Cognitive Dissonance

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1

This below quote is talking about Cognitive Dissonance in relation to auto mechanics, but this really helped me understand why Taiwanese people often won’t accept a fact about something.

For example I could spend hours explaining to someone in detail how many of (if not most of) the police here are crooked gangsters that rape/rob/steal and lie…they just refuse to believe.

I can spend an hour explaining why it’s safer to drive with your headlights on in the middle of the day…showing them statisics and studys…and still the next time I see them their headlight is off.

Maybe next time I try to explain something different from their current belief I should get them to read about Cognitive Dissonance first.

[quote]
Cognitive Dissonance

Psychologists know that when people are confronted by information that goes against their pre-existing ideas, the result is cognitive dissonance, a sort of “static” in the thinking process. It doesn’t matter how smart a person is … cognitive dissonance occurs in highly intelligent people !!

When someone receives information that is opposite to what they think, cognitive dissonance can discredit that information, so that the person won’t seriously consider it. In fact, if a new idea drastically opposes one’s previously held ideas, the threatening info won’t enter their consciousness at all !!! The idea becomes simply ‘unthinkable’ that it could possibly be true, even with things that are totally obvious to an outside “impartial” observer.

Cognitive dissonance is a primitive, yet amazingly powerful self-preservation mechanism which can completely override the natural human desire for truth !!! It’s also the main reason that it’s so hard for some to re-think new ideas about how horsepower can be achieved.

Here’s a real world example:

Many years ago an engine builder bought an engine from one of my customers at the end of the race season to find out why it was so fast. There it was: high velocity (smaller than stock) ports and there was no way I could hide the secret from my competition any longer.

Needless to say, I wasn’t too happy about it.

To my surprise… after seeing the inside secret to my customers success, seeing the race wins and seeing high speed of the bike, the engine builder refused to see that smaller ports worked, and refused to even try it. That’s the incredible power of cognitive dissonance
!! [/quote]

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Xplanes EveryThing. 319 believers, everything. The entire island is caught up in CD. Good post.

3

Could be something in it, but I’m a bit wary when people take a specific technical or academic term out of context and use it in conjunction with their “common sense” or “popular wisdom”. They often miss the point.

So for me to be comfortable using this term in this context I’d have to read quite a lot about it to find out whether it really could be applied in this way.

But anyway I’m sure that we all agree that people’s behaviour often doesn’t arise from strictly logical grounds.

4

The way I understand cognitive dissonance, we act in such a way that reduces the discomfort for ourselves. This is related to confirmation bias, which is what the article was mostly referring to.

Cognitive dissonance often causes us to change our beliefs to conform to our actions.

So perhaps, the mythical Taiwan culture is just code for a set of beliefs caused entirely by a need to justify their own actions. :stuck_out_tongue:

5

[quote=“Mordeth”]This below quote is talking about Cognitive Dissonance in relation to auto mechanics, but this really helped me understand why Taiwanese people often won’t accept a fact about something.

For example I could spend hours explaining to someone in detail how many of (if not most of) the police here are crooked gangsters that rape/rob/steal and lie…they just refuse to believe.

I can spend an hour explaining why it’s safer to drive with your headlights on in the middle of the day…showing them statisics and studys…and still the next time I see them their headlight is off.
[/quote]

I wonder if that would work in Taiwan? The argument is that with your headlights on, people will see you, reducing the chance of an accident, which is why it originated among motorcyclists.
Whereas in Taiwan, even if they see you, they still don’t give a shit.

( And most of the Taiwanese I know will be explaining to me how the police here are crooked gangsters etc.)

6

Noam Chomsky throws this term around like it’s water on the daffodills… that and all the other pyscho-babble… there’s at term for every behaviour, but you have to be Behaviourist to get jiggy’wid’it…

Here’s my contribition: Petulant Contumelious Ineluctability…
Ah yes, Discernable from Day 1 , really…

7

[quote=“MikeN”][quote=“Mordeth”]This below quote is talking about Cognitive Dissonance in relation to auto mechanics, but this really helped me understand why Taiwanese people often won’t accept a fact about something.

For example I could spend hours explaining to someone in detail how many of (if not most of) the police here are crooked gangsters that rape/rob/steal and lie…they just refuse to believe.

I can spend an hour explaining why it’s safer to drive with your headlights on in the middle of the day…showing them statisics and studys…and still the next time I see them their headlight is off.
[/quote]

I wonder if that would work in Taiwan? The argument is that with your headlights on, people will see you, reducing the chance of an accident, which is why it originated among motorcyclists.
Whereas in Taiwan, even if they see you, they still don’t give a shit.

( And most of the Taiwanese I know will be explaining to me how the police here are crooked gangsters etc.)[/quote]

Lights on in the day works…period. It’s been discussed at length in Vroom Vroom. And a few people who don’t normally ride with their lights on tried it…and reported back saying that the difference is noticeable.

The best example I have of this is…One day I was riding to work. And I noticed that there was a higher than normal amount of idiots on the street. I kept getting cut off…people pulling out of side streets in front of me causing me to break hard…etc. I’m wondering if it’s going to be a full moon…or if maybe the following day is a holiday or what?? And suddenly I realize…my headlight had somehow gotten turned off. I flick it back on…and the traffic doesn’t become perfect…but it improves a shitload.

The brain…regardless of culture…will determine a vehicle with its lights on to be much closer than one without.