"Joiners" and Strong Social Bonds

Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias reflects on the relationship between extreme opinions and social bonds:

High commitment groups produce stronger community bonds, and people vary in their taste for such strong bonds. Some folks are “joiners,” with a taste for more strongly bonded groups. Joiners have an induced taste for groups with extreme opinions, and thus an induced taste to have their own more extreme opinions, in order to better fit with stronger groups. Thus joiners tend to let themselves have more opinions and more extreme opinions on many topics.

Well worth reading in its entirety.