[1] It is argued that this feedback loop leads to members competing to demonstrate the zealotry or purity of their views.
[2][3] A purity spiral is argued to occur when a community's primary focus becomes implementing a single value that has no upper limit, and where that value does not have an agreed interpretation.
[4] One aspect that stands out in all purity spirals is the vanity of small differences, and the punishing of people for the most minor transgressions.
[1][4] Turkish-American academic Timur Kuran described this phenomenon in his 1995 book Private Truth, Public Lies, calling it preference falsification, and further noted the lack of incentives and systems to disrupt purity spirals, pointing out that even a small amount of opposition or doubt can lead to a greater wave of questioning within the group.
French philosopher René Girard also described many of the principles of the purity spiral, including mimetic rivalry and the scapegoat mechanism, in his 1972 book Violence and the Sacred.