| I'm not sure I see the article and study as saying much or discovering anything new. The phenomena is obvious.
The motivations, at a rational, cognitive level are also obvious though. Within a group, there is comfort, love, protection, identity, etc. Others, outside the group, are a threat to all that endorphin-releasing meeting of needs and/or desires.
Of course there are physical (psycho-chemical) reinforcements to the behavior. I would have been surprised to NOT find brain activity of the sort. We are social creatures through natural selection and, despite modernity's recontextualizing of what our clans look like, we should very well expect a very plastic ability of individuals to storm+norm+form groups which then are "protected" by degrading the power of those not in the group. Would it be a terrible analogy to say this echo's the brain's feedback loop for sugary foods? We are wired to gorge on sugar when we find it. Food marketers apply psychological levers based around how that feedback loop is molded by our modern, human existence. http://foodporn.com I want waffles... |