My theory about cognitive biases and belief systems

MonkeyBalls

When you encounter someone who purports to not "believe in evolution", it may be more for emotional reasons than logical reasons.

David Hume said, "reason is the slave of the passions".

I think he was on to something.

No one wants to feel that for a huge chunk of their lives they were wrong - too much time and emotion and personal identity has been invested; there's too much to lose. This skewers their perception of reality - which may be a defence mechanism which allows them to preserve their paradigm or mental map.

Psychologists have shown that under MRI you can actually see certain physiological parts of the brain - which are devoted to information-processing - shut down when that person is relayed information that causes them cognitive dissonance. When "consonance" (happy feeling of stability and lack of a mental scattered feeling) is restored, those parts of the brain light back up again.

Thoughts?

(PS: some threads are provocative intentionally, not to insult, but to garner good responses)

Dades

Are you talking specifically about creationists here? I think they are a different thing to people being slaves to their passions.

Creationists disbelieve evolution because for them the bible cannot be wrong - whereas your average believer is less concerned about what bits of the bible are right and wrong than just having something to believe in. The latter account for a much higher percentage that the former.

(Much better post, btw)

eoin5

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

When you encounter someone who purports to not "believe in evolution",
it may be for more emotional reasons than logical reasons.

David Hume said, "reason is the slave of the passions".

I think he was on to something.

No one wants to feel that for a huge chunk of their lives they were wrong - too much time and emotion and personal identity has been invested; there's too much to lose. This skewers their perception of reality - which may be a defence mechanism which allows them to preserve their paradigm or mental map.

Psychologists have shown that under MRI you can actually see certain physiological parts of the brain - which are devoted to information-processing - shut down when that person is relayed information that causes them cognitive dissonance. When "consonance" (happy feeling of stability and lack of a mental scattered feeling) is restored, those parts of the brain light back up again.

Thoughts?

(PS: some threads are provocative intentionally, not to insult, but to garner good responses)

When you say shut down it could be the person who consciously does so, rather than an automatic thing.

I'm sure evolution has favored those who like to keep a persistent view of the world but I think that if someone is ok with an Alice in Wonderland-esque rapidly changing worldview then they're not going to close up shop when they're faced with new information that differs from the believed.

I think its less of a defense barrier than a choice to be closed-minded.

Herbal Deity

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

No one wants to feel that for a huge chunk of their lives they were wrong - too much time and emotion and personal identity has been invested; there's too much to lose. This skewers their perception of reality - which may be a defence mechanism which allows them to preserve their paradigm or mental map.

Of course.

This is why you will never convert someone by argument alone.

If you read music discussion boards, you'll see that for the same reason, some people will never even try to get into genres other than the ones they've been listening to years and are comfortable with - i.e. try and convince someone who's been listening to nothing but metal for 10 years that electronic music is good.

Being closed minded/tunnel vision is a natural defense mechanism, which applies to many more aspects of life than just religion.

MonkeyBalls

Dades wrote: »

Are you talking specifically about creationists here? I think they are a different thing to people being slaves to their passions.

Creationists disbelieve evolution because for them the bible cannot be wrong - whereas your average believer is less concerned about what bits of the bible are right and wrong than just having something to believe in. The latter account for a much higher percentage that the former.

(Much better post, btw)

I like to think of religious belief as vaguely being located along a spectrum, with fundies and creationists on one of the far ends, so they'd be a good example, but I think it applies to "ordinary" believers of religion too.

I think in both cases they are emotionally invested in something: either the infallibility of the bible, or having a comforting belief through which they can make sense of their place in the universe.

eoin5 wrote: »

When you say shut down it could be the person who consciously does so, rather than an automatic thing.

I'm sure evolution has favored those who like to keep a persistent view of the world but I think that if someone is ok with an Alice in Wonderland-esque rapidly changing worldview then they're not going to close up shop when they're faced with new information that differs from the believed.

I think its less of a defense barrier than a choice to be closed-minded.

I would say that in many ways, a choice to be closed-minded is a defence barrier/mechanism.

MonkeyBalls

And Herbal Deity, I agree with that completely.

Turtwig

I began this thread with the hope of starting a similar discussion.
It sorta worked until it got derailed by the usual suspects. Anyhow, have a look through it as you may find some material helpful or possibly interesting.:)

rohatch

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

No one wants to feel that for a huge chunk of their lives they were wrong - too much time and emotion and personal identity has been invested; there's too much to lose. This skewers their perception of reality - which may be a defence mechanism which allows them to preserve their paradigm or mental map.

I would love to do a survey of the religious to see what percentage would cease believing if you could assure them that it is ok to be wrong and indoctrinated, that it was not their fault that they were brainwashed from early childhood.

I cannot imagine anyone admitting that here, and believers like Jackass, pdn and fanny by looking at the evidence actually makes them believe fictional stories even more.

I have seen Dawkins looking into the eyes of a creationist and you can see that no amount of logic or proof works. Even her own god would not convince her.

rccaulfield

Well said! Funny thing is i find myself doing it when religion is put to me-so the religious will use the same argument!

eoin5

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

I would say that in many ways, a choice to be closed-minded is a defence barrier/mechanism.

Ok, but still quite far from a knee-jerk reaction.