THEIR FALLACIOUS NARRATIVE ONLY PROVOKES MORE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
This must be happening across the country every day in these times.
To give a good definition of cognitive dissonance I’ve included a short writing.
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people do all in their power to change either so that they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causingthe psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias). Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe.
Do we have empathy to those who perhaps live on a daily basis with cognitive dissonance a habitual thing in their minds. It is difficult to feel for such people who are nonetheless suffering, but as Americans we must try. In the coming years I have a feeling that this all will be important to get us back on track from the dysfunction caused by these unfortunate people.
157th Posting, February 22, 2024.