- Banned
- #1
In the 1950s, social psychologist Leon Festinger proposed the theory of 'cognitive dissonance' as an attempt to explain the seeming irrationality of cult members who continued to have faith that a UFO landing was imminent despite constantly being wrong in their predictions as to when. In simple terms, the theory relates to individuals who:
1) hold two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time; or
2) are confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Theory_and_research
We have all been guilty of this at one point or another; indeed it is something which afflicts all of us more than most are probably willing to admit. For example, every semester at uni I would tell myself that I would attend classes and achieve better grades than the semester before, even though I knew the trend went in the exact opposite direction. When I found myself skipping classes in week 1, I would tell myself that I would make up for it the next week, even though I knew that was highly unlikely. And so on.
One of the more fascinating things to come out of Festinger's work was how we will delude ourselves into actually believing something to fit preexisting notions, and the stronger the dissonance, the greater the self-delusion. This short clip explains it well:
This explains why the biggest defenders of struggling coaches on team boards on bigfooty (for example) are those who have invested the most emotion into believing that said coaches would take their team to the promised land. It is not simply a matter of 'pride' or 'saving face' (although these are no doubt factors as well), but with each passing match/season where these beliefs seem to be getting proven wrong, such individuals are likely to convince themselves even more that their initial/earlier belief systems were correct.
That is, the more the evidence runs against our preexisting notions, the more mental stress we feel (cognitive dissonance), the more likely we are to delude ourselves into believing more strongly in our original views and reject anybody or anything that challenges those views - even when that means holding two completely contradictory views at the same time.
Is this a phenomenon you witness day-to-day? Is it possible you might be affected by your own cognitive dissonances? Are you the type of person to alter your worldview to fit the facts, or the type to fit the 'facts' into your worldview?
Over to you, bigfooty.
1) hold two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time; or
2) are confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Theory_and_research
We have all been guilty of this at one point or another; indeed it is something which afflicts all of us more than most are probably willing to admit. For example, every semester at uni I would tell myself that I would attend classes and achieve better grades than the semester before, even though I knew the trend went in the exact opposite direction. When I found myself skipping classes in week 1, I would tell myself that I would make up for it the next week, even though I knew that was highly unlikely. And so on.
One of the more fascinating things to come out of Festinger's work was how we will delude ourselves into actually believing something to fit preexisting notions, and the stronger the dissonance, the greater the self-delusion. This short clip explains it well:
This explains why the biggest defenders of struggling coaches on team boards on bigfooty (for example) are those who have invested the most emotion into believing that said coaches would take their team to the promised land. It is not simply a matter of 'pride' or 'saving face' (although these are no doubt factors as well), but with each passing match/season where these beliefs seem to be getting proven wrong, such individuals are likely to convince themselves even more that their initial/earlier belief systems were correct.
That is, the more the evidence runs against our preexisting notions, the more mental stress we feel (cognitive dissonance), the more likely we are to delude ourselves into believing more strongly in our original views and reject anybody or anything that challenges those views - even when that means holding two completely contradictory views at the same time.
Is this a phenomenon you witness day-to-day? Is it possible you might be affected by your own cognitive dissonances? Are you the type of person to alter your worldview to fit the facts, or the type to fit the 'facts' into your worldview?
Over to you, bigfooty.
