After reading this accurate article by Guillem López-Casasnovas, I thought that it was worth to quote Sunstein book. His key messages are:
• When groups polarize and separate from mainstream society – either psychologically or physically – they can become extremist.Take care, we are right now on a social and informational cascade. Have you noticed?
• People change their attitudes when they want a group to accept them.
• People will abdicate moral decisions to a recognized authority.
• Collective behavior, or “groupthink,” provides a means of identifying decision-making processes that lead to extremism and mistakes.
• Information moves and amplifies among groups via “social cascades.”
• Investment clubs making decisions by unanimous votes produce the worst investment returns.
• Group deliberation produces sounder decisions than individuals acting alone.
• Techniques to blunt extremism include traditionalism, consequentialism, and checks and balances.
• Informational cascades can affect markets and mass behavior.
• In a democracy, information, criticism and skepticism combine to improve an institution’s performance.
