9 ms·

What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

98 points by brahmwg 10y ago

wmt 10y ago
Does someone really believe that cognitive dissonance is a bad thing, as the article suggests at the end? I've just always imagined that feeling bad for poor decisions is how you learn not to do poor decisions.
- amasad 10y ago
  The article says it's a good thing >Although people may think cognitive dissonance is a bad thing, it actually helps to keep us mentally healthy and happy.
- telesilla 10y ago
  Think about something you wanted and couldn't have. You probably tried to convince yourself you didn't want it anyway, and it was better for you that you didn't have it. It certainly keeps me more happy! But I also try to be conscious of it and use it like a tool more than a crutch.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    So is "sour grapes" simply a manifestation of cognitive dissonance?
    - ricksplat 10y ago
      Yes! It is often distilled to this aphorism. But from my reading of it "sour grapes" is only one aspect. It is a more general concept that deals with how we resolve tensions between our beliefs and facts as we see them.
  - marlag 10y ago
    I don't think cognitive dissonance is a bad thing. I don't see why should add a coping mechanism to acheive inner peace. If you instead saw that sometimes you win a grape, sometimes you loose one, you would have taught yourself a lesson, which should be bettar than denying facts about the world and yourself, if you are a man of science.
- chongli 10y ago
  It's a bad thing when you instead choose to pretend you made the right decision and go on to continue lying to yourself.
amasad 10y ago
Tolerating some amount of cognitive dissonance is one of the best things that I was able to develop in myself recently. In coding for example, I used to suffer mental anguish over seeing inconsistencies in codebases I'm working on and have an OCD-like drive to fix them. Learning to live with those consistencies freed me up to work on what actually matters. Furthermore the unforgiving drive for consistency is a reason why people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light. Consider Superforcasting[1] (a book about people with an unusual ability in forcasting the future) the author says that one common trait among superforcasters is that they have a larger capacity for tolerating cognitive dissonance. The drive to avoid cognitive dissonance shackles you to your existing beliefs (see confirmation bias). [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock/dp/0804136696 http://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Ph...
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Furthermore the unforgiving drive for consistency is a reason why people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light. Only if you reject the evidence that does not fit with your beliefs. If you use the new evidence to examine and update your beliefs then you can be both open to new evidence and avoid cognitive dissonance.
  - amasad 10y ago
    What if the new evidence puts you at even (or close to even) odds? Then you have to live with the cognitive dissonance until further evidence.
    - deciplex 10y ago
      There is a difference between managing probability mass and "managing" cognitive dissonance. If one of two events will occur, or only one of two hypotheses can be true, with equal probability according to the information you possess, it is not cognitive dissonance to hold that fact in your head. Cognitive dissonance would be more like formulating two hypotheses in logical contradiction to each other, and insisting they must both be true.
marlag 10y ago
I strive to have one idea in my head, because having one idea feels like being on a motor-way and visiting one of many ideas feels like being on a small road. When I'm coding in a new domain or field I am sometimes flooded with options and I reach cognitive dissonance and my pace takes a halt, for minutes, hours, sometimes months, because of this dissonance, until one idea has become more like a high-way an the journey proceeds. I feel that because I'm a programmer I have to deal with and have achieved a quite healthy approach to what is cognitive dissonance, a state that outside of work sometimes makes me feel a bit schizofrenic.
- dancompton 10y ago
  You should take value from those options rather than letting any one of them define value. Then trust yourself to move forward. Software is writ in water.
  - marlag 10y ago
    I do often continue working but then with a nagging sensation of not executing a task in the most optimal of ways, which is what I meant by having a healthy approach to cognitive dissonance, performing a task in a way you know or feel is not optimal but not being confused by feelings of cognitive dissonance, instead just see it as part of the learning process. In the end, the dissonance dissapear as soon as the learning process has finished, and I'm no longer anxious about that option.
    - marlag 10y ago
      Which in itself is not very interesting but might be in the context of building an AI. Apart from a NN, what else do you need for an AI? Perhaps you need mechanisms such as "cognitive dissonance" in order to acheive "effective learning" through coping with that dissonance. What we have today are clever NNs. Nothing close to a talking bear (you know, the one from A.I. Artificial Intelligence).
ccvannorman 10y ago
A strikingly shallow and pointless article. TL:DR; We did some trivial, questionable, narrow tests, and turns out cognitive dissonance is what you thought it was and can be thought of as OK / survival instinct.
- js8 10y ago
  I wonder why you dismissed it as shallow - I thought the opposite. I found it very interesting that they can actually identify areas in the brain that are probably responsible for the cognitive dissonance.
teddyh 10y ago
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
- wfn 10y ago
  ..but also see consistency bias and commitment effects (e.g.: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/)
ItWasAllWrong 10y ago
Sadly enough, cognitive dissonance is also one of the coping mechanisms that keeps people captured in a cult. I've been raised in a high control religion/cult. I've been out now for a while, but I was in for 24 years. The cognitive dissonance was very high at times, and I'm not the only one [1]. Looking back at it, I almost can't believe it took soo long to realize consciously what was happening to me. It's a weird thing, alarm bells going off everywhere in your head, but you still tell yourself: It's alright, I'm ok this is what I have to do, it's the best life choice, it's not that bad, everyone else is wrong, ... For me personally, the subconscious reason why I acted that way is that I knew the repercussions when I would try to leave. My whole family, friends, everyone I cared for would start shunning me. I would've been kicked out of my the house by my parents, completely on my own, no contact at all. That's a scary though when you've been thought the world is a wicked and evil place. This year, the group has even become more aggressive when it comes down to shunning, showing emotional propaganda videos on their conventions [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDAY5lVwuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDAY5lVwuI
- spoofball 10y ago
  Cognitive dissonance is everywhere. It was massive during the slavery period of the USA. Or now, when billions of non-human animals pollute the planet and trillions dying every year. Cognitive dissonance makes life bearable. If I were to know that the flesh I'm eating is dog flesh, I'd probably puke. Or if my mind always had burden of how much I contribute to the environmental destruction with my life choices, I'd probably commit suicide. But with cognitive dissonance I can live a life worth living.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    Or you could not eat meat. What part do you think cognitive dissonance plays in the fact that you conclude that without it, you could not "live a life worth living"?
    - 10y ago
R_and_R 10y ago
I know there have been scientific studies, but I think there is no such thing cognitive dissonance.
kingkawn 10y ago
Given the volume of knowable information vs potentially possible information, cognitive dissonance is probably when you're paying the best attention to the actual world.
force_reboot 10y ago
This is very interesting research. In my opinion, consistency is very important in politics because, while consistency doesn't guarantee correctness, it does place some bounds on what can be true. Often smart people go to extremes in politics because they are able to see more clearly the inconsistencies in the mainstream political parties or ideologies. But being extreme usually just means being consistently wrong, which is not very helpful either.
eggman 10y ago
the cost to pay at the end of the road is exorbitant. with this in mind, would anyone like to commit to a culture of holding fast to 'wrong and strong'? show me where i am wrong and may you be rewarded. people compete to build the best tools. fix the solution before the solution fixes you. prepare the answer before you are prepared by the answer. the task is great. you may describe the problem in any language you wish, veneered depravity is worse than dealing with what it is.
UhUhUhUh 10y ago
As far as I know the actual cognitive dissonance involves ideas, beliefs or values. Note that these three categories do not belong to the same class. Beliefs and values involve an emotional component, along with wishes, desires and all actions carried out for any sort of emotional gratification whereas ideas do not. It is clear that we can hold contradictory ideas in our mind. There can be no progress without that ability. Holding contradictory emotional states is very different however. It is akin to the ability to tolerate ambivalence, of which it is a general expression. This can drive some people crazy (literally). The authors seem to wave at the insula (the emotional component in that instance) to focus on the cognitive, executive component, thus not really localizing dissonance but rather the areas involved in the brain’s efforts at neutralizing it. A sort of homeostatic mechanism unknown to Vulcans...
xenadu02 10y ago
Cognitive Dissonance seems like a mechanism to moderate rate of change, plus a weak form of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". If you have strong beliefs (regardless of how you got them) it takes repeated exposure to contrary evidence over time to change those beliefs.

98 points by brahmwg 10y ago

wmt 10y ago

Does someone really believe that cognitive dissonance is a bad thing, as the article suggests at the end? I've just always imagined that feeling bad for poor decisions is how you learn not to do poor decisions.

amasad 10y ago
The article says it's a good thing >Although people may think cognitive dissonance is a bad thing, it actually helps to keep us mentally healthy and happy.
telesilla 10y ago
Think about something you wanted and couldn't have. You probably tried to convince yourself you didn't want it anyway, and it was better for you that you didn't have it. It certainly keeps me more happy! But I also try to be conscious of it and use it like a tool more than a crutch.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  So is "sour grapes" simply a manifestation of cognitive dissonance?
  - ricksplat 10y ago
    Yes! It is often distilled to this aphorism. But from my reading of it "sour grapes" is only one aspect. It is a more general concept that deals with how we resolve tensions between our beliefs and facts as we see them.
- marlag 10y ago
  I don't think cognitive dissonance is a bad thing. I don't see why should add a coping mechanism to acheive inner peace. If you instead saw that sometimes you win a grape, sometimes you loose one, you would have taught yourself a lesson, which should be bettar than denying facts about the world and yourself, if you are a man of science.
chongli 10y ago
It's a bad thing when you instead choose to pretend you made the right decision and go on to continue lying to yourself.

amasad 10y ago

Tolerating some amount of cognitive dissonance is one of the best things that I was able to develop in myself recently. In coding for example, I used to suffer mental anguish over seeing inconsistencies in codebases I'm working on and have an OCD-like drive to fix them. Learning to live with those consistencies freed me up to work on what actually matters. Furthermore the unforgiving drive for consistency is a reason why people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light. Consider Superforcasting[1] (a book about people with an unusual ability in forcasting the future) the author says that one common trait among superforcasters is that they have a larger capacity for tolerating cognitive dissonance. The drive to avoid cognitive dissonance shackles you to your existing beliefs (see confirmation bias). [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock/dp/0804136696 http://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Ph...

danieltillett 10y ago
Furthermore the unforgiving drive for consistency is a reason why people don't update their beliefs when new evidence comes to light. Only if you reject the evidence that does not fit with your beliefs. If you use the new evidence to examine and update your beliefs then you can be both open to new evidence and avoid cognitive dissonance.
- amasad 10y ago
  What if the new evidence puts you at even (or close to even) odds? Then you have to live with the cognitive dissonance until further evidence.
  - deciplex 10y ago
    There is a difference between managing probability mass and "managing" cognitive dissonance. If one of two events will occur, or only one of two hypotheses can be true, with equal probability according to the information you possess, it is not cognitive dissonance to hold that fact in your head. Cognitive dissonance would be more like formulating two hypotheses in logical contradiction to each other, and insisting they must both be true.

marlag 10y ago

I strive to have one idea in my head, because having one idea feels like being on a motor-way and visiting one of many ideas feels like being on a small road. When I'm coding in a new domain or field I am sometimes flooded with options and I reach cognitive dissonance and my pace takes a halt, for minutes, hours, sometimes months, because of this dissonance, until one idea has become more like a high-way an the journey proceeds. I feel that because I'm a programmer I have to deal with and have achieved a quite healthy approach to what is cognitive dissonance, a state that outside of work sometimes makes me feel a bit schizofrenic.

dancompton 10y ago
You should take value from those options rather than letting any one of them define value. Then trust yourself to move forward. Software is writ in water.
- marlag 10y ago
  I do often continue working but then with a nagging sensation of not executing a task in the most optimal of ways, which is what I meant by having a healthy approach to cognitive dissonance, performing a task in a way you know or feel is not optimal but not being confused by feelings of cognitive dissonance, instead just see it as part of the learning process. In the end, the dissonance dissapear as soon as the learning process has finished, and I'm no longer anxious about that option.
  - marlag 10y ago
    Which in itself is not very interesting but might be in the context of building an AI. Apart from a NN, what else do you need for an AI? Perhaps you need mechanisms such as "cognitive dissonance" in order to acheive "effective learning" through coping with that dissonance. What we have today are clever NNs. Nothing close to a talking bear (you know, the one from A.I. Artificial Intelligence).

ccvannorman 10y ago

A strikingly shallow and pointless article. TL:DR; We did some trivial, questionable, narrow tests, and turns out cognitive dissonance is what you thought it was and can be thought of as OK / survival instinct.

js8 10y ago
I wonder why you dismissed it as shallow - I thought the opposite. I found it very interesting that they can actually identify areas in the brain that are probably responsible for the cognitive dissonance.

teddyh 10y ago

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

wfn 10y ago
..but also see consistency bias and commitment effects (e.g.: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/4e/cached_selves/)

ItWasAllWrong 10y ago

Sadly enough, cognitive dissonance is also one of the coping mechanisms that keeps people captured in a cult. I've been raised in a high control religion/cult. I've been out now for a while, but I was in for 24 years. The cognitive dissonance was very high at times, and I'm not the only one [1]. Looking back at it, I almost can't believe it took soo long to realize consciously what was happening to me. It's a weird thing, alarm bells going off everywhere in your head, but you still tell yourself: It's alright, I'm ok this is what I have to do, it's the best life choice, it's not that bad, everyone else is wrong, ... For me personally, the subconscious reason why I acted that way is that I knew the repercussions when I would try to leave. My whole family, friends, everyone I cared for would start shunning me. I would've been kicked out of my the house by my parents, completely on my own, no contact at all. That's a scary though when you've been thought the world is a wicked and evil place. This year, the group has even become more aggressive when it comes down to shunning, showing emotional propaganda videos on their conventions [2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDAY5lVwuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDAY5lVwuI

spoofball 10y ago
Cognitive dissonance is everywhere. It was massive during the slavery period of the USA. Or now, when billions of non-human animals pollute the planet and trillions dying every year. Cognitive dissonance makes life bearable. If I were to know that the flesh I'm eating is dog flesh, I'd probably puke. Or if my mind always had burden of how much I contribute to the environmental destruction with my life choices, I'd probably commit suicide. But with cognitive dissonance I can live a life worth living.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  Or you could not eat meat. What part do you think cognitive dissonance plays in the fact that you conclude that without it, you could not "live a life worth living"?
  - 10y ago

R_and_R 10y ago

I know there have been scientific studies, but I think there is no such thing cognitive dissonance.

kingkawn 10y ago

Given the volume of knowable information vs potentially possible information, cognitive dissonance is probably when you're paying the best attention to the actual world.

force_reboot 10y ago

This is very interesting research. In my opinion, consistency is very important in politics because, while consistency doesn't guarantee correctness, it does place some bounds on what can be true. Often smart people go to extremes in politics because they are able to see more clearly the inconsistencies in the mainstream political parties or ideologies. But being extreme usually just means being consistently wrong, which is not very helpful either.

eggman 10y ago

the cost to pay at the end of the road is exorbitant. with this in mind, would anyone like to commit to a culture of holding fast to 'wrong and strong'? show me where i am wrong and may you be rewarded. people compete to build the best tools. fix the solution before the solution fixes you. prepare the answer before you are prepared by the answer. the task is great. you may describe the problem in any language you wish, veneered depravity is worse than dealing with what it is.

UhUhUhUh 10y ago

As far as I know the actual cognitive dissonance involves ideas, beliefs or values. Note that these three categories do not belong to the same class. Beliefs and values involve an emotional component, along with wishes, desires and all actions carried out for any sort of emotional gratification whereas ideas do not. It is clear that we can hold contradictory ideas in our mind. There can be no progress without that ability. Holding contradictory emotional states is very different however. It is akin to the ability to tolerate ambivalence, of which it is a general expression. This can drive some people crazy (literally). The authors seem to wave at the insula (the emotional component in that instance) to focus on the cognitive, executive component, thus not really localizing dissonance but rather the areas involved in the brain’s efforts at neutralizing it. A sort of homeostatic mechanism unknown to Vulcans...

xenadu02 10y ago

Cognitive Dissonance seems like a mechanism to moderate rate of change, plus a weak form of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". If you have strong beliefs (regardless of how you got them) it takes repeated exposure to contrary evidence over time to change those beliefs.