachments to their groups. Partisans have much stronger attachments.
This desire for winning exists in all social group members, most fiercely among those who feel that their group status is threatened or fragile. When it comes to Democrats and Republicans, status threats — that is, elections — are frequent and highly visible. They are also increasingly part of the discussion of legislation, with the news media reporting on which side “won” a vote on a particular bill.
This partisan competition is not new. What is new is the second part of the story. As individuals, we hold multiple identities (being white is an identity, as is being a farmer, a man or a runner). Some are more important than others, and the most important are the ones whose status is threatened. In recent decades, our most salient identities have moved into alignment with our parties.
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