Trying to understand the illogical

Milwaukee Dan #2 posted a Newsweek article on Facebook the other day called "Lies of Mass Destruction" by Sharon Begley. In the article, the author tries to understand the reasoning behind those who continue to believe several lies about health care reform, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that there is no truth to the claims. (This also applies to Birthers and their refusal to accept a valid, legal document.) I've wondered about that, too, so I was very interested in this article, which believes that there is a psychological aspect to this phenomenon.

As I've written before, I don't have a degree in Psychology or anything like that, but it's something that I've always found interesting. I loved the couple of classes I took in college, and I've just always enjoyed reading about various personality disorders and other psychological disorders. I guess you could say it's a hobby. At least it's one I don't have to buy a room full of supplies for!

The article states that people stick with their false beliefs, even though there is ample evidence to the contrary, because of something called "motivated reasoning." It means that people tend to look for information that confirms their beliefs rather than contradicts them. Anything that is not in line with what they believe is either completely ignored, or rationalized away. This comes as no surprise, because I wrote some time ago (I think during the election) about a study that showed that people tend to migrate towards news sources that jibe with their own beliefs. I certainly do that in watching CNN and MSNBC, or reading Huffington Post, but I do read sites like Politics Daily and magazines like Time which include both right and left wing columnists. You won't find me watching Faux News because I find it...well, sort of ridiculous...but I'm sure there are many people that refuse to watch CNN because they feel the same way about it. I think most of us recognize that we gravitate towards opinions that are similar to ours, whether in a news channel or in friends.

A study is mentioned in which the scientists conducted surveys concerning Saddam Hussein's link to 9/11. That was the main reason we attacked Iraq: Saddam blew up the Towers, right? Everyone knows that...except Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. 73% of the 246 participants still believed in a link between Saddam and 9/11, and extended interviews were conducted with 49 of those people. Even after they were shown evidence that there was no such link--including the admission by President Bush that there was no link--48 of them still found a way to justify our attack of Iraq. They did this by using inferred justification, in which they rationalize, "Well, since we invaded, we had to have a good reason to do so...if it wasn't because of 9/11, it was because he had weapons of mass destruction." Of course, there were no such weapons. "Well, it had to be because of something." They worked backwards from the invasion to try to find justification. Some just expressed confusion, like "I don't know what I know!" about the difference between what they believed and what the facts showed.

This is due to a psychological concept called "cognitive dissonance." I only vaguely recalled the term, so I did a little further research. It's basically what happens when what you believe to be true conflicts with evidence showing that it is not. A person experiencing cognitive dissonance will try to relieve the psychological tension this causes by finding other evidence that confirms their beliefs, or by ignoring fact or discrediting the sources of such facts.

This relates to the persistent lies about health care reform, and President Obama himself, in this way: there were millions of people who did not vote for President Obama. They have found something here to latch onto in order to rationalize their belief that they made the correct choice. Whether they believe the nonsense about him not being a citizen, or point to bogus evidence that he's a Marxist, a Socialist, or a Muslim, or think that health care reform will mean insuring illegal aliens, it's all about cognitive dissonance. It's changing the facts--or ignoring or disbelieving them--to fit your own version of things. If someone didn’t vote for him because they don’t care for his politics, that’s one thing; believing obvious lies is quite another.

The mind is an amazing thing, but what energy it must take to constantly try to rationalize mistaken beliefs, whatever they happen to concern. I would think that would be a full-time job, and would lead to further psychological conflict. I'm sure we all rationalize our behaviors to some extent ("I'm going to eat that extra doughnut because I had a bad day," or "I'm not going to get lung cancer because I don't smoke as much as some people do"), but when you ignore clear evidence, that seems to go a little beyond simple rationalization and into the realm of delusion.

I almost forgot! Rabbit rabbit rabbit...evil spirits begone from Nutwood! :)