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The Virtue of Contradicting Ourselves - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...f-contradicting-ourselves.html psychology research cognitive dissonance cognitive consistency bias
shared by Javier E on 18 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • We don’t just loathe inconsistencies in others; we hate them in ourselves, too. But why? What makes contradictions so revolting — and should they be?
  • Leon Festinger, one of the great social psychologists in history, coined the term cognitive dissonance to describe the discomfort you feel if you say or do something that is inconsistent with one of your beliefs
  • there was a catch: Sometimes people weren’t bothered at all by holding inconsistent beliefs
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  • it appeared that people felt dissonance only when their choices had negative consequences, but people still felt dissonance when they wrote something inconsistent with their prior beliefs and then threw it in the trash, never to be seen again
  • For years, it remained a mystery why people would feel dissonance even when there were no negative consequences. But recently, it was solved
  • Using neuroscience to track the activation of different brain regions, Professor Harmon-Jones and colleagues found that inconsistent beliefs really bother us only when they have conflicting implications for action
  • If I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and I want to vote for a candidate with a decent shot at winning, my beliefs are contradictory. One way to reconcile them is to change my opinion on abortion or tax policies. Goodbye, dissonanc
  • This helps to explain why many people’s political beliefs fall on a simple left-right continuum, rather than in more complex combinations. Once, we might have held more nuanced opinions, but in pursuit of consistency, we’ve long since whitewashed the shades of gray
  • It also explains why we can’t stand to vote for flip-floppers. We worry that they don’t have clear principles; we think they lack integrity
  • t consistency is especially appealing to political conservatives, who report a stronger preference for certainty, structure, order and closure than liberals. If you favor predictability over ambiguity and stability over change, a candidate who holds fast to his ideology has a lot of curb appeal.
  • When historians and political scientists rate the presidents throughout history, the most effective ones turn out to be the most open-minded
  • This is true of both conservative and liberal presidents. Abraham Lincoln was a flip-flopper: He started out pro-slavery before abolishing it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a flip-flopper, too: Elected on a platform of balancing the budget, he substantially increased spending with his New Deal.
  • we should be wary of electing anyone who fails to evolve. “Progress is impossible without change,” George Bernard Shaw observed, “and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
  • when it comes to facing our own contradictions, perhaps we should be more open as well. As the artist Marcel Duchamp observed, “I have forced myself to contradict myself, in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”
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History News Network | History Gets Into Bed with Psychology, and It's a Happy Match - 0 views

hnn.us/153891 history psychology cognitive bias
shared by Javier E on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The fact that many of our self-protective delusions are built into the way the brain works is no justification for not trying to override them. Knowing how dissonance works helps us identify our own inclinations to perpetuate errors -- and protect ourselves from those who can’t. Or won’t.Related LinksWhat Historians Can Learn from the Social Sciences and Sciences /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */ var disqus_shortname = 'hnndev'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */ (function() { var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true; dsq.src = '//' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js'; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq); })(); Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. News Breaking News Historians DC Breaking News Historians DC ‘Scottsboro Boys’ pardoned in Alabama ‘November 22, 1963’ U-Boat discovered off the coast of Indonesia Vatican publicly unveils bone fragments said to belong to St. Peter Pictured: the 'real site' of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Historian: Taiwan can use WWII legacy to improve standing with China 'I Take Long Walks': The Emotional Lives of Holocaust Scholars Chinese historian: Xi Jinping a master of "neo-authoritarianism" History Comes to Life With Tweets From Past Celtic Paths, Illuminated by a Sundial try{for(var lastpass_iter=0; lastpass_iter < document.forms.length; lastpass_iter++){ var lastpass_f = document.forms[lastpass_iter]; if(typeof(lastpass_f.lpsubmitorig2)=="undefined"){ lastpass_f.lpsubmitorig2 = lastpass_f.submit; lastpass_f.submit = function(){ var form=this; var customEvent = document.createEvent("Event"); customEvent.initEvent("lpCustomEvent", true, true); var d = document.getElementById("hiddenlpsubmitdiv"); for(var i = 0; i < document.forms.length; i++){ if(document.forms[i]==form){ d.innerText=i; } } d.dispatchEvent(customEvent); form.lpsubmitorig2(); } } }}catch(e){}
  • at last, history has gotten into bed with psychological science, and it’s a happy match. History gives us the data of, in Barbara Tuchman’s splendid words, our march of folly -- repeated examples of human beings unable and unwilling to learn from mistakes, let alone to admit them. Cognitive science shows us why
  • Our brains, which have allowed us to travel into outer space, have a whole bunch of design flaws, which is why we have so much breathtaking bumbling here on Earth.
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  • Of the many built-in biases in human thought, three have perhaps the greatest consequences for our own history and that of nations: the belief that we see things as they really are, rather than as we wish them to be; the belief that we are better, kinder, smarter, and more ethical than average; and the confirmation bias, which sees to it that we notice, remember, and accept information that confirms our beliefs -- and overlook, forget, and discount information that disconfirms our beliefs.
  • The great motivational theory that accommodates all of these biases is cognitive dissonance, developed by Leon Festinger in 1957 and further refined and transformed into a theory of self-justification by his student (and later my coauthor and friend) Elliot Aronson. The need to reduce dissonance is the key mechanism that underlies the reluctance to be wrong, to change our minds, to admit serious mistakes, and to be unwilling to accept unwelcome information
  • The greater the dissonance between who we are and the mistake we made or the cruelty we committed, the greater the need to justify the mistake, the crime, the villainy, instead of admitting and rectifying it
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Opinion | Why Fox News Is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rump-covid-fox-news-masks.html
shared by anonymous on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Humans will do figure eights to make facts suit their fictions.
  • Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Leon Festinger came up with cognitive dissonance theory, which can essentially be described as the very human desire to reconcile the irreconcilable.
  • Our brains, he realized, will go to baroque lengths — do magic tricks, even — to preserve the integrity of our worldview, even when the facts inconveniently club us over the head with a two-by-four.
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  • Today, perhaps the best case study of cognitive dissonance theory can be found in the prime-time lineup on Fox News, where Donald Trump’s most dedicated supporters are struggling mightily to make sense of the president’s Covid-19 diagnosis.
  • just as Festinger’s work predicts, they are doubling down on their beliefs, interpreting recent events as incontrovertible proof that they were right from the start.
  • the figure-eight logic we resort to when our stories don’t align with reality.
  • Later in her program, Ingraham even managed to find a doctor who challenged the efficacy of masks.
  • Everyone reckons with cognitive dissonance.
  • On his Friday show, Sean Hannity was reckoning with his own set of contradictions. He repeated, at almost metronomic intervals, that the president had been admitted to the hospital “out of an abundance of caution.” But in his outrage segment, during which he and his choir of the incensed (rightly) condemned those who wished the president harm, he didn’t blink when Geraldo Rivera said: “I hate when I hear that B.S. cliché ‘an abundance of caution.’ The headline here is that the president of the United States and the first lady of the United States have been diagnosed with Covid disease — a wicked, dangerous, deadly disease that’s already claimed 208,000 American lives.”
  • People will do a great deal to justify their belief systems, even if it means tolerating a thousand tiny inconsistencies.
  • And Fox News is especially adept at giving people scripts they can use to minimize their discomfort with bothersome, disconfirming facts.
  • It was notable, I thought, that a few of Trump’s supporters were wearing masks outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
  • But I don’t feel much hope. It requires a pretty thick hide to say you disagree with your former self
  • For those who’ve dismissed or downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, now is a good time to reconsider that position. And for those who’ve prayed for such a conversion, now is a good time simply to be thankful, and not to judge.
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The Backfire Effect « You Are Not So Smart - 0 views

youarenotsosmart.com/...the-backfire-effect cognitive bias backfire confirmation bias social media individualized
shared by Javier E on 02 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • corrections tended to increase the strength of the participants’ misconceptions if those corrections contradicted their ideologies. People on opposing sides of the political spectrum read the same articles and then the same corrections, and when new evidence was interpreted as threatening to their beliefs, they doubled down. The corrections backfired.
  • Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm.&nbsp;You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead.&nbsp;Over time, the backfire effect helps make you less skeptical of those things which allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.
  • Psychologists call stories like these narrative scripts, stories that tell you what you want to hear, stories which confirm your beliefs and give you permission to continue feeling as you already do. If believing in welfare queens protects your ideology, you accept it and move on.
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  • Contradictory evidence strengthens the position of the believer. It is seen as part of the conspiracy, and missing evidence is dismissed as part of the coverup.
  • Most online battles follow a similar pattern, each side launching attacks and pulling evidence from deep inside the web to back up their positions until, out of frustration, one party resorts to an all-out ad hominem nuclear strike
  • you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.
  • you spend much more time considering information you disagree with than you do information you accept. Information which lines up with what you already believe passes through the mind like a vapor, but when you come across something which threatens your beliefs, something which conflicts with your preconceived notions of how the world works, you seize up and take notice.&nbsp;Some psychologists speculate there is an evolutionary explanation. Your ancestors paid more attention and spent more time thinking about negative stimuli than positive because bad things required a response
  • when your beliefs are challenged, you pore over the data, picking it apart, searching for weakness. The cognitive dissonance locks up the gears of your mind until you deal with it. In the process you form more neural connections, build new memories and put out effort – once you finally move on, your original convictions are stronger than ever.
  • The backfire effect is constantly shaping your beliefs and memory, keeping you consistently leaning one way or the other through a process psychologists call biased assimilation.
  • They then separated subjects into two groups; one group said they believed homosexuality was a mental illness and one did not. Each group then read the fake studies full of pretend facts and figures suggesting their worldview was wrong. On either side of the issue, after reading studies which did not support their beliefs, most people didn’t report an epiphany, a realization they’ve been wrong all these years. Instead, they said the issue was something science couldn’t understand. When asked about other topics later on, like spanking or astrology, these same people said they no longer trusted research to determine the truth. Rather than shed their belief and face facts, they rejected science altogether.
  • As social media and advertising progresses, confirmation bias and the backfire effect will become more and more difficult to overcome. You will have more opportunities to pick and choose the kind of information which gets into your head along with the kinds of outlets you trust to give you that information. In addition, advertisers will continue to adapt, not only generating ads based on what they know about you, but creating advertising strategies on the fly based on what has and has not worked on you so far. The media of the future may be delivered based not only on your&nbsp;preferences, but on how you vote, where you grew up, your mood, the time of day or year – every element of you which can be quantified. In a world where everything comes to you on demand, your beliefs may never be challenged.
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Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear? - Allegra Ringo - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...280938 fear brain science psychology
shared by Ellie McGinnis on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • One of the most interesting things about studying fear is looking at the social constructions of fear, and learned fears versus those fears that appear to be more innate, or even genetic
  • Through fear conditioning (connecting a neutral stimulus with a negative consequence) we can link pretty much anything to a fear response.
  • So we know that we can learn to fear, and this means our socialization and the society in which we are raised is going to have a lot to do with what we find scary.
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  • This speaks to the fact that things that violate the laws of nature are terrifying. And really anything that doesn’t make sense or causes us some sort of dissonance, whether it is cognitive or aesthetic, is going to be scary (axe-wielding animals, masked faces, contorted bodies).
  • Humans are obsessed with death; we simply have a hard time wrapping our mind around what happens when we die.
  • Humans have been scaring themselves and each other since the birth of the species, through all kinds of methods like storytelling, jumping off cliffs, and popping out to startle each other from the recesses of some dark cave.
  • to build group unity, to prepare kids for life in the scary world, and, of course, to control behavior.
  • These scary stories provided, and continue to deliver, intrigue, exhilaration, and a jolt of excitement to our lives.
  • One of the reasons people love Halloween is because it produces strong emotional responses, and those responses work to build stronger relationships and memories. When we’re happy, or afraid, we’re releasing powerful hormones, like oxcytocin, that are working to make these moments stick in our brain. So we’re going to remember the people we’re with. If it was a good experience, then we’ll remember them fondly and feel close to them, more so than if we were to meet them during some neutral unexciting event.
  • We’re social and emotional beings. We need each other in times of stress, so the fact that our bodies have evolved to make sure we feel close to those we are with when afraid makes sense.
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Anger at being labeled racist is the new 'cultural anxiety' for Trump supporters - The ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...tural-anxiety-trump-supporters trump anxiety racism whitelash supporters cognitive dissonance psychology
shared by Javier E on 15 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • as more Americans label the president a racist due to his worldview, the voters who continue to back him are becoming bolder in justifying their support, citing retaliation for being viewed as backing a racist.
  • as the president’s overall approval ratings remain relatively low, many of those who brought him to the dance appear to be dancing more closely than ever. And they are blaming their critics
  • After Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) tweeted the names of maximum Trump donors in his district — which are all public record, by the way — accusing them of “fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as invaders,” the backlash from Trump-supporting Republicans was severe.
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  • According to the Republican National Committee chairwoman, their protests motivated donors. “Thanks to the unhinged mob on the left, President Trump raised $12M today, $2M more than originally expected,” she tweeted
  • Many Trump supporters express indignation at being labeled racist, but the worldview they admittedly embrace demonstrates a hostility to diversity.
  • more than 60 percent of Republicans said the shift of the United States to being a majority nonwhite country would be a mostly negative development.
  • Six in 10 Republicans also said that they felt like strangers in their own country, and nearly 6 in 10 white evangelical Protestants — one of the most pro-Trump demographic groups in the country — said immigrants are a threat to American society.
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Opinion | How to Talk to Friends and Family Who Share Conspiracy Theories - The New Yor... - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...onspiracy-theories-family.html election trump thinking conspiracy social media Technology education
shared by clairemann on 27 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Online, somebody they know and love has stumbled into the treacherous world of online conspiracy theories and, in some cases, might not even know it.
  • How do you talk to people you care about who might be on the precipice of or headed down the conspiratorial rabbit hole?
  • Conspiracy theories (like Pizzagate and now QAnon, anti-vaccine claims, disinformation around the coronavirus suggesting the virus was engineered in a laboratory) are a chronic condition that will long outlive the 2020 election.
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  • I’d non-defensively ask them, ‘Do you know how Google works?’ ‘What do you think my news feed looks like? Do you know why yours looks that way?’”
  • I would expect the following to happen.’ I
  • cognitive dissonance.
  • is to acknowledge that some conspiracies do exist — Watergate, the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals, the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s network of underage sexual abuse.
  • And if people better understood the mechanisms and the economics, maybe then you can talk about the content.”
  • Witnesses come forward, then victims. And journalists circle like sharks to get the story. I try to get them to think about concrete things and logistical details, including the bureaucracy that’s required to maintain these vast alleged plots.”
  • “Sometimes it’s about turning the ‘do your research’ paradigm back on them,” he said. “I never appeal to authorities like the government or mainstream media, but I subtly imply that what they’re saying doesn’t match the historical record, which works better than outright dismissing them.”
  • Unfortunately, social platforms are often the worst forum for talking about these thorny issues. In many cases, a face-to-face conversation is a better place to voice your concerns.
  • They can also allow participants to pick up on subtle facial and body language expressions — or tone of voice — that may dissolve tensions.
  • “There it is. Biden’s wearing a wire.” It’s actually just a crease in his shirt. And a popular meme among teens was the claim that Wayfair is shipping children in industrial-grade cabinets.
  • The main gist of QAnon is that elite satanic pedophiles are everywhere and they’re coming to get your kids. More specifically, pedophiles are everywhere among liberals, celebrities, and the media.
  • “Q is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” There are now 87 QAnon supporters who have run for Congress, and the first will be elected this November. “I think it’s something worth listening to and paying attention to.” And Trump refuses to push back against QAnon because QAnon loves Trump.
  • One of the major reasons QAnon is on the rise right now is because when the world is scary and uncertain, we are drawn to magical thinking.
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How to get better at admitting you're wrong - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...tting-you-re-wrong-ncna1003356 brain science
shared by johnsonel7 on 20 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a little pride. It can propel you forward in tough situations and demonstrates a level of self-assuredness that we all strive for in our personal and professional lives. But there’s a narrow line dividing healthy confidence and stubborn ego, and one of the primary indicators you’ve landed on the wrong side is not being able to admit when you’re wrong.
  • Struggling to admit our own fault, though — whether it was a major breach or a minor mess-up — doesn’t really serve us well. Not only can it sour some of our closest relationships, but it can even be detrimental to our own personal growth.
  • In other cases, though, it’s possible to be aware that you’re wrong — whether mildly or outright — but still struggle to wave the guilty flag due to our precious egos.
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  • This process is referred to as cognitive dissonance — an unconscious defense system that many of us employ to protect our ego.
  • “Admitting we are wrong shows others that we are compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic, and good listeners. It also shows that we are capable of being objective about ourselves and that we not ‘perfect’ or always right.”
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The psychology of arguments - 0 views

blog.delightex.com/logy-arguments-1-fighting-hard psychology brain science language
shared by krystalxu on 24 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • It is being able to resolve conflicts in a constructive, respectful way.
  • There are more subtle threats than that: The reason behind a fight might endanger your status, material goods, emotional needs or your self-perception. And that is bad enough to cause you stress.
  • It is evident why this can be a hindrance for constructive conflict-solving.
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  • Cognitive dissonance emerges when you feel that some of your beliefs and behaviors or certain information from the outside world don’t really fit together.
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communication - The psychology of communication | social behaviour | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...he-psychology-of-communication communication psychology social brain science
shared by krystalxu on 25 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • individuals are indeed variably persuasible and that, at times, factors of personality are related to this quality.
  • The dissonant or inconsistent elements include the bowler’s knowledge of his skill and the fact of his poor score. This produces tension.
  • Because the agreement or disagreement of a communication with an individual’s cognitive structure affects not only behaviour but perception as well, the major criterion for the psychological analysis of communication is neither the message nor the medium but the expectation of the person receiving the message.
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