Dr. Todd Rose

And in the book, I lay out some pretty horrific examples, including people in cults and the extent that they'd go to to be part of that.

But when it comes to that, where it's just intense identity-related stuff, the most important thing you can do happens well before you get to that situation, which is, it turns out from neuroscience research, we know that if you have at least three groups that matter to you,

none of those groups can have cult-like power of you.

And literally just if one group is challenging your view and you're too afraid to speak up, all you have to do is in your own mind, imagine one other group that matters to you.

And it turns out it will blunt the fear response that your brain triggers about being ostracized from any particular group.

So it's funny, again, it's what cults do.

They isolate you from every other group.

So they're the only group that matters.

And the thing is, the one takeaway I would tell people is you have to get comfortable with the idea that you can no longer trust your brain to tell you what your group believes.

You just can't.

It'll feel like you know and you're going to be wrong half the time.

We just have to get beyond that and realize because of our technologies, we can no longer trust our brains read on the group.

And I believe the way forward is a recommitment to some fundamental values that we've held as a society to free expression and protecting people's ability to share controversial ideas even when we really disagree with them.

There's a reason for that.

And if we don't, self-silence harms everyone, right?

And for me, and the reason I wanted to write the book is, when we started this, we've been tracking the American public's understanding of this phenomenon of collective illusions.

And right now, it's only about 3% of people know that this even exists.

So now that you know,

suddenly you recognize there's an incredible value and importance to being what I would call congruent, like working hard to ensure your public self is the same as your private self.

We know that it's a critical thing for your own happiness, but now you also know it might be the most important thing you could ever do for the groups that matter to you.