ON COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

(Thanks to racocn8 for initiating this important discussion: [agnostic.com] )

There are few things that humans like less than having to modify our worldview. It can be terrifying. And understandably so, because it serves as our operating system, and if the operating system goes down, nothing works.

Unless we want the never-ending maintenance task of compartmentalizing, we may have to do extensive work on the OS in order to make it mesh with the new discordant information, so we will do all kinds of mental and emotional gymnastics to avoid that work.

One of the first (easiest) resorts is to undermine the legitimacy of the source. The person who provided the offending information is figured as ignorant or misinformed or dishonest or mentally ill or malicious or criminal.

At this point the process of deflecting the encroaching material is mostly unconscious, so the reaction comes in the form of emotional expression.

When any ostensibly rational discussion of ideas turns into a session of personal insults, it’s a pretty sure sign that the insulter is experiencing Cognitive Dissonance.

But this isn’t the only possible reaction to dissonance - just the easiest. We are bombarded with dissonant messages every day, and there’s not enough time to investigate all of them. So one reasonable response is to just ignore.

But if it is regarding an important issue, and if the troubling information continues to return, and especially if it is coming from multiple sources… we may eventually be motivated to examine the actual evidence for ourselves.

If we judge the evidence to be convincing, then we are forced to do the work of adjusting our worldview to accommodate it, thereby relieving the dissonance. If we find the evidence lacking, we can return to our existing worldview equally immune to the dissonance in future erroneous claims because we are now even more convinced of their baselessness.

In neither case do we have just cause to insult the bearer of conflicting information. If the information proved to be correct, the natural response would be to thank them. If it was incorrect, an appropriate response would be to either share the better evidence with them or ignore them, depending on the importance of the issue and how much time one has or cares to invest. Insulting people who perpetuate erroneous information is not an effective way to change their minds. It only hardens their convictions.

Light teasing can sometimes be effective, especially if accompanied by patient explanation of the facts. But name-calling and demeaning a person’s character speaks more about our own avoidance of change than about the other person’s actual character.

To the people who will predictably claim that the purveyors of false information are dangerous to society and deserve to be insulted, I say that’s some pretty stout arrogance to be so certain of your own infallibility, not to mention a lack of awareness of the science of how humans learn.

Being convinced you are right is not, in itself, problematic. You might be.

Being so convinced of your infallibility that you think the god-like power to punish wrongdoers is your rightful prerogative…
is mostly just a lazy response to cognitive dissonance.

And being resentful of people who are earnestly trying to contribute to constructive dialogue (even if their contribution is less than perfect) is a reactionary response. That is to say, in opposition to progress.

And even resisting progress isn’t a crime. It’s a natural human counterbalance to progress that moves too rapidly in untested directions.

But if you inhabit a progressive persona and are exhibiting reactionary behavior, I have some news that may cause a bit of dissonance.

Peace, love and puppy kisses

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