Why Do People Have Gaping Blind Spots?

As I discussed previously, cognitive dissonance can cause us to rationalize and justify all sorts of strange beliefs and illogical decisions, but it has other effects as well.

Recall that cognitive dissonance causes us to deal with new incompatible information by either discarding our initial belief, or by dismissing the new information. It turns out that our brain has a strong preference for the latter. It would much prefer a stable set of beliefs rather than a constantly changing set. That way, the world seems to make more sense. The problem is, this can lead to an effect known as confirmation bias.

Professional Bias

As Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson describe in their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), confirmation bias causes us to more readily accept information that confirms what we already know, and more likely to ignore or rationalize away information that isn’t compatible. We see what we want to see. It’s just another way the brain avoids cognitive dissonance.

The biggest problem with confirmation bias is that those with the strongest beliefs are those that are most likely to be affected by it. For example, all the big name experts in a particular field are some of the least likely people to be able to change their minds and admit to mistakes. Cognitive dissonance is strongest in them because they have the most to lose. In many cases, they’ve invested years or decades of their lives into an idea, so they’re not likely to want to admit that they wasted that much time on something that’s wrong – they’re supposed to be “experts”…

George Bush is a poster boy for this outcome. The more things go wrong in Iraq, the more he believes that it was the right thing to do, the more he comes up with new justifications…

Selective Memory

Cognitive dissonance also affects your memories. We like to think that our memories are accurate and objective, but they’re not. It’s not so much that we forget things, as much as we seem to remember ourselves more favorably or alter events to better fit our beliefs – i.e. we are all revisionist historians!

One of my first experiences with this process was late in my late teens – another teen and I had an “altercation”. A few hours later we were asked to recount the events as we remembered them. Incredibly, his story was completely different (and incompatible) with mine. It could have been he was lying to avoid getting in trouble, but I don’t think so. I think his brain had colored his memory and generated rationalizations for his actions in order to justify his bad behavior. I think he was describing events exactly as he remembered them. In the end, neither of our stories could be proven so it could just as easily have been me revising history. Either way, it was an eye-opening experience as to the malleability of the “truth”.

Selective memory also affects how we record history. There was a controversy a few years ago with an exhibit at the Canadian War Museum about the bombing of Germany in the World War II. The original text on the exhibit read:

“The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command’s aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions of German war production until late in the war.”

Seems perfectly reasonable to me… But some people were upset by it and asked (and eventually succeeded) to have the text changed to:

“Thousands perished in the raids and millions were left homeless. While these numbers are very large, they pale in comparison to the genocide perpetrated…by the Germans and their proxies.”

Mistakes were made, but theirs were worse. Who writes history? The winner of course…

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Why do good things happen to people with high self-esteem, and bad things seem to happen to people with low self-esteem like a big self-fulfilling prophecy? They don’t actually, it’s just how we remember things. If you have high self-esteem, you expect good things to happen to you – so when bad things do happen, confirmation bias shields you from it and you quickly forget the bad and only remember the good. The opposite would be true for people with low self-esteem, who will wallow in their perceived misfortune. It’s not positive thinking that brings us good things, it’s positive remembering that does.

We can’t actually change the way our brains work, but we can learn to recognize when they are playing tricks on us…

[Content © 2008 SorryToConfuseYou.com, All Rights Reserved.]

How Can People Justify Ridiculous Beliefs?

As I discussed previously, truth seems to be subjective and personal rather than objective and universal. But beyond that, we always seem to have reasons and justifications for our beliefs, even when those reasons can seem utterly ridiculous to others. For example, tell me if this sounds familiar:

“I was talking to so and so, and we got into an argument over such and such because they were completely obstinate. They absolutely refused to listen to logic. It was totally unbelievable.”

Why does this happen?  Why are people so irrational sometimes? Why do people never seem to say:

“You’re right, I’m wrong. Thank you for showing the error of my ways.”

It turns out, the problem is in how our brains process information.

Dissonance

As Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson describe in their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), when our brain is presented with new information that conflicts with something we already believe, our brains have a problem. This state is called cognitive dissonance. Our brains don’t want to stay in this state because it wants the world to be logical and orderly. So our brain essentially has two choices, discard our initial belief, or dismiss the new information.

The most interesting part of the cognitive dissonance resolution process is when we dismiss new information, it’s not good enough to simply dismiss it outright, our brains need some reason to dismiss it. This is why we end up rationalizing or justifying our decisions. It’s not something we do consciously; our brains do it for us automatically.

For example, when we make a mistake it can cause cognitive dissonance. I’m a smart / competent / skilled person, how could I make a mistake?  To resolve the dissonance we’ll find some excuse – like “it wasn’t my fault, it was because <insert lame excuse here>”, even when it was clearly our fault.

How about smoking? It’s nearly universal believed that smoking cigarettes is harmful (how harmful is still up for debate), but there shouldn’t be any good reason to smoke anymore, right? Ask any smoker why they haven’t quit yet and they’ll have a fine list of rationalizations:

• “I don’t inhale”
• “I’ve cut back recently”
• “The scientists exaggerate the danger”
• “I only smoke when I drink”
• “I’m too busy right now, I’ll quit next month”
• “It helps me relax”
• “It prevents weight gain”

What about personal conflict, like domestic violence? If the abuser believes themselves to be basically a good person, then hurting someone they love will cause dissonance:

• “They provoked me”
• “They deserved it”
• “They’re worthless and lazy”

What about military conflict? In a war, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Do you think the enemy really think of themselves as evil? Not usually, but we rationalize killing them by demonizing them and whatever atrocities they’ve committed.

Indoctrination

The other interesting part of our rationalization process is the effect can be cumulative. Once we’ve made a decision, it’s hard to undo it, especially the difficult ones. Our brains will make sure we have a justification for that decision so that we won’t forever be worrying that we made the wrong one. Over time, that initial decision gets reinforced to the point where we can’t imagine ever making the opposite decision, even when it was a toss-up originally.

For example, whenever we argue about something, the longer we argue about it, the more we’re going to become entrenched in our belief, even if we’re obviously on the losing side. Not only are we defending our belief now, but also the time and effort invested trying to defend it.

This also how people get brainwashed (or indoctrinated if you prefer).

How do you turn a normal, well-adjusted person into a devout cult member? How do you teach someone to be an effective soldier? How you get someone involved in illegal activity? A little bit at a time. Once you get the ball rolling, self-justification will do the rest.

For example, if you told someone walking down the street that aliens are coming on a spaceship to save us because the world is going to end, they’d laugh in your face. But if you indoctrinate them slowly over time, you can get seemingly normal people to leave their jobs, their spouses, and to give away all their possessions.

Obviously some people are more easily influenced than others, but don’t assume you’re immune. Anyone can be turned into a completely different person under the right conditions. The brain is a funny thing. Our ability to self-rationalize is extremely beneficial because it lets us sleep at night. Just try to avoid the slippery slope…

[Image: Peter Arno]

[Content © 2008 SorryToConfuseYou.com, All Rights Reserved.]

What Is Truth?

“Truth” is an interesting concept. Every day we are presented with the “truth” of the world around us, whether through television, the Internet, or the people with whom we interact. But what is truth really? Who gets to define truth?

The dictionary will define “truth” to be something like:

“The true or actual state of a matter”
“Conformity with fact or reality”
“A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, or principle”
“An obvious or accepted fact”

So to me, these definitions imply that truth is something where there is only a single correct answer, something that is unambiguous. If that’s the case, what are some of the more common “truths” can we name?

• Humans are the primary cause of global warming? Maybe not…
• There is an obesity epidemic in the U.S.? Maybe not…
• Smoking is a huge health risk? Maybe not…
• High-fat diets cause heart disease? Maybe not…

I’m not actually expressing an opinion on any of these subjects (yet!). My point is that if you really think about it, there seem to be very few things that are universally accepted, beyond mundane stuff like the sky is blue and gravity keeps us from floating away. Why is this?

The first problem is our world is so complex that going from simple facts like, 33% of adults in the U.S. have a BMI over 30, to sweeping generalizations like “we have an obesity epidemic” is a huge leap. There’s so much room for individual interpretation that different people can (and do) derive different truths from the same basic facts.

The second problem is, very few people actually understand the intricacies of these complex issues. Most of us are left with second-hand, third-hand, tenth-hand accounts of the original truth. So instead, most of us get information that’s been distorted or misunderstood, and bears little resemblance to the original – just like in the children’s game telephone.

In the end, what we really have is a world where truth is subjective and personal. Or as Robert McKee described it in his book Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting:

“What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.”

This is the reality that I face while writing this blog. As I look for compelling evidence to back up my theories, I also tend to find compelling evidence disproving my opinions as well. Making sense of all the competing information that’s out there is hard, sometimes very hard, especially since I’m not an “expert” in the subjects I write about here.

So despite this blog purporting to be presenting the “truth”, I readily accept that it’s really more accurately presenting “my truth” – those things that I personally believe to be “true”. I don’t expect my truth to necessarily agree with your truth. Get over it, I have…

[Content © 2008 SorryToConfuseYou.com, All Rights Reserved.]