 George Washington delivered the following remarks in his farewell address, where he communicated to the nation for a last time before retiring from public life and the presidency: “Let me now. . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.” [1]. In this sage advice, Washington warns that political parties, and the members who support them, can negatively impact the American government if the parties gain prominent influence. Washington categorizes an intuitive understanding of certain human behaviors as the spirit of the party, and various psychological perspectives can clarify the possible contours of George Washington’s prophetic statement. The spirit of the party, and the dark parts of human nature in which it comes from, can be further understood as a confluence of absolute thinking and group identification, that in the modern age, operates under the catalyst of algorithms and requires temperance through individual and community intervention. People often perceive the world in absolutes. Rather than organizing conflicting information in an understanding that accounts for nuance, people may use rote heuristics available to quickly group objects, people, and experiences into absolute good and absolute bad. [2]. This basic instinct can be overridden, but under stressful conditions, people often resort back to faster mental processes like that of relying on absolutes to perceive reality. [3]. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the current gold standard psychological intervention, attempts to define and target a series of cognitive distortions, listing “black and white thinking” as a potential malignancy in the psyche to be treated. [4][5]. Absolute thinking, also referred to as “splitting” in the context of treating personality disorders like borderline and narcissistic tendencies, appears in a more rigid form in those who have experienced repeated psychological trauma, especially during childhood. [6]. Observing the world in absolutes that exist as either black or white rather than understanding reality’s shades of grey creates polarity, where the differences rather than the similarities between values, goals, and groups are emphasized.   the yin yang symbol (Taijitu) This splitting tendency occurs in individuals, but perhaps, too, as an archetypal structure of a greater collective consciousness, as exhibited by the rise of identification with one of the two main political parties of America. Over time, the political spectrum has exhibited a literal split, where the Republican and Democratic parties’ main values have separated farther from a common nucleus. [7]. Splits also occur as a byproduct of historical events and as a framework within philosophies. For example, during the Great Schism of 1054, leaders began enforcing two versions of Christianity. [8]. Furthermore, Taoism represents the entirety of reality as two dual forces, Yin and Yang, that oppose each other to create an idealized split of energies. Absolute thinking and a resulting split works in tandem with another aspect of behavior, group identification. Sociological and evolutionary perspectives aid in an understanding of how groups operate as a function of social instinct. Groups exist everywhere, from sports teams to religious congregations, friends to the political parties themselves, and work to bring people together in the name of a common cause. Groups satiate a person’s inherent need to belong, where groups provide affiliation, and at their peak utility, a collective effervescence which greatly benefits a person within a group by protecting a person against the negative consequences of loneliness. [9] [10][11][12]. With all their benefits, groups have some notable downsides that came about from an evolutionary need to identify with a tribe. Groups helped early humans survive in a dangerous world, where anyone and anything outside the group could not be trusted. This group mentality was a survival mechanism, though now often appears as an unfortunate pattern sometimes labeled as an “us versus them” mentality. [13]. At its worst, this tendency can fester into xenophobia, or unwarranted fear of outsiders and foreigners. [14]. Generally, anyone in the in-group is acceptable, and anyone in the out-group is potentially dangerous (or at the very least disfavored). [15]. Group identification may be less needed in today’s world, where many of the dangers of our ancestors have been eradicated by civilization, but as a shortcut in the cognitive processing system, the “us versus them” mentality still holds great influence over how people view others. [16]. Group leaders can furthermore tap into this evolutionary fear to increase affiliation and decrease the willingness of in-group members to associate with out-group members, as George Washington identified in his farewell address.   The overlapping schemas of absolute thinking and group identification provide a base that algorithms act upon to facilitate political divide. Through a positive feedback loop, social media algorithms are widely held responsible for nudging the public towards more radical content within political echo chambers. [17]. This radicalization occurs because algorithms have the sole goal of increasing engagement on platforms, and content that taps into the evolutionary schemas of absolute thinking and group identification are more inflammatory, and thus addicting, to the human brain. [18]. The term doomscrolling encapsulates the public’s intuitive understanding of this phenomenon, where scrolling for more content becomes a conditioned response to a feeling of existential dread that is exacerbated by engagement with the social media platform in the first place. The initial dread occurs because algorithms supply information that activates the limbic system, an ancient emotional regulation system in the brain responsible for fear and anger. The limbic system evolved before the prefrontal cortex in the brain. Rather than creating a survival response to fear, the prefrontal cortex engages in harder executive functioning tasks like planning, abstraction, and self-awareness. Using the limbic system requires less effort, and so information that appeals to this part of our regulatory system is easier to digest, and consciously or not, people may accept the information supplied by the algorithms that inflame the limbic system as correct more readily [19]. After all, the limbic system has the longest track record of helping humans quickly evaluate threats and survive danger. Social media platforms are engineered to exploit this evolutionary pathway, inflaming the system before supplying a barrage of information that coaxes the unsuspecting scroller deeper down the rabbit hole of radicalization, thus polarizing the political climate for the overall population. This polarization, which vests great political power to the Democratic and Republican parties as influential entities, should be further studied so that stakeholders understand the consequences of polarization on governmental functions. Furthermore, strategic interventions can be developed to mitigate the effects of polarization to better allow for bipartisan overlap in policymaking and administration. Intervention would likely require a multi-pronged, preventative approach, where change on an individual and local level could ripple outwards to enact widescale shifts that reach the marble steps of Capitol Hill. Additionally, policies that better regulate social media platforms may be essential to address widespread political polarization, among other psychological drawbacks that have been causally linked to social media use. [20].  Parents of children who have died due to alleged social media-related harms stood outside the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse on Feb 5th ahead of a social media addiction trial. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for ParentsTogether Action) At the front lines of neuroses, psychologists need to supply tools to overcome the mental inertia that lends itself to splitting when this cognitive distortion presents itself as a roadblock to individuals seeking help. Education, too, must help young people develop a bedrock of critical thinking skills and mindfulness so that they can build an internal awareness. From kindergarten to the ivory towers of higher education, a pedagogical throughline that helps teach young people to understand and act in concert with their values can help strengthen cognitive processes and make individuals less susceptible to prescribed values of groups. [21]. The need to belong, too, should be satisfied by communities where people can converse face-to-face about shared interests outside the political sphere. Political polarization, reflecting a perhaps unfortunate truth about human nature, can be addressed on a local and even individual level. In turn, the representative government of the legislative branch, which mirrors the psychological health of the people that it aims to serve, will be less susceptible to rigid partisanship. Sources:
[1] Washington, G. (1796). Farewell Address. Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp [2] Melanie Klein’s objects relation theory. Cortes Counseling. (2026). https://www.cortescounseling.com/copy-of-erick-erikson-s-theory-of-psy#:~:text=Her%20emphasis%20on%20the%20internalization,approaches%20to%20mental%20health%20treatment. [3] Eberhardt, J. L. (2019). Biased: Uncovering the hidden prejudice that shapes what we see, think, and do. Viking. [4] David, D., Cristea, I., & Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Why cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard of psychotherapy. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, Article 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00004 [5] Bhandari, S. (Ed.). (2024, February 25). Black and white thinking: Causes, symptoms, and more. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/black-and-white-thinking [6] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., pp. 663–669). American Psychiatric Publishing. [7] Gosh, I. (2019, September 25). Charts: America’s political divide, from 1994–2017. Visual Capitalist . https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-divide-1994-2017/ [8] Christianity - schism, 1054, east-west | britannica. (n.d.). https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/The-Schism-of-1054 [9] Hollar, D. (2024). Affiliation motive: Psychology: Research starters: EBSCO research. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/psychology/affiliation-motive [10] Durkheim, É. (1995). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (K. E. Fields, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1912) [11] Durkheim, É. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology (J. A. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1897) [12] Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352 [13] Ligouri, L. (2022, February 1). US versus them. Galvanize Action. https://www.galvanizeaction.org/us-versus-them/ [14] Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Xenophobia. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved March 1, 2026, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia [15] Hollar, D. (2024). Affiliation motive: Psychology: Research starters: EBSCO research. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/psychology/affiliation-motive [16] Ligouri, L. (2022, February 1). US versus them. Galvanize Action. https://www.galvanizeaction.org/us-versus-them/ [17] Orlowski, J. (Director). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224 [18] Salamon, M. (2024, September 1). Doomscrolling Dangers. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/doomscrolling-dangers [19] Shapiro, J. (2021, Nov 5). Two parts of the brain govern much of mental life. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thinking-in-black-white-and-gray/202111/two-parts-the-brain-govern-much-mental-life [20] Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Press. [21] Barney, J. L., Lillis, J., Haynos, A. F., Forman, E., & Juarascio, A. S. (2019). Assessing the valuing process in acceptance and commitment therapy: Experts’ review of the current status and recommendations for future measure development. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 12, 225–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2018.08.002
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