A seminal 1972 work discussed groupthink in relation to decision-making within politics and business. It described several symptoms of groupthink, including a group’s overestimation of its power, demand for uniformity, and close-mindedness. This led powerful organizations, often with highly educated individuals, to make decisions that were contrary to their mission and sometimes even unethical.¹

Up through the 1980s, fringe actors likely had notions of committing violence within a community. However, they were deterred from violent actions, such as shooting up a school, because they faced social pressure to conform to common ethics.

Today, although commonly held ethics may not support such activities, the rise of the Internet has allowed fringe actors to locate others who share common beliefs and form new communities with them. Soon, due to these shared beliefs, such groups begin a collective effort to rationalize their views and stereotype nonfringe actors as immoral. They pressure members into uniformity, where self-actors, as “mindguards,” will censor anyone who contradicts the group.⁴

A fringe group will develop a sense of invulnerability, creating excessive optimism and encouraging extreme risks. Members begin making decisions without considering contingency plans or even developing objectives. The actors, no longer restricted by common ethics, feel their fringe values are supported by their new online community. For instance, active shooters, who may have only previously thought about acting, now conduct violent behaviors due to the additional sociopsychological forces.

Real-World Example

Such dynamics can be observed in the actions of Gamergate during the mid-2010s. In 2014, a female game developer became the subject of controversy after the group accused her of infidelity to gain positive reviews for her games. The Gamergate community reacted to what they perceived as “an affront to the values of gaming journalism and corruption within the gaming industry.”⁵

Gamergate formed as the antithesis to what it viewed as overt wokeness, to include feminism and diversity, within the gaming industry and because of a lack of ethics in gaming journalism. While wokeness can be referred to as being alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination, it can also be thought of by those who disagree with the woke movement as an oversensitization to perceived social issues. The game developer and others faced years of online threats of physical and sexual abuse, shaming, and attempts to ruin careers and personal lives.

Members of the Gamergate community who participated in these activities described themselves as embodying “geek” culture, which often values acquiring expertise and specialized knowledge and sharing it with others.⁶ Those identifying as geeks often feel marginal because the dominant culture defines their subculture as odd or weird.

In addition, the “Gamers are Dead” articles became a severe point of contention as they discuss misogyny and a lack of diversity within the gaming culture.⁷ Gamergaters responded by labeling critics of their movement as social justice warriors, stereotyping counterarguments as inauthentic and self-serving. They pushed this narrative by claiming that some of those targeted by Gamergate attacks made up threats for personal or professional gain.

Group members often censored individuals within the Gamergate community who spoke out. Researchers discovered that “when a user mentioned the harassment associated with Gamergate or critiqued the movement's tactics, Gamergate supporters were quick to label the user a shill and shut down discussion, explaining the user’s behavior by questioning their character.”⁸ Mindguards would halt conversations, promoting a shared illusion of uniformity among the group. Through chats and blogs, Gamergaters became close-minded to outside influence.

As the Gamergate members collectively rationalized their positions, they ignored contradictory information — an example of confirmation bias. In the game developer’s case, Gamergate ignored that the individual who made accusations of infidelity, an ex-boyfriend, deleted posts immediately after putting them up. Further, the author she supposedly gained favor with never posted a review of her work.

The attacks on individuals seen as social justice warriors occurred without examining the risks or finding alternative solutions. Some members were arrested because of the attacks. Due to the lack of norms requiring a methodical approach to decision-making, several Gamergaters attempted to ruin the careers and lives of those whose ideals the group disagreed with, such as the game developer. The fear of rejection within the Gamergate subculture increased conformity tendencies within those who already felt marginalized as members of the geek community.

Conclusion

Gamergaters showed several significant signs of groupthink. Through online forums, they created an environment that created excessive optimism about their position. Members encouraged extreme risks with an unquestioning belief in the movement’s morality, including attacking those seen as the enemy. Collectively, Gamergaters rationalized their position, often discounting information countering their argument, and stereotyped those with opposing positions. Gamergate participants were pressured into uniformity by mindguards who would erase or shut down online forums that went against the group’s arguments, creating a shared unanimity of judgments.

While Gamergate provides a critical example of the dangers of groupthink within online forums, the concept of this movement can be challenging to study. This is due to the lack of empirical evidence necessary for testing social-psychological theories. Studying how groupthink affects other fringe groups would require examining information often buried in the dark web or stored within closed-source information maintained by criminal justice organizations worldwide.

Perhaps groupthink could explain significant increases in violence, particularly grandiose acts committed by individuals who showed little predilection to such events beforehand. The sociopsychological effects of groupthink could result in fringe individuals finding community on the Internet. This would lead to reinforcement of antisocial beliefs, a precursor to a potential increase in violence, leading to terrorist-like events such as active shootings in the United States.