Cognitive dissonance

[amadeus]

Many good answers and thoughts by people here, but as I’m on the train to work I don’t have time to respond to all of them yet.

@Hygro, would this be a fair representation of what you are saying?

Cognitive dissonance: the response of the person brought on by the revelation of new information that (to them) undeniably casts doubt on the person’s belief.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What comes to mind for me is: believing in molecular biology as a tool for curing disease and at the same time not believing in carbon 14 (and other) dating methodologies because the conflict with the idea of a young earth religious model.

People are really good at accepting/believing in two or more distinctly conflicting ideas at the same time.

 

[AdamCrock]

I think that a cognitive dissonance is a good thing. Personally I think that person experiencing it refuses to take anything at face value and is not easily persuaded by others. I think it occurs due to a lack of experience or knowledge about the idea - like for example gun control issue - Personally I have not enough experience to decide and the arguments of both sides seems good to me. When I experience a cognitive dissonance I try to learn as much about it as I can to decide for myself but only if it truly interests me. Anyway

Spoiler "...trust Your feelings Luke. You know them to be true ..." :

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Trusting feelings over available evidence is a path to ruin indeed.

 

[FriendlyFire]

@FriendlyFire, I’m not entirely sure that’s the same thing? I thought it would be if the girl believed that both Jews and Hitler were responsible for the war and couldn’t reconcile those two mutually opposing propositions. Maybe I just have a tenuous grasp on the concept.

Its the rejection of facts that contradict there firmly held beliefs and how long it takes for them to come to the realization and eventual acceptance.

 

[Ferocitus]

I want Trump to win because I don't want my ideological enemy to be led by a savvy, shrewd politician.
But I also want Biden to win for the same reason.

 

[The_J]

This one is resolvable. You don't take legal measures against individuals lying to you absent demonstrable damages, for example, but you still have methods for determining whether what they have told you is true or false. News can and should be held to similar scrutiny when it says things, rather than having laws that force a scenario where a centralized body gets to determine which lies you receive.

This "demonstrable damage" is a tricky thing. Apparently the aim of politicial disinformation during voting campaigns is to disrupt trust and unity. Hard to measure that.
Also given that many people have problems distinguishing fake news from real news (incl. the obvious head of state), I think you're placing too much trust in there.


Oh, the wiki article also has eating meat as an example of cognitive dissonance.
I think I can deal with that personally, since I'm fine with the killing of the animals, as long as they're treated fine.
... which, yeah. means I should not have a look into how they're treated, I'm aware of that.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Oh, the wiki article also has eating meat as an example of cognitive dissonance.
I think I can deal with that personally, since I'm fine with the killing of the animals, as long as they're treated fine.
... which, yeah. means I should not have a look into how they're treated, I'm aware of that.

Well that is considering different perspectives at more or less the same intellectual level.

With me it is often which conflicting level rules. Taking the example of meat there is (a) low (hunger for protein and fat)
and (b) medium (compassion), (c) high (utilitarian logic). It is a sort of hierarchy of needs dissonance involved.
That is not quite the same as cognitive dissonance; but one can have several types of dissonance at the same time.

 

[Gorbles]

I think that a cognitive dissonance is a good thing. Personally I think that person experiencing it refuses to take anything at face value and is not easily persuaded by others.

This isn't what the dissonance is. The dissonance arises from holding two incompatible viewpoints at the same time. It not about "not being easily-persuaded", it's about knowing both things, and the problems that can arise from that. There's probably a better site for it, but this is a straightforward explanation, with examples, of what it means. Just ignore all the silly adverts.

 

[AdamCrock]

How do You feel about : "If God is not proven not to exist, therefore it must exist ?" or "God does not play dice!" quotes ? Do You think they are true ? I am not asking about "logical explanation" (agent Scully ....), I am asking about feelings )))

 

[Mise]

Interrogating why you believe something and being honest with yourself about the answers is the solution to this. It's perfectly possible, as humans are flawed and often irrational, to hold two contradictory beliefs, or to do something that on the face of it contradicts your own beliefs. Some people devise clever-clever excuses for why they do it -- and the smarter you are, the better excuse you'll come up with -- but you often end up having to say things or pretend to believe things that you simply don't really believe. You end up being backed into a logical prison of your own making, where you have to believe wilder and wilder things that are logically consistent but probably not good ideas, or good things to believe.

You see it a lot with online activists, journalists, or politicians who truly believe in certain leaders. They've had to say and do all sorts of things to reconcile their leaders' positions with their own principles. Some of them have made quite a fool of themselves in the process, despite the undoubted logical consistency of their new positions.

They would do better interrogating why they are facing this dilemma in the first place, and be honest with themselves in answering. It's pretty easy for a clever person to come up with a neat, logically consistent solution to a problem; that's what human intelligence is very well designed to do. It is far harder to do the emotional work of interrogating your own believes and being honest with yourself about them -- but it is far more rewarding in the long term.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This "demonstrable damage" is a tricky thing. Apparently the aim of politicial disinformation during voting campaigns is to disrupt trust and unity. Hard to measure that.
Also given that many people have problems distinguishing fake news from real news (incl. the obvious head of state), I think you're placing too much trust in there.


Oh, the wiki article also has eating meat as an example of cognitive dissonance.
I think I can deal with that personally, since I'm fine with the killing of the animals, as long as they're treated fine.
... which, yeah. means I should not have a look into how they're treated, I'm aware of that.

I used "demonstrable damage" to cover explicit legal cases like slander/libel. The problem with attempting to restrict news on the grounds of being "fake news" is that you will get said "head of state" determining which news is "fake".

I do admit, it's unfortunate and frustrating that some individual YouTubers are consistently more trustworthy (on track record/directly cited sources) than every major media outlet in the US, but if that's how it's gone at least we can decide for ourselves who is fake vs not, rather than having Trump/Obama/Bush/Clinton/etc or congress decide for us which news is fake.

How do You feel about : "If God is not proven not to exist, therefore it must exist ?" or "God does not play dice!" quotes ?

Those are two different statements made in different contexts. The first is obviously false on its face; there is no argumentative credibility to it whatsoever. Anybody who makes such a statement and then rejects the existence of ghosts/leprechauns/unicorns/magic in real life is demonstrating cognitive dissonance.

The latter (if you are referring to Einstein using it) has two parts to unpack. First, it assumes God, which isn't backed by anything but also wasn't the substantive focus of the statement. The second is that he was rejecting randomness in quantum mechanics. Even to this day, we haven't ruled out deterministic interpretations of QM unless something happened very recently, but both then and now that statement is more wishful thinking (assuming you want determinism to be true?) than anything pinned down by evidence. I don't see cognitive dissonance in this statement per se'...physics can exist in principle with or without a god, and his desired "way the world works" was an open question.

 

[AdamCrock]

og Ut dp do d,sty Upi eo;; frvo[jrer yos vpfr

 

[AdamCrock]

I made a mistake sorry

 

[amadeus]

I do this with a lot of issues. What's I think is good as law for society at large is not necessarily what I think is morally right personally.

I suppose there are apolitical issues that could also cause cognitive dissonance (if I was using the term correctly at all to begin with, by now I'm not so certain ) but I just found the gun control example personally the easiest to explain. I guess I can't think of anything outside of politics because I don't see the need for nuance in day-to-day life? There's not much to think about when I go to the grocery store or sit on my balcony and drink coffee.

Interrogating why you believe something and being honest with yourself about the answers is the solution to this. It's perfectly possible, as humans are flawed and often irrational, to hold two contradictory beliefs, or to do something that on the face of it contradicts your own beliefs. Some people devise clever-clever excuses for why they do it -- and the smarter you are, the better excuse you'll come up with -- but you often end up having to say things or pretend to believe things that you simply don't really believe. You end up being backed into a logical prison of your own making, where you have to believe wilder and wilder things that are logically consistent but probably not good ideas, or good things to believe.

Thinking about it for a few minutes, then the question is: why do we do it? I don't mean to point the question at you specifically, but you raise this very interesting point. Is it because we're afraid of appearing inconsistent in public? Or is there a utility in devising these excuses, so that others can't use those inconsistencies against us?

Maybe I should just go back to playing my game and not think so much. Or not enough.

 

[Hygro]

Reasoning from identity can cause cognitive dissonance.
"He's a liberal therefore he can't be pro-gun." "If he's pro-gun he supports Republicans."

Here's another "I'm a good parent therefore you are lying that my kid bullied your kid."

 

[GenMarshall]

Cognitive dissonance: the response of the person brought on by the revelation of new information that (to them) undeniably casts doubt on the person’s belief.

I don't know if this also extends to having your old beliefs getting debunked or challenged.

 

[bernie14]

Perhaps cognitive dissonance can be resolved by having an "honest conversation" with oneself but I think the essence has more to do with how a person/people invest in their beliefs and actions. Regardless of the defense mechanisms employed, cognitive dissonance is a theory that assumes mental conflict causes anxiety. I think it also assumes a dynamic between thoughts/beliefs and actions (or inaction). Festinger seemed perplexed that the most fervent of doomsday cultists reinforced their delusions by convincing themselves that their hard work had prevented an apocalypse, while those with less resolve could accept that they were fooled. The experiments were designed to show that actions can change your beliefs, just as beliefs can change your actions. In either case, dissonance is reduced.

 

[amadeus]

I don't know if this also extends to having your old beliefs getting debunked or challenged.

As far as my understanding goes I don't think it would within the technical boundaries of the term. Then again, I also accept that I probably misunderstood the concept in technical terms from the outset when I started this thread.

 

[bernie14]

I don't know if this also extends to having your old beliefs getting debunked or challenged.

Sure, ask yourself why echo chambers are so popular