La esencia de la “polarización patológica” en la sociedad postmoderna
Publicado 2025-12-18
Palabras clave
- conflicto social,
- política,
- educación,
- bienestar,
- democracia
- razonamiento,
- actitudes,
- creencias ...Más
Cómo citar

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0.
Resumen
La polarización es uno de los desafíos más urgentes que enfrentan las sociedades democráticas en la actualidad. Aunque no es intrínsecamente perjudicial, la polarización se vuelve dañina cuando supera ciertos umbrales, interrumpiendo la cooperación social, intensificando los conflictos y conduciendo a la deshumanización del discurso público. Este artículo explora el concepto de polarización patológica, entendida como una forma tóxica de agrupamiento social que socava la armonía colectiva. Se presentan dos ideas especulativas pero potencialmente fructíferas para inspirar futuras investigaciones. En primer lugar, se propone la tensión gregarismo/individualismo (GIT) como un marco psicológico para comprender la emergencia de identidades polarizadas. En segundo lugar, se examina la sobre-confianza en el razonamiento inductivo como fuente cognitiva de sesgos que pueden reforzar el pensamiento polarizado. Finalmente, se esbozan propuestas preliminares para mitigar la polarización patológica, con el objetivo de fomentar comunidades epistemológicamente exitosas y socialmente armoniosas.
Descargas
Citas
- Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Prentice-Hall.
- Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (2005). The influence of attitudes on behavior. En D. Albarracín, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (eds.), The handbook of attitudes (pp. 173-221). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
- Allport, G. W. (1935). Attitudes. En C. Murchison (ed.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 798-844). Clark University Press.
- Ball, P., & Maxmen, A. (28 de mayo de 2020). The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories. Nature, 581(7809), 371-374. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01452-z
- Barabási, A. L. (2009, July 27). Scale-free networks: a decade and beyond. Science, 325(5639), 412-413. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1173299
- Barabási, A. L., & Albert, R. (1999, October 8). Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science, 286(5439), 509-512. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5439.509
- Barabási, A. L., & Bonabeau, E. (2003). Scale-free networks. Scientific American, 288(5), 50-59, https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0503-60
- Ben-Porath, S. (2024). How to depolarize your students. Nature Human Behavior, 8(2), 186-189. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01801-8
- Berger, L. B., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Penguin Books.
- Box, G. E. P. (1976). Science and statistics. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 71(356), 791-799. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1976.10480949
- Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2024). Cross-country trends in affective polarization. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 106(2), 557-565. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01160
- Converse, P. E. (1958). The shifting role of class in political attitudes and behavior. In: E. E. Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (eds.), Readings in social psychology, 3rd edn (pp. 388-399). Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Descartes, R. (1912). A discourse on method. Meditations and principles. Everyman’s Library.
- Feldman, R. S. (1998). Social psychology. Prentice Hall.
- Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley.
- Frances, A. J., & Widiger, T. (2012). Psychiatric diagnosis: Lessons from the DSM-IV past and cautions for the DSM-5 future. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 8, 109-130. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032511-143102
- Franzoi, S. L. (2005). Social psychology. McGraw Hill.
- Gil, J. (2021). Tensión individualismo-gregarismo en la configuración psicológica del ser humano I: apuntes sobre el surgimiento y las variaciones históricas del yo. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 21(3), 261-288. https://www.ijpsy.com/volumen21/num3/583.html
- Gil, J. (2022). Tensión individualismo-gregarismo en la configuración psicológica del ser humano, II: Arquetipos de yo gregario. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 22(2), 99-141. https://www.ijpsy.com/volumen22/num2/611.html
- Gil, J. (2024). Tensión individualismo-gregarismo en la configuración psicológica del ser humano, III: emergencia de configuraciones protoindividualistas. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 24(3), 309-344. https://www.ijpsy.com/volumen24/num3/668.html
- Greene, G. (2004). The quiet American. Vintage.
- Hogg, M. A., & Vaughan, G. M. (2018). Social psychology. Pearson.
- Honner, P. (14 de marzo de 2019). Where proof, evidence and imagination intersect. Quantamagazine. https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-proof-evidence-and-imagination-intersect-in-math-20190314/
- Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. Harper & Row.
- Jeffreys, H. (1931). Scientific inference. Cambridge University Press.
- Jost, J. T., Baldassarri, D. S., & Druckman, J. N. (2022). Cognitive-motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(10), 560-576. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00093-5
- Jung, J., Grim, P., Singer, D. J., Bramson, A., Berger, W. J., Holman, B., & Kovaka, K. (2019). A multidisciplinary understanding of polarization. American Psychologist, 74(3), 301-314. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000450
- Kirmayer, L. J. (2024). The fragility of truth: Social epistemology in a time of polarization and pandemic. Transcultural Psychiatry, 61(5), 701-713. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615241299556
- Ladyman, J., Lambert, J., & Wiesner, K. (2013). What is a complex system? European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 33-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-012-0056-8
- Lenci, K. (2023). Learning to depolarize. Helping students and teachers reach across lines of disagreement. Routledge.
- Makri, A. (2024). Anxiety, depression, headaches - Is political polarization bad for your health? Nature Medicine, 30(8), 2099-2102. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03136-x
- May Sidik, M. (2023, March 2). How to tackle political polarization - the researchers trying to bridge divides. Nature, 615(7950), 26-28. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00573-5
- Minson, J. A., & Dorison, C. A. (2022). Toward a psychology of attitude conflict. Current Opinion in Psychology, 43, 182-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.07.002
- Mynatt, C. R., Doherty, M. E., & Tweney, R. D. (1977). Confirmation bias in a simulated research environment: An experimental study of scientific inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(1), 85-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335557743000053
- Nuzzo, R. (2014) Scientific method: Statistical errors. Nature, 506(7487), 150-152. https://doi.org/10.1038/506150a
- Patent, V. (2022). Dysfunctional trusting and distrusting: Integrating trust and bias perspectives. Journal of Trust Research, 12(1), 66-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2022.2113887
- Pavlov, I. P. (1927) Conditioned reflexes. Oxford University Press.
- Ruiz-Ruano, A. M., & Puga, J. L. (2022). Review of: Building a digital republic to reduce health disparities and improve population health in the United States. Qeios. https://doi.org/10.32388/H38R8Q
- Ruiz-Ruano, A. M., & Puga, J. L. (2024). Last CLASS a DJ saved my life: The mixing role of contemporaneous educators. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14025914
- Ruiz-Ruano, A. M., Sánchez-Kuhn, A., Flores, P., & Puga, J. L. (2023). Social expectancy increases skin conductance response in mobile instant messaging users. Psicothema, 35(4), 414-422. https://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2022.362
- Sharot, T., Rollwage, M., Sunstein, C. R., & Fleming, S. M. (2023). Why and when beliefs change. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(1), 142-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221082967
- Sherif, M. (1958). Group influences upon the formation of norms and attitudes. En E. E. Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (eds.), Readings in social psychology, 3rd edn (pp. 219-232). Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Von Solms, R., & van Niekerk, J. (2013). From information security to cyber security. Computers and Security, 38, 97-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2013.04.004
- Vosoughi, R., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559
- Walter, E., Woodfor, K., McIntosh, C., Francis, G., Cranz, J, Glennon, L., Side, R., McCarthy, M. & Martinez, R. (2008). Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. Cambridge University Press.
- Wason, P. C. (1960). On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 129-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470216008416717
- Wason, P. C. (1966). Reasoning. In: B. Foss (ed.), New horizons in psychology (pp. 131-151). Penguin Books.
- Watts, D. J., & Strogatz, S. H. (1998). Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature, 393(6684), 440-442. https://doi.org/10.1038/30918
