Cognitive Dissonance is the term that I had been looking for in yesterdays post.
I had written the post on Sunday evening and couldn't come up with the term. Monday morning didn't bring clarity, so I just went ahead and posted.
But vitamins helped. lol
Yes they did. I was downstairs doling out the vitamins wondering whom I could ask for the right term. I thought of someone, but then cognitive dissonance popped into my mind of its own accord. Then, two commenters (thank you) also proferred it as a possibility.
Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance.The definition and example don't apply completely because in the case of the COVID patients which I wrote about, they still refused to believe that they had COVID, or even that COVID existed, despite all of the evidence pointing to it. In their case, they didn't hold two conflicting beliefs but refused to accept reality despite the evidence.
Then Mary G suggested belief perseverance aka conceptual conservatism. She supplied the Wikipedia description (below), and it seems to fit.
Belief perseverance (also known as conceptual conservatism[1]) is maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it.[2] Such beliefs may even be strengthened when others attempt to present evidence debunking them, a phenomenon known as the backfire effect (compare boomerang effect).[3] For example, an article in a 2014 article in The Atlantic, journalist Cari Romm describes a study involving vaccination hesitancy. In the study, the subjects were concerned of the side effects of flu shots, and became less willing to receive them after being told that the vaccination was entirely safe.[4]
While cognitive dissonance is a catchier phrase to me, belief perseverance is the more apt term in this case, and those who saw Mary's comment seemed to agree.
*Mary G lives in the same region as I and the only one among you whom I have met. We have come across each other by chance twice while roaming about the hinterland. We have also met once, purposefully. She blogs, less frequently than most of us at Them's my Sentiments.
Oh yes, that's the term! Or either of those! So glad you all figured it out while I was gone! Yay Mary G, thanks for a new term for me...aren't people strange!
ReplyDeleteNeither term are ones that I have used in a conversation though I have read about both during the course of my readings. I think my goal this week should be to use one or both in a spoken sentence and perhaps impress someone with my vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you call it, it is some scary to see it in action. It is good when you make me think, though.
ReplyDeleteLooking at a bit of snow blowing by outside my window. Sigh.
Thanks for the mention.
Cognitive dissonance is a good term too.
ReplyDeleteI'd heard of cognitive dissonance but you're right that it doesn't quite fit. Belief perseverance is new to me and does describe current attitudes perfectly and unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI heard an interview with the nurse who has had these Covid patients who don't believe in their diagnoses. It was quite sad to hear her described her patients and their deaths.
ReplyDeleteSo the man in our White House is definitely not grasping reality either.
The cancer/ smoking example pretty much defines my brother, who knows its risks and yet smokes regardless.
ReplyDeleteThis happens to me. My mind sort of gets locked up . Sometimes the idea or term will come to me later.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I think belief perseverance will become a more commonly known term after 2020. Our orange man has a bad case of it. ;)
ReplyDeleteShe got that right.
ReplyDeleteThank you for teaching me a new term. I've heard of it, but never quite knew what it meant.
ReplyDelete