Readings,+Going+to+Extremes,+Sunstein

In Chapter one, Sunstein discusses how people who gather together in groups with people that have similar beliefs, after the group has discussed some political topic, their views will be more extreme. If they were pro-abortion before the discussion, they will leave the meeting super-pro-abortion. If they started as being somewhat against abortion before the meeting, they will leave as strong anti-abortion believers. Sunstein uses studies from France and Colorado to support this statement. In France, some citizens were chosen to discuss United States and our role in foreign and what they thought about the president. French citizens who came in trusting America left loving America; and those who did not trust America “moved in the direction of far greater mistrust” (Sunstein 2). In Colorado, using two different cities (Boulder and Colorado Springs) they conducted a similar study. Colorado Springs is considered a more conservative town and Boulder is more liberal. Participants were screened before hand to fit into one of the two categories and were given topics to discuss. The participants were told to answer various questions on a scale of 0-10 if they agreed or disagreed with certain topics before the discussion began. After discussing certain political issues, they were again asked to complete the same exercise. The finding showed that people who agreed with certain issues before would “strongly agree” after the discussion and those who disagreed with certain issues would “strongly disagree” after the discussion. Another study was done with Federal Judges to see if they would show the same trends as the Boulder and Colorado Springs participants. Sunstein states that “judges are specialists and learned in the law; they are not supposed to be so vulnerable to the political inclinations of their colleagues” (8). But the research shows that this is not entirely true. When there was a panel of all Democratic judges or all Republican judges, there was a 34% difference in their voting. Normally, there is only a 15% difference. This confirms what Sunstein said about like-minded people putting each other into extremes after discussion. The judges, however, vote normally whether or not they are “the minority or part of a unified panel” (11). Sunstein poses the question “ If group members begin with a degree of outrage, do deliberating groups become more outraged or less so?” (12) in respects to juries. Sunstein gives the example of a study done with 1,000 people to help us understand the question a little more. They were asked to grade how outrageous a company’s behavior was, what level of punishment they deserved, and finally what amount the punitive damages should be. The people agreed on the first two parts of the question but not on the final part about the damages that should be awarded. The reason for the difference in opinion about the dollar amount has nothing to do with the demography of the group chosen (male, female, black, white, young, old, etc.). “The reason for the variability is that whatever their demographic group, people do not have a clear sense of how to translate their punitive intentions, on a bounded scale, onto the scale of dollars” (Sunstein 14). In a follow-up experiment, a larger group of people were asked to discuss certain cases to see how discussion would affect their opinions and if it would have a different outcome as opposed to the previous study that held no discussion. Before the discussion the participants were asked to grade the severity of the crime by telling how extreme the punishment should be. The results were not what you would expect. “Instead, the effect of deliberation was to create both a severity shift for high-punishment jurors and a leniency shift for low-punishment jurors” (Sunstein 15). So when the average judgment of the group was about half way then they judged a verdict that was higher. However, when the average judgment was below half way, they decided that a lesser punishment than the average was acceptablele. The results of this study were similar to all the others. If the participants were angry before hand, they would be even angrier afterwards and dish out harsher punishment; and if they didn’t really care before, then they would care less after the discussion. Sunstein also talks about how people are more likely to take risks after they have discussed it with a group of people who feel the same. In different cultures, however, people were less likely to make such risky moves after discussing it amongst themselves. In certain situations though Americans do move towards caution instead of risk, such as getting married. Studies have shown that if people are more inclined to be cautious, the discussion with make them more cautious; and if they are more likely to be risk takers, the discussion will lead them to take that risk. Deliberation can also lead people to think that aggressive protest is an appropriate response to specific problems.
 * Summary**

Despite all the evidence for the contrary, extremism can actually be a good thing. When groups with all kinds of viewpoints are allowed to debate their positions, society as a whole improves due to what Heather Gerken called "second-order diversity", which focuses on the diversity of the groups themselves rather than "first-order diversity" which only focuses on the diversity that exists inside any particular group (Sunstein 150). Sunstein brings up the idea of states' rights to prove his point. Each state can make certain decisions on how they run, ranging from gay marriage and legalized gambling to welfare and how to protect the environment. Once the rest of the nation finds out about whether those decisions had a positive or negative impact, those are added to the "argument pool" and the American people then have more knowledge at their disposal than they did if those kinds of decisions were made by a singular body like the Federal Government. In addition, group polarization can cause people to become more motivated. On page 151, he states that people who talk to others who have the same opinion as they do, they will become energized and become more active politically. Inversely, people who talk to other people who happen to have a different opinion from their own will be more tolerant of opposing viewpoints, but will be more likely to become passive when it comes to those issues than they were before.
 * Chapter 5: Good Extremism**

I really found this reading interesting. I don't really like reading, but for some reason when I started to read this I was intrigued. I feel that what Sunstein was saying about extremism is totally true! I know that if I was put into one of his groups with the people who felt the same as I did about something I would probably then become extreme on my views of that topic. I think that when people start to participate in discussions it's because they feel content and able to discuss their views with these people. I know that's how I feel when I'm sitting in on a discussion. -Marissa Skinner

 I found it interesting to think about the fact that group polarization together isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Prior to reading this article, this term had a somewhat negative connotation in my mind. I had never realized that group polarization and enclave deliberation are actually key factors to a democracy. When I previously thought of group polarization, I thought of a group of like-minded people gathering together and becoming crazy extremists from talking to each other. I know it is rare that group polarization causes crazy people to emerge, but that was my prototype of a group affected by group polarization. I never realized before that the only way many minorities gain the courage to speak up is when they are in their own smaller group, so I could not originally comprehend how enclave deliberation has this affect on groups. Now, I realize that getting these people to speak up in their smaller groups creates a bunch of diversified opinions to argue about and discuss and hopefully better our society. Although the positives of enclave deliberation are more common, people also sometimes gain an opinion that may harm others. On page 154, Sunstein states, “We cannot condemn movements toward new points of view without knowing whether the new points of view are better or worse.” This statement sums up the fact that enclave deliberation makes people have a stronger opinion, but can either lead to good things or it can lead to bad things. -Sage Leehey