[Peace-discuss] “You are BIASED and I am not.” V050221

[Szoke, Ron]

Copied from the “critical thinking / cognitive bias” cards distributed by the School of Thought
   [ My interpolated comments are in square brackets. — RSz. ] 

>  SPOTLIGHT EFFECT
You overestimate how much people notice how you look and act. Instead of worrying about how you’re being judged, consider how you’re making others feel. They’ll notice this much more, and you’ll also be making the world a better place.  

[  In the narcissistic “post-truth society,” people tend to imagine they are in the spotlight at the front & center of the stage, & that others in the audience are plotting against them. They judge statements & doctrines not on their degree of truthfulness — what, after all, is THAT? — but on the extent to which repeating their slogans makes them feel better about themselves.  Example:  a folk-wisdom cliche was here recently attributed to Aristotle. When I objected & asked for a citation, several began to insist that it was such a feel-good sentiment that it did not matter in the least whether Aristotle ever actually said it. If so, why the suggestion that he did? ]

> THE BACKFIRE EFFECT
When your core beliefs are challenged, it can cause you to believe even more strongly. We can experience being wrong about some ideas as an attack upon our very selves, or our tribal identity.  This can lead to motivated reasoning which causes us to reinforce a broader narrative despite disconfirming evidence relating to a particular fact.  

[  On how people will twist, modify & re-interpret their basic beliefs to disqualify what might appear to be fatal objections, see Tavris & Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By ME) (2007), Chapter 1, “Cognitive Dissonance: The Engine of of Self-justification,” esp. pp. 12-15, on the classic case of a Doomsday Cult that doubled down on their apocalyptic belief when their original prediction failed to materialize.  Also Leon Festinger & others, When Prophecy Fails (1956), & Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). ]   

>  REACTANCE 
You’d rather do the opposite of what someone is trying to make you do.  When we feel our liberty is being constrained, out inclination is to resist;  however in doing so we can over-compensate.  Wisdom springs from reflection, folly from reaction.  

[  I once talked with a woman who told me she was so antagonized by a “Keep off the Grass” sign that she wanted to go over & trample that grass.  We are seeing something similar in recent reactions to public imperatives to wear anti-covid face masks, maintain social spacing & get vaccinated — some objecting to “being told what to do by the “goddam gummint,” others ranting against Trump-haters or being controlled by bureaucrats, Democrats &  “liberals” whose only motive is to gain more power for themselves. (Remember the previous eruptions & hullabaloo over required school vaccinations, seat belts, & motorcycle helmets?) 
  We seem to have trouble coming down in a reflective middle ground of “question authority,” which is somewhere between exaggerated infantile “reject authority” & senile “respect authority.” ]
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