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Showing Original Post only (View all)The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic [View all]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/role-cognitive-dissonance-pandemic/614074/Members of Heavens Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wakeready 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 didnt 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.
Heavens 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 findingseven 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 elses 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 quitor justify smoking (It keeps me thin, and being overweight is a health risk too, you know). At its core, Festingers 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 ourselveswhen it threatens our belief that we are kind, ethical, competent, or smart. The minute we make any decisionIll buy this car; I will vote for this candidate; I think COVID-19 is serious; no, Im sure it is a hoaxwe 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*
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I grew up in a household with an authoritarian father whose mantra was Cognitive Dissonance.
no_hypocrisy
Jul 2020
#3