It is also true that the lower one's self esteem, the more likely the effect will take hold. So the Democrats do everything they can to lower the expectations and self-esteem of the public. And no wonder the MSM inundated the public with phony polling throughout 2012. If you have a big enough megaphone, the polling drives the results.
What we are seeing in our politics is the application of years of social science research. Much of it is bogus, but the concept of "groupthink" is very real.