Cognitive Dissonance – John Byrne MD

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

“Dissonance and consonance are relations among cognitions, that is, among opinions, beliefs, knowledge of the environment, and knowledge of one’s own actions and feelings. Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit together; that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, considering only the particular two items, one does not follow from the other” (Festinger 1956: 25).

Festinger supported his theory with an experiment that put student subjects in a position that required them to dishonestly persuade others that a boring activity was really interesting. Because the feeling of dishonesty is naturally unpleasant, he predicted that the students would actually change their opinion of the activity; they would convince themselves that the boring activity was actually interesting, thereby reducing the unpleasantness of being dishonest.  The experiment confirmed the hypothesis. The students actually changed their memory of the boring experience to that of an interesting one. Details can be found here and here.

Psychologist Elliot Aronson proposed that cognitive dissonance mainly arises when the conflicting ideas are between one’s positive concept of ‘self’ (i.e. “I am a good person”) and the realization that one’s actions or beliefs may be considered to be negative (i.e. “I am a bad person”). For instance, most of us consider ourselves to be kind, fair and just with respect to others. If one were to harbor feelings of bigotry, or treat someone unfairly due to this bigotry, then one would reconcile this with a rationalization (“He deserved it because of ….”).

The mere act of choosing something (for whatever reason) over a previously favored thing, causes us to actually change our preference in favor of the new thing. For instance, a happy owner of a Ford car may be given some incentive to buy a Toyota, which he reluctantly does. Cognitive dissonance theory would predict that simply buying the Toyota would change the buyer’s preference a bit from Ford to Toyota.

Izuma et. al conducted a study involving fMRI brain scanning supports this “choice-induced preference change”.

Psychologist Steve G. Hoffman was quoted:  “Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief,” he says, “people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.”  “For the most part, people completely ignore contrary information” and are able to “develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information.”  

The Skeptic’s Dictionary states : “The “backfire effect” is a term coined by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler to describe how some individuals when confronted with evidence that conflicts with their beliefs come to hold their original position even more strongly”. People tend to dig in their heels and insist even more fervently that their position is true if they sense that they are being attacked. They use motivated reasoning to preserve their belief and reject the attack.

Cognitive Dissonance and Baby Steps

They see something wrong, a truth unrecognized by others:
Mercury and vaccines cause autism.
That’s a serious deal if true.
No one is doing anything.

So they spend time and emotion and money, maybe lots of money, to spread the word: vaccines and mercury cause autism.

If he is right, then they are a prescient saviour of thousands.

Problem is, science and reality increasing disagree with his position.

He has a choice: admit that he was wrong, wasted a small fortune and many years of his life, that, after success in one field of endeavour, he is a total failure in another. A perfect example of the Peter Principal.

Or cling to an increasingly untenable position and descend farther into crankdom.

Terrible choice for someone to have to make and it will be a choice they will be unable to make; their response will not be pleasant for those who know them. Anger, irrational behaviour, lashing out. Anything to avoid the realization that they have pissed their life away. You see it all the time in addicts.

It is sad, a tragedy, when these things occur. To know, deep in your soul, that all your time and money and heart and soul was wasted and is increasingly irrelevant.”

Examples

Some years ago I participated in a test of applied kinesiology at Dr. Wallace Sampson’s medical office in Mountain View, California. A team of chiropractors came to demonstrate the procedure. Several physician observers and the chiropractors had agreed that chiropractors would first be free to illustrate applied kinesiology in whatever manner they chose. Afterward, we would try some double-blind tests of their claims.The chiropractors presented as their major example a demonstration they believed showed that the human body could respond to the difference between glucose (a “bad” sugar) and fructose (a “good” sugar). The differential sensitivity was a truism among “alternative healers,” though there was no scientific warrant for it. The chiropractors had volunteers lie on their backs and raise one arm vertically. They then would put a drop of glucose (in a solution of water) on the volunteer’s tongue. The chiropractor then tried to push the volunteer’s upraised arm down to a horizontal position while the volunteer tried to resist. In almost every case, the volunteer could not resist. The chiropractors stated the volunteer’s body recognized glucose as a “bad” sugar. After the volunteer’s mouth was rinsed out and a drop of fructose was placed on the tongue, the volunteer, in just about every test, resisted movement to the horizontal position. The body had recognized fructose as a “good” sugar.

After lunch a nurse brought us a large number of test tubes, each one coded with a secret number so that we could not tell from the tubes which contained fructose and which contained glucose. The nurse then left the room so that no one in the room during the subsequent testing would consciously know which tubes contained glucose and which fructose. The arm tests were repeated, but this time they were double-blind — neither the volunteer, the chiropractors, nor the onlookers was aware of whether the solution being applied to the volunteer’s tongue was glucose or fructose. As in the morning session, sometimes the volunteers were able to resist and other times they were not. We recorded the code number of the solution on each trial. Then the nurse returned with the key to the code. When we determined which trials involved glucose and which involved fructose, there was no connection between ability to resist and whether the volunteer was given the “good” or the “bad” sugar.

When these results were announced, the head chiropractor turned to me and said, “You see, that is why we never do double-blind testing anymore. It never works!” At first I thought he was joking. It turned it out he was quite serious. Since he “knew” that applied kinesiology works, and the best scientific method shows that it does not work, then — in his mind — there must be something wrong with the scientific method. This is both a form of loopholism as well as an illustration of what I call the plea for special dispensation. Many pseudo- and fringe-scientists often react to the failure of science to confirm their prized beliefs, not by gracefully accepting the possibility that they were wrong, but by arguing that science is defective.

Conclusion

Cognitive dissonance is an integral part of our psychology. It is a barrier that prevents individuals from recognizing when they are wrong. In the world of science and medicine, recognizing one’s errors is vital. Patients’ lives may depend on it. We are all prone to cognitive dissonance and to using motivated reasoning to overcome it.. By recognizing it at work in ourselves and being open to being wrong are hallmarks of good, skeptical doctors. 

John Byrne, MD

References and Links