Quick definition for those who don’t know: Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person’s behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs.
Story time! Please read this in it’s entirety as there is important context as well as an actual point.
I have been spending some time with the in-laws over the past couple of weeks, because reasons. They are an immigrant family, but have been in the US since the tail end of the Vietnam war. All hold US citizenship and it’s a large family.
Politics has cone up occasionally, but for the most part, we tend to steer away from those discussions when we mistakenly bring them up in conversation. Strangely enough, some are actually Trump supporters but I wouldn’t go so far as to say anyone is full-blown “MAGA” or anything. I would describe the support as mild and truly ignorant of broader level politics.
So, there was some discussion about how immigrants needed to be kicked out of the US and there was support for mass deportations. Another conversation was about how "everyone"abused food stamps and welfare, but within about 10 mins, the discussion flipped to what products another person in the family could buy with their EBT card. Medicare and Medicaid is also a waste of the countries money, but then later there was a discussion about how to use those benefits for another family member.
Politics aside, cognitive dissonance is a bitch to deal with, especially when it’s coupled with anecdotal evidence that may not even be real. I suspect that any experience with other “immigrants” I heard over the last couple of weeks are likely the result of a single, heavily biased experience coupled with gossip. (The gossip may create false memories of a situation the person believes is true. I think there is a special name for that.)
Telling a person bluntly that they are wrong is usually counter productive. Calling out the contradictions in beliefs can also be strangely unproductive as well. When a valid argument is made and a person realizes they can’t resolve a conflicting belief, the tendency seems to be to fall back on a generic phrase like, “Well, I don’t fully understand it, but that person must know what they are doing.”, or something similar.
Provided that you actually give a shit, how do you go about cracking the shell of someone that has fallen victim to this kind of thing?
Avoid the ones who have a chip on their shoulder and vote out of revenge. Discard these assholes from your life. They are the ones who would swallow acid if they thought it would make even a remote impact on dems. They are a lost cause.
Target the ones who don’t care or just single issue vote. These are the swing voters that make up the bulk. If these people were challenged a bit harder on their position this would have completely melted the support trump had. These are your “leopards eating face” peeps
You can’t. A person must choose to value objective truth. Likewise, they must choose to change their minds.
The book The Authoritarians by Dr. Bob Altemeyer covers this topic well. Some people compartmentalize to support their preferred foregone conclusions, and will dismiss absolutely anything that conflicts with their desired conclusions. They cannot and will not compare the things they have compartmentalized if it threatens their outlook.
Dr. Altemeyer points out that you cannot get through to people like that, no matter what. The only way to reduce their compartmentalized and authoritarian tendencies is through direct and prolonged exposure to diversity. This does not change the compartmentalization or predisposition to force their will on others, violently if necessary, it simply curbs them slightly. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, as they say.
That’s the neat part:
YOU FUCKING DON’T
I once got my very pro-Trump very Christian aunt to agree that Trump wasn’t Christian and that many of the things he’s done go against Christian teachings.
By the next day, she was already posting tons of pro-Trump garbage on social media again. Because that’s what compartmentalization and cognitive dissonance mean.
And she had built so much of her identity around this billionaire grifter that she was unable to change.
I don’t know what the best way is to deal with these types of people, but in my case, I just completely cut her out of my life. There doesn’t seem to be any purpose to communicating with a person who is incapable of learning.
I don’t. It’s never worked. I try really hard to not say, “That’s the stupidest fucking shit I’ve heard since the last time I came here.”
Oh I just say that to their faces every time.
Stop tellung them things and start asking questions.
“Will the medicaid stuff still be there? The budget cuts are pretry steep, is that still going to work?”
“Do you worry about people with green cards being detained? Is it going to spread? He is already talkimg about taking away people’s citizenship. Is there anything we should do to be more prepared?”
When you don’t attack but instead question with an eye toward a shared outcome, you can make more progress.
Most people get defensive when you go after their beliefs, but try going after their reasons for why they believe something, people won’t be as defensive. Some good examples of how to do this are on YouTube, look for street epistemology. I follow someone named Anthony Magnabosco most of his videos center around religious beliefs but you can apply this to just about any belief. It’s not 100% fool proof but it’s helped me tremendously when talking to people with wild beliefs.
First thing to realise is that people only repair dissonance alone and in private. As you say, debates and arguments don’t help.
I just try to engage on the positive topics and not engage on the negative ones. I’m honest about why I think what I think, but I don’t try to convince anyone. I say when I don’t know something. I don’t make shit up that I can be proved wrong about, even if that means letting something go unchallenged.
You won’t convince people that something they see as a problem isn’t a problem, but what you might be able to do is get people to look at alternative solutions. People don’t want to be brutal and uncaring, but they that can get there when it’s their last option.
Then occasionally you get a “something you said stuck with me” several days later, or maybe you don’t but something did stick with them. They incorporate the idea Into their thinking and start slowly shifting.
These two books have helped me enormously in having transformative conversations:
- Never Split the Difference
- Crucial Conversations
And you can understand their way of thinking and how to communicate better ideas with
- Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff
Crucial conversations is a major milestone in my life in terms of my communication skills. My partner and I joke about some things being “pre cc” even
And the better version (imo) of that is HAP, human accelerated performance. Also worth a read, a skim, a summery, a video, etc.
The best way, IME, is to know exactly in which ways these people are mistaken so you can ask the right questions until they’re eventually left with untenable conclusions/information that doesn’t fit reality. And it definitely helps if you state at all times that you’re worried about the person, that you’re not doing this because someone’s paying you or for the fun of it but out of concern, that you could be chilling or doing anything else but you’re here hoping you can get through to them, etc etc. But even then, at any moment they can just have a small ‘frustration aneurysm’ and leave the path of logic behind… In the end, we can’t ‘force’ people to believe in what we believe in, regardless of how much sense it makes and/or how useful it would be for them; either we’re open and clear minded enough to be reasonable or we’re not. 🤷
When confronted with any questions that make people evaluate their dissonance people will often fall back on “I don’t know” and refuse to engage information that contradicts their beliefs. If they do engage at all it may come in the form of circular logic, “Things are this way because they just are”.
It can basically become a parent getting exasperated trying to explain why the sky is blue to a kid when they don’t really know themselves.
The disconnect is often that their worldview is they are “right” and they just know that they are, and trying to prove otherwise kinda circles back on the sky argument. Saying that they are wrong is like telling them the sky is neon yellow, they know you’re wrong in their mind.
So yeah I’m not sure how to get through to that other than people being social and usually abandoning ideas if they conflict with everyone around them and offer no options for people to engage with them, but that can be undone fast with an echo chamber of false information or really anything that reinforces their beliefs.
Get to the emotional reasons why they hold one or more of the dissonant beliefs, then try to both make them feel heard and to plant a seed for addressing that emotion, while offering a non-dissonant alternative
I tend to just present information, but without trying to argue a point. Just a “here’s the information” and see what they do with it.
This has a very “facts don’t care about your feelings” kinda vibe to it, which I honestly understand, but seems to ignore the fact that feelings don’t care about your facts. When people hold irrational opinions, that’s by definition not based on objective reality, but likely some sort of personal experience.
Perhaps try asking them where their views come from? Ideally in a non-confrontational way, because they might already be aware of their internal conflicts but too ashamed to admit them. Some people are afraid of water because their parents just threw them in a pool and expected them to figure out how to swim by themselves or something like that. It’s not rational from the perspective of someone who learned how to swim in a healthy and normal way, yet it’s also kinda rational from the perspective of someone who was traumatized in the process.
Of course, that’s not an easy solution because you might have to be willing to do some work in order to help them overcome their trauma (should they be willing to do so), but it probably has a better chance of changing their minds than presenting them with a list of facts has (which is kinda passive-aggressive if you think about it). Of course, they might also say no to your offer, in which case you still have the option to decide where to go from there.
This has a very “facts don’t care about your feelings” kinda vibe
The intent is too present snippets of information over a period of time and allow them to connect the dots.
My theory here is that people have to want to make a change. This is similar to how you can’t make a smoker stop smoking, they have to want it. Trying to needle someone into changing will often just cause them to clam up.
I’m vegan and don’t tell people to stop eating meat, because that often elicits a hostile reaction. I instead present reasons why they shouldn’t eat meat and allow them to reach a conclusion. And yes, I do this with the understanding that most people will never make the change. But if the presented information doesn’t get them to change, then I doubt anything I say will either. I’m not exactly known for my charisma, charm, or my debate skills. Devolving into an argument isn’t what I’m trying to achieve.
let them do what they want, if they ask your opinion be honest
And I would normally agree with that approach especially if I had nothing to do with them ever again.
In this situation and as it relates to family, letting this go unchecked is a missed opportunity for a person to learn how this behavior is super weird. To say I haven’t fallen victim to cognitive dissonance would be a lie. However, I learned how to avoid it and resolve conflicts in my own beliefs over time. (Given the nature of this problem, I don’t believe anyone could ever be truly immune to it either.)
Still though, 99.9% of the time your advice is spot-on.
you gottta connect with them emotionally, without talking politics for anything to work
To say I haven’t fallen victim to cognitive dissonance would be a lie. However, I learned how to avoid it and resolve conflicts in my own beliefs over time.
I like the self-awareness of the first half, but I think the second half is likely bullshit. Unless you’ve become a being of total rational thought and zero emotion, I don’t think it is possible.
The last sentence (after your quote ends) was meant to imply that that nobody, even me, is immune to this problem. Without a doubt, I am human and I have my own issues.
Also, anytime I have encountered any issue like this on my own, it has always taken time to resolve as it can be super complicated. Right now, even though I have been sober for a few years, I am still dealing with many false assumptions and beliefs that stemmed from my years of alcoholism so believe me when I say that the mind of an addict is filled with some twisted realities.
Unless you’ve become a being of total rational thought
Admittedly, rational thought is a relatively new concept to me.
Fair enough.
My personal experience is that we’re often unaware of the contradictions until something external happens. It might be someone pointing it out or just a passing comment in an overheard conversation. Something needs to jostle the noggin.
That’s why I said what I did. You can’t fix what you’re oblivious too. However once you are aware, you have the power to choose to do something about it. Sounds like you exercised that power. Good for you.
Block them in phone, email, and any social media, stop talking to them, and do my goddamndest to stop thinking about them as well.
That is probably a last resort and we are far from that point. The way I see it, the root cause is fairly basic ignorance that has been allowed to fester for a bit too long. If they were all-out MAGA, I would say it is willful stupidity and would write them off fairly quick. Otherwise, I am not so quick to toss family out with the rest of the trash. Ignorance can be fixed but stupidity usually can’t.
The problem is that ignorance is a decision more often than not. If someone is already at an inflection point and open to making changes - and to your input specifically - then it’s best to try to help them expand their experience. Information alone often isn’t enough, they need lived experience. If you are in such a position with your family member, you are in a better position than most. But if they are already compartmentalizing then you may have to accept that you have very little sway. A person always makes up their own mind, one way or another.
