Most social groups will naturally implement an “in-group / out-group” identifier of some kind and associated mechanisms to apply this identifier on their members. There are a few dynamics at play here:
Before this identification mechanism has been implemented, there isn’t really much of a distinction between in-group and out-group. Therefore, there will be people who self-identify as being associated with the group, but who are not part of the sub-group which begins to make the identifications. Some of these members may accordingly get labeled part of the out-group by the sub-group which identifies as the in-group. This creates discord.
The identification method works as a cut-off, which is ultimately arbitrary. Even if the metric used to implement this cut-off is relatively valid (such as an overall measure of aptitude), the cut-off itself is technically not.
There is a natural incentive structure to implement this cut-off to boost one’s social rank relative to those under the cut-off. This means that there is probably a pre-existing aptitude measure of some kind (or a visible social hierarchy, which might be more correlated to this measure). Thus, the cut-off may be even be flipped-sign from whatever it is portrayed as signaling.
We’d expect that groups which implement these cut-off strategies to be more “cult-like” than ones that do not. Groups that implement these cut-offs usually have to invent beliefs and ideologies which support the practice of doing so. Usually, these ideologies are quite outward-projected, and typically tend to consist of negative reactions to the activities of other groups.
They probably also, in line with point 2, actually use proxy metrics for implementing the cut-off, which work as binary features, e.g. (person X has a quality we don’t like, even though they are extremely good at task Y). Therefore, they promote the ideology that people with specific, ostensibly unlikable attributes need to be excluded even if they have agreed-upon displayed skill, with a visible track record of being productive for the group.
All of the above can increase the chance of internal conflict.
Most social groups will naturally implement an “in-group / out-group” identifier of some kind and associated mechanisms to apply this identifier on their members. There are a few dynamics at play here:
Before this identification mechanism has been implemented, there isn’t really much of a distinction between in-group and out-group. Therefore, there will be people who self-identify as being associated with the group, but who are not part of the sub-group which begins to make the identifications. Some of these members may accordingly get labeled part of the out-group by the sub-group which identifies as the in-group. This creates discord.
The identification method works as a cut-off, which is ultimately arbitrary. Even if the metric used to implement this cut-off is relatively valid (such as an overall measure of aptitude), the cut-off itself is technically not.
There is a natural incentive structure to implement this cut-off to boost one’s social rank relative to those under the cut-off. This means that there is probably a pre-existing aptitude measure of some kind (or a visible social hierarchy, which might be more correlated to this measure). Thus, the cut-off may be even be flipped-sign from whatever it is portrayed as signaling.
We’d expect that groups which implement these cut-off strategies to be more “cult-like” than ones that do not. Groups that implement these cut-offs usually have to invent beliefs and ideologies which support the practice of doing so. Usually, these ideologies are quite outward-projected, and typically tend to consist of negative reactions to the activities of other groups.
They probably also, in line with point 2, actually use proxy metrics for implementing the cut-off, which work as binary features, e.g. (person X has a quality we don’t like, even though they are extremely good at task Y). Therefore, they promote the ideology that people with specific, ostensibly unlikable attributes need to be excluded even if they have agreed-upon displayed skill, with a visible track record of being productive for the group.
All of the above can increase the chance of internal conflict.