Affective Death Spiral

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• Resist the Happy Death Spiral
• When None Dare Urge Restraint
• Every Cause Wants To Be A Cult
• Guardians of the Truth
• Guardians of Ayn Rand
• Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs

• Affect heuristic, Halo effect, Motivated skepticism
• Information cascade, Groupthink
• In-group bias
• CrackpotReligion,
• ReligionDeath Spirals and the Cult Attractor

The same process can also occur with negative beliefs instead of positive, leading to a death spiral of hate.

• When None Dare Urge Restraint
• Every Cause Wants To Be A Cult
• Guardians of the Truth
• Guardians of Ayn Rand
• Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs

An affective death spiral (or happy death spiral) occurs when positive attributes of a theory, person, or organization combine with the Halo effect in a feedback loop, resulting in the subject of the affective death spiral being held in higher and higher regard. In effect, every positive thing said about the subject results in more than one additional nice thing to say about the subject on average. This cascades like a nuclear chain reaction. This process creates theories that are believed for their own sake and organizations that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, especially when combined with the social dynamics of groupthink. Affective death spirals are thus a primary cause of cultishness.

• Affect heuristic, Halo effect, Motivated skepticism
• Information cascade, Groupthink
• In-group bias
• Crackpot, Religion

• Affective Death Spirals by Eliezer Yudkowsky

• Every Cause Wants To Be A Cult
• Guardians of the Truth - Endorsing a concept of truth is not the same as endorsing a particular belief as eternally, absolutely, knowably true.
• Guardians of Ayn Rand
• Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs

• Every Cause Wants To Be A Cult
• Guardians of the Truth - Endorsing a concept of truth is not the same as endorsing a particular belief as eternally, absolutely, knowably true.
• Guardians of Ayn Rand
• Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs

An affective death spiral occurs when positive attributes of a theory, person, or organization combine with the Halo effect in a feedback loop, resulting in the subject of the affective death spiral being held in higher and higher regard. In effect, every positive thing said about the subject results in more than one additional nice thing to say about the subject on average. This cascades like a nuclear chain reaction. This process creates theories that are believed for their own sake and organizations that exist solely to perpetuate themselves.themselves, especially when combined with the social dynamics of groupthink. Affective death spirals are seen asthus a primary cause of cultishness.