COGNITIVE DISSONANCE - CHALLENGING BELIEFS

Cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. It is the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

I got introduced to this term a while ago and had an Aha! moment, when I saw this picture on Facebook which completely explained a psychological phenomenon I just could grasp. I would often observe and wonder how come people couldn’t easily grasp and accept a simple understanding and sensible reason to an erroneous notion they held. Especially regarding religion, god, sexuality and morals. People seem to always demonstrate a deep seated unwillingness to alter their perception of what they have sold themselves to believe it’s true that, even the most sensible arguments are simply pushed aside for the favour of their usually inherited assumptions about the world.

"Dissonance is felt when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, the dissonance can result in restoring consonance through misperception, rejection or refutation of the information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others."

I have often observed that this typical psychological behaviour is common amongst people who are strongly religious and are hell bent about their righteousness and the correctness of their religious views, that even the most sensible truth that can be easily understood by a five year old or fair minded person, is  simply dismissed as naïve and childish. 

“What do you mean God’s unconditional love is inclusive of abortion, lesbians and gays? That he loves all man, and doesn’t have his favourites? We are the chosen ones. The bible tells us so. You don’t know God! God’s love is unconditional but there are conditions he doesn’t love.” And this makes complete sense to the one who is experiencing the psychological distress of two competing notions.

“The magnitude of dissonance produced by two conflicting cognitions or actions (as well as the subsequent psychological distress) depends on two factors:

1. The importance of cognitions: The more elements that are personally valued, the greater the magnitude of the dissonant relationship will be. And,
2. Ratio of cognitions: The proportion of dissonant to complimentary elements.”

"We surround ourselves with people who believe just like we do, confirm our so-called faith, and affirm our cognitive dissonance. Indeed, we become fearful of facts or people who question our beliefs. We cannot learn, therefore, because learning “requires students to be willing to allow their beliefs to be challenged and to experience cognitive dissonance” as a positive." 

Personally it has always amused me to observe people who have sold themselves on the false truth about gay people. Often when I interact with new people who seem to be eager intrigued by my witty sense of humour and eccentricity, they are always dumbfounded or in complete disbelief that I am a gay guy should a subject of sexuality pops up (I don’t initiate it). They go through some psychological trauma of having being in close relations with this evil thing yet never experience the “evil” of it. For one, I don’t “look” the part, no do I speak it. They feel confused as to which truth to believe. The one they have sold themselves for so many years, or the imminent truth in the present? I could never completely understand why someone would have such a shock until I realised the impact of prejudice, stereotypes and false assumption has on someone’s observations of the world. Many even now may be experiencing this psychological distress because they have always been taught to think ill of homosexuals and that any material that has such a word should be automatically taken with a sense of judgement and disgust.

Cognitive dissonance is a result of the lack of being able to be open minded about the world around you. Many would rather have me reinforce their already accepted assumptions about the world that, if I do not do that they immediately feel some discomfort to having to rearrange their perception. We each go through this psychological trauma every day of our lives, whether its deciding to have a drink of alcohol with colleagues or friends after you firmly sworn that you don’t drink (which also has some Moral Licensing in it) or finding out that your boss is not such an asshole as everybody in the company has painted her as. (Probably you just had one when I mentioned a She as a boss huh?)

"A classic illustration of cognitive dissonance is expressed in the fable "The Fox and the Grapes" by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE). In the story, a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he decides that the grapes are probably not worth eating, with the justification the grapes probably are not ripe or that they are sour (hence the common phrase "sour grapes"). The moral that accompanies the story is "Any fool can despise what he cannot get". This example follows a pattern: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticizing it. Jon Elster calls this pattern "adaptive preference formation"."

Any fool can criticise what he can’t understand, and most fools do.

Cognitive dissonance, explains all the resistance to new ideas and philosophies. The reluctance of the adaptation of a new truth. You can imagine how the Greeks who believed the world was flat must have felt. Or when Einstein reconstructed the immutable Newtonian Laws that the practical physicist held as gospel, or when Galileo Galilee, and Nicolaus Copernicus reshaped the whole philosophy of the Theological Model of the universe which said the earth was the center of the universe. Cognitive dissonance - History is filled evidence of such a psychological phenomenon. 

The world is only accepting of ideas if they continue with the notion of the accepted truth. But once you become too invested in your own opinions you become unteachable and thus your mind begin to rust from your own stagnant waters of prejudice. I have learnt not be too invested upon my own opinions for I have learnt that what I know will never be the complete unchangeable truth.

Most of the world’s conflicts are caused by the inability, or better said, the unwillingness to alter ones assumptions to be inclusive of new information. And usually it is because of belief that truth or reality is only one shaded. A willingness to have an open mind and acute sense of curiosity will keep you constantly in tune with the evolving world around us and prevent you from remaining cemented in the past. Because the truth is that, truth is always changing since life is always evolving. And an understanding of this will keep you abreast with the process of life itself, with your true self which is a forever changing being.