The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/role-cognitive-dissonance-pandemic/614074/

Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several members of the group bought an expensive, high-powered telescope so that they might get a clearer view of the comet. They quickly brought it back and asked for a refund. When the manager asked why, they complained that the telescope was defective, that it didn’t show the spaceship following the comet. A short time later, believing that they would be rescued once they had shed their “earthly containers” (their bodies), all 39 members killed themselves.

Heaven’s Gate followers had a tragically misguided conviction, but it is an example, albeit extreme, of cognitive dissonance, the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings—even when those findings can save our lives. This dynamic is playing out during the pandemic among the many people who refuse to wear masks or practice social distancing. Human beings are deeply unwilling to change their minds. And when the facts clash with their preexisting convictions, some people would sooner jeopardize their health and everyone else’s than accept new information or admit to being wrong.

Cognitive dissonance, coined by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, describes the discomfort people feel when two cognitions, or a cognition and a behavior, contradict each other. I smoke is dissonant with the knowledge that Smoking can kill me. To reduce that dissonance, the smoker must either quit—or justify smoking (“It keeps me thin, and being overweight is a health risk too, you know”). At its core, Festinger’s theory is about how people strive to make sense out of contradictory ideas and lead lives that are, at least in their own minds, consistent and meaningful.

One of us (Aronson), who was a protégé of Festinger in the mid-’50s, advanced cognitive-dissonance theory by demonstrating the powerful, yet nonobvious, role it plays when the concept of self is involved. Dissonance is most painful when evidence strikes at the heart of how we see ourselves—when it threatens our belief that we are kind, ethical, competent, or smart. The minute we make any decision—I’ll buy this car; I will vote for this candidate; I think COVID-19 is serious; no, I’m sure it is a hoax—we will begin to justify the wisdom of our choice and find reasons to dismiss the alternative. Before long, any ambivalence we might have felt at the time of the original decision will have morphed into certainty. As people justify each step taken after the original decision, they will find it harder to admit they were wrong at the outset. Especially when the end result proves self-defeating, wrongheaded, or harmful.

*snip*

[The Blue Flower]

1. Like evangelicals worshipping the antichrist drumpf

nt

[Nevilledog]

2. Absolutely.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I grew up in a household with an authoritarian father whose mantra was Cognitive Dissonance.

From the time I could verbalize, I was pointing out contradictions that seemed obvious to me. By the time I was an adolescent, we were having tirades, again, with me speaking reality and my father sticking to his delusions. In my thirties, when I agreed that one of his employees was not working and collecting salary, he was so incensed that he withheld the money he promised me to attend law school. Dad tried to laugh it off, saying "I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong."

Mom tried to challenge him, but she lacked the will to be successful (not that she would have succeeded where I failed). I think one of the worst things about being raised in this environment is seeing how that affected my siblings. To this day, my sister still can't think critically and believes whomever is the most persuasive, not whom is correct. She doesn't often give me credence. (It got so bad at one time in her life that she actually requested that our parents find her the right guy to marry. Fortunately, she married my BIL before that could happen.)

I get no pleasure remembering these memories. I know I suffered for challenging my father at every turn. But my sanity wasn't negotiable.

[Nevilledog]

4. Does seeing what's going on with trump & his cult feel like deja vu?

[no_hypocrisy]

5. ARE YOU KIDDING? Try PTSD ! ! !

It's macro family dynamics. It's like Dad is still alive and has reached his pinnacle of power.

[Nevilledog]

6. I was trying to be diplomatic in asking.

I first wrote " Is it a huge trigger?" And thought that was too direct.

Hopefully this nightmare will be over soon.

[2naSalit]

7. They had a thing about that comet...

It was supposed to take them to their promised land or some shit. I lived in San Diego county when that happened, and a good friend, whom I've met decades later, was on the next property to their housing place.

The timing was based on the comet, there's currently a comet visible from earth at dawn and dusk right now... have to wonder if that has anything to do with the crackpots we see all over the place now?

[Celerity]

8. K & R for visibility

[Trenzalore]

9. There is going to be violence when Trump loses

I was watching a news program this morning and they had a Trump spokesman on. The host read the internals of the recent polls and asked the spokesman how they were going to dig out of the hole. The response was there was no hole. Trump is receiving a large share of the African American vote because African Americans are uncomfortable with Biden and that the campaigns polls show them winning.

This message no matter how bad it gets for Trump from now to November is what is going to be fed to his faithful and when he loses they are going to become violent. I'm convinced of this.