[andai]

I would add to this that there's actually a social function to "costly" beliefs, which is that they signal allegiance to the in-group.

A practice (or a fashion) has more social value to the degree that it is absurd, because it signals the person is able and willing to align with the group at personal cost.

This is easiest to see in some insular religious communities.

Normie culture is quite similar: a vast complex of ever-shifting shibboleths which signal, "I'm one of you. You can trust me."

It signals the person is able and willing to follow the rules, to make themselves predictable, easier to understand and cooperate with.

[hoppp]

That is true, it's beneficial for social survival.

But what I find fascinating is how the groupthink mechanism alters the subjective reality of people.

Lies or fantasy becomes reality if the entire group believes it and people truly believe the collectively accepted things to be real.

It just makes me think about consciousness overall or the lack of it, because all these things are mainly governed by subconscious mechanisms in the brain.

We are not the same when it comes to levels of consciousness and if the group mechanism demands less of it, people have no conscious choice about it

Of course nothing is black and white

[rightbyte]

I think it is more about "knowing when to shut up" than about actually believing when it comes to sudden dominating group think. It is very clear in politics where a wing on some issue go silent and then suddenly appears way later.

[hoppp]

But do these people have a logic on when to shut up?

Do they think out loud : "Now I should shut up because x"

Or is it an instinct they have after looking at others?

The more you can trace reasoning the more conscious, but the moment there is something created implicitly like an emotion or instinct then it's initiated by an automated subconscious response.

A large percentage of communication is non-verbal (emitted and processed subconsciously) so eye contact, micro expressions, gestures and body language play a large part in group communication.

[duskdozer]

I'm not sure that it has to be on a consciousness levels. I think it can be explained by anxiety/fear.

[hoppp]

Yeah, It could be fear of rejection or not fitting in.

but if you ask somebody after they exited the groupthink state they will not say they did it out of fear.

They often say: "it just happened"

Why were you behaving like that?

"We just did"

Inability to explain reasoning points to subconscious mechanisms.

It's deeply built into humans to groupthink.