I am going to think beyond my programming, as it were, for a moment and make myself vulnerable.
I have a faulty logic. When I post something controversial, I often feel insightful while drafting it, but my 'spider sense tingles' because I innately fear downvotes. If it does, then I get upset because I feel that I made myself vulnerable by sharing something I should have kept quiet since it was not popular. Since an account apparently becomes 'dead' after enough downvoting, this is roughly being punished, at least digitally.
The faulty logic really kicks in when I use the same expectation of group reaction to garner upvotes. I feel satisfied when I get 10 or 15 upvotes, even though those posts are very often just aligned with what I suspect is popular opinion. I feel great, but gloss over the reality that I didn't really add anything new. It's like eating some chicken mcnuggets - I didn't really get anything out of it but it felt good.
There's a sort of protective stance people use in online posts, a deflection of anticipated peer reaction. Comment armor. "I know I'll get downvoted for this", "I know I'll get a -1 flamebait", "karma be damned" etc. We see this posturing all the time on karma based websites. Watch, I'll do this exact procedure in my closing sentence.
I know we're not supposed to complain about downvoting but I believe that's in a meta sense and since this topic is about groupthink, I believe it's relevant to discuss as part of the topic.
