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

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

#21

Post by ricksplat »

enraged_camel wrote: post #9
telesilla wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So is "sour grapes" simply a manifestation of cognitive dissonance?

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.

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

#22

Post by deciplex »

amasad wrote: post #12
deciplex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I don't think they are that different. First, the basic insight from Bayes is that belief of all kind can be represented as probabilities. Second, as @dancompton alluded to, most things are not as cut and dry as to say that they are logically in contradiction. There is usually a compatiblist view or a third alternative.

If you are presented with evidence that requires a Bayesian update, and you are smart enough to figure this out, yet you still do not perform the Bayesian update (or you calculate it incorrectly according to your whims as opposed to the evidence), then I would say you are cognitively dissonant in proportion to the change in probability mass you should have recalculated but did not.

Good enough?

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

#23

Post by danieltillett »

amasad wrote: post #7
danieltillett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

If you are using a Bayesian approach then all new evidence does is adjust the probability of your belief being true. Only those impervious to new information have beliefs with 0 or 1 probabilities.

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

#24

Post by dancompton »

deciplex wrote: post #19
dancompton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree that given a bag of all functions which accept N inputs, it is unlikely that 2 chosen at random would negate each other across all N inputs?

Obviously I don't disagree with that. Where are you going with this? People don't formulate their beliefs by picking randomly from a collection of all theoretically-possible beliefs. To expand on your example, if you are selecting from a bag of beliefs according to some criteria (based on some combination of morality, desire, etc) which are themselves in conflict (e.g. "I wish to be feared; I wish to be loved") then…

How do people formulate their beliefs?

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

#25

Post by marlag »

marlag wrote: post #16
dancompton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 learn…

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).

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

#26

Post by ItWasAllWrong »

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&...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDAY5lVwuI

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

#27

Post by Natanael_L »

amasad wrote: post #5

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…

Like a benign version of doublethink?

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

#28

Post by dancompton »

deciplex wrote: post #22
amasad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they are that different. First, the basic insight from Bayes is that belief of all kind can be represented as probabilities. Second, as @dancompton alluded to, most things are not as cut and dry as to say that they are logically in contradiction. There is usually a compatiblist view or a third alternative.

If you are presented with evidence that requires a Bayesian update, and you are smart enough to figure this out, yet you still do not perform the Bayesian update (or you calculate it incorrectly according to your whims as opposed to the evidence), then I would say you are cognitively dissonant in proportion to the change in probability mass you should have recalculated but did not. Good enough?

So the problem is detecting when that update should be performed, right?

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

#29

Post by spoofball »

ItWasAllWrong wrote: post #26

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 t…

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.

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

#30

Post by [deleted] »

ItWasAllWrong wrote: post #26

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 t…

[deleted]
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