PSYCHOLOGY | HUMAN NATURE | SELF

The Maddening Scientific Reason Why People Stick to Their Beliefs Despite Facts and Evidence to the Contrary

This invisible law of human nature rules our contradictory behaviors

Bob is a smart, mild mannered and gentle engineer of Turkish descent whom I had known for over twenty years.

After not seeing each other for a while, we decided to get together the other day at my place and have a friendly game of backgammon and a cup of coffee since we always enjoyed each other’s company in the past.

Somewhere during our conversation, the topic of politics came up.

I was more or less sure that he voted for Trump in 2020.

So I asked him if he was again thinking to vote for him in the next election despite all the controversies, accusations, and official investigations surrounding the past president.

How come?…

“I might,” he said cautiously while playing with his coffee cup and I knew right away that he definitely would.

He brought his thumb and index finger close together. “The last election was this close,” he added, despite the fact that Biden won by 7 million votes.

It was obvious to me that he was trying to preserve our friendship since he knew I’m not a MAGA-man.

I appreciated his diplomatic answer because I also valued his friendship no matter what, but that got me thinking…

How could such a top-notch engineer who dealt with facts and data all his life could still keep his original faith in the MAGA movement?

Veloso and Cialdini

Then I read something in Maria Veloso’s fantastic book “Web Copy That Sells” that explained the scientific reason behind such endurance of beliefs not supported by facts and evidence.

Veloso shared an experience of Robert Cialdini, the Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, at a presentation to recruit new members to Transcendental Meditation (TM) program.

Despite powerful arguments to sell TM to those present, during the question-and-answer session of the program, one of the attendees stood up and gave a devastating refutation of all the favorable points the presenter had made.

Cold Shower, But…

You can imagine the cold shower effect such a demonstration must have created in the audience.

And you might again imagine many people changing their minds and deciding not to waste their $75 on TM.

But you would be wrong.

Just the opposite happened.

A record number of attendees signed up for the program even after they heard how each pro-TM-argument was demolished!

The secret to understand such contradictory behavior lies in a deeply rooted law of human nature called cognitive dissonance.

Enter “Cognitive Dissonance”

According to this theory, we humans cannot carry two opposing beliefs at the same time and we’ll do everything to resolve the contradiction.

You cannot for example keep on believing that you are both a good and a bad person at the same time.

We cannot maintain the belief that our parents are both sadistic animals and wingless angels at the same time.

That creates a dissonance, a tension, in the mind.

It creates a painful mental problem that has to be solved one way or the other.

Solution?

Rather than changing their original beliefs to match the latest evidence, most people choose to stick to their original beliefs and discard the evidence, like the TM attendees who rushed to register for the program at record numbers even after all the pro-arguments were demolished.

That’s how we humans get rid of cognitive dissonance more often than not.

There is Another Way

But sticking to your original belief is not the only way to resolve cognitive dissonance.

Another solution is to decide to be fair.

This is a much more painful solution that requires considerable moral and intellectual courage to admit that you were wrong about certain things and the truth lies somewhere in between.

Yes, it’s true that both candidates in the 2020 presidential election received a historically record number of votes but… the difference was still 7 million votes in favor of one candidate and that was not “close.”

Yes, your parents might have driven you crazy by saying “no” to many things you wanted to do or accusing you for things that you didn’t do.

But they were not monsters either.

The chances are they are the ones who’ll be still there on your side and continue to love you even if you end up in jail, or even when all the supposed “lovers” and “buddies” vanish from your life one by one.

You may believe that your friend has betrayed you by not supporting your version of an event but then you might discover that there were facts and factors that you were not aware of.

Fire in the Brain

Fairness is hard. It requires a total restructuring of your belief system. It requires the real threat of losing face, if temporarily.

Your ego will usually deepen your loyalty to that original-but-wrong dogma. That’s how it’ll resolve your cognitive dissonance.

If fairness were easy, everyone would be fair and we would all live in heaven.

Cognitive dissonance is a fire in the brain. Its heat will keep you awake at night.

Sticking with one-sided beliefs despite evidence may help on some nights.

But fairness will let you sleep like a baby every night.