COGNITIVE DISSONANCE -- MORE DISCUSSION ON WORDS

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE – MORE DISCUSSION ON WORDS

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© September 5, 2011

A READER WRITES:

Jim,

This may be picking flyspecks out of pepper, but I was taught that cognitive dissonance is the actual discomfort that arises from conflicting information being held by the mind simultaneously (i.e. creationism vs. evolution) and that the manipulation of new data to be more congruent (thus more comfortable) with a priori knowledge is called accommodation.

Troubling to me, however, is a phenomenon in today’s world, which makes no distinction between beliefs and facts.  It’s OK for others to have their own opinions, but NOT their own facts.

The blurring of this line serves no useful purpose, and yet, cognitive dissonance along with fact seeking could help us discern areas of collective agreement and discover profound truths…and those truths just might set us free (?)

At one time in this country, Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” exclamation during a Presidential address would’ve been perceived as reprehensible…by everyone, down to the smallest schoolchild.  Was Barak Obama subjected to such insult because of the color of his skin?  An honest guesser would have to say probably.  At any rate, I do wish he’d had the presence of mind to respond: “Sergeant-at-arms, remove that man, for disrespecting the Person and the Office of the President of the United States!”

Jeanne

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DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Cognitive theory has been around longer than you have been alive, in fact, that is also true of me.  There are many theorists and theories on cognitive dissonance.  I am not familiar with yours, which sounds similar to novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald famous quote:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

My reference to dissonance is between self-concept and behavior.  Psychologist Leon Festinger, who incidentally spent some time at the University of Iowa in his career, identified cognitive dissonance as arising from the contradictory cognition, “I believe the task is dull,” but stating otherwise, “I find the task interesting.”  He does this because his self-concept must define the situation positively to motivate him to be fully committed to the task at hand. 

My use of it in the context of the missive (AMERICANIZED SCHADENFREUDE) was to show in a negative sense how a mind uncomfortable with the idea of an African American President might be compelled to believe the president wasn’t born in America, is not a Christian, and does not believe in the American constitution. 

This dissonant cognition allows the person to believe he does not have a color bias, and is reasonable and rational in his perceptions of reality.  You see, it is important for such a person to believe he is fair minded, and cognitive dissonance secures him in that belief.

A flippant slippery customer, Donald Trump comes to mind, could launch a presidential campaign on this flimsy belief manifest irrespective of its lack of factual content. 

My association of Schadenfreude with gossip, which offends my German friend, and rightly so, is based on how vicious rumor has become an art form in America’s collective conscience, and is pruned with avaricious glee by the media in all its templates. 

The problem, to my mind, is not about beliefs and facts, but feelings. 

We Americans have lost our nerve. 

FDR had more nerve in his constitution than we have today in the entire nation.  He launched a program of social initiatives during the Great Depression without a back up plan.  He committed us to World War Two when we didn’t have an army or navy much less the military supplies required to defeat Granada.  He believed!  It was enough to gamble on the future.

Once a young reporter asked him, “Mr. President, are you a Communist?”  “No.”  “Are you a capitalist?” “No.”  “Are you a Socialist?”  “No.”  “Well, sir, then what is your philosophy?”  “Philosophy?”  The president looked puzzled.  “Philosophy?” he repeated.  “I am a Christian and a Democrat—that’s all.”  Philosophy was a luxury he couldn’t afford.  He was a man of action not contemplation.  It was the kind of leadership required of the times.

Nor was the president into labels.  He was into embracing his resistance to the clear and present danger, something our own native Iowan, Herbert Hoover wasn’t during his administration (1928 - 1932).  President Hoover wanted the invisible hand of capitalism to correct a nation with 25 percent of its workers unemployed.  Reality is hard to engage when logic is its governor. 

Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman made his “March to the Sea” across the Confederate South with no supply line of logistical support.  He took supplies from the people as he scorched the earth with one thought in mind, to break the morale of the people to resist, and the will of the Confederate Army to fight. 

There was madness in FDR and Sherman for sure, as there was in Lincoln and Grant.  The current book I’m reading shows that too much sanity, too much mental health is the antithesis of what is required in periods of crises. 

Too much sanity demands certainty and predictability as it is driven by logic and fear.  Too much sanity reduces policy to politics, and politics to gridlock with the rhetoric crystallizing into grand designs that fall to earth like melting snowflakes. 

FDR and Sherman were adults, not adults in the schoolbook sense of heroes without blemishes, but adults in the sense that the dragon of reality had to be faced, and it had to be faced with courage without any safety net. 

When Joe Wilson blurted out, “You lie!” later apologizing but still saying the president had lied, he demonstrated my missive (RETREAT FROM ADULTHOOD: Where has civility gone?).

Like you, I took umbrage at his remark for the same reason that you did.  It disrespected the Office of the President.  But it would have done no good, and perhaps much harm for the president to act other than the way he acted, by simply pausing. 

That single act of stupidity may will ensure the president’s reelection.

I do wish the president were a little less mentally healthy.  The times require a certain amount of madness in leadership, as they have always during throbbing change.

Thank you again for your spirited response.  We will be in Clinton briefly September 16 and 17, and it would be nice to see you.  If that is not possible,

Always be well,

Jim