The scary power of cognitive dissonance

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Why in the world would millions of people post — or broadcast or text or tweet or view or forward — things like hurricanes are “weather weapons”? The tempting answer is that these people are nuts. But if we say that we are missing the chance to better understand ourselves and the political mess we are in.

According to misinformation researcher Mike Caulfield of the University of Washington, people spread conspiracy theories neither to persuade anyone nor to trigger action. Their purpose is more profound — to sustain beliefs that can’t stand up to actual facts.

Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzel has explained that hurricane conspiracy promoters are desperate to debunk global warming and justify their distrust and grievances.

We are seeing the latest example of the scary power of the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance to distort our thinking.

Though I am outraged at the harm done by misinformation — death threats to meteorologists! — I have come to see it as a sad product of our universal human fallibility.

We are like a figure skater on a pond, trying to look good but not knowing where the ice is thin. We desperately want to believe — and for the world to see — that we are rational, competent and honest, that our lives are coherent because our actions match that self-image.

But the foundation of mind and emotions that underlies our rosy self-image is too frail to support such lofty aspirations. Unchecked emotions swamp our reason. Cognitive biases bedevil us. We overrate our intelligence and integrity.

So at best our skater will sometimes get his feet wet. A mismatch between our actual conduct or beliefs and our fictional self-image — cognitive dissonance — is so painful that we do whatever it takes to preserve the fiction. We change the facts, we change our memories, and we even change a picture of airplane contrails into a sure sign of government hurricane manipulation.

Recognizing the power of cognitive dissonance can help us appreciate why people so often seem immune to obvious facts — and maybe help us become more open-minded ourselves.

In their fascinating book “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me),” psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson show how self-justification fueled by cognitive dissonance has stopped police and prosecutors from accepting compelling new evidence that they got the wrong man and economists from admitting that their predictions were bad.

“I am a skilled professional. This annoying new evidence is obviously wrong.”

All of us fall prey to cognitive dissonance. My cheerful wife occasionally offers me, shall we say, suggestions for improvement. And after 50 years I have learned that she is usually right. How I wish I could have listened more to what she had to say instead of leaping to the defense of my virtuous self-image.

Solomon was blunt about it: “Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but whoever hates reproof is stupid.” (Proverbs 12:1, World English Bible).

Avoiding the discomfort of cognitive dissonance shapes politics. Donald Trump is overwhelmingly supported by the people who voted for him in 2020 despite his encouraging an insurrection, being found liable for sexual abuse and civil fraud, threatening revenge against political opponents, and refusing to commit to accepting the result of the 2024 election. The greater the evidence of his misconduct, the stronger will be the need of his supporters to dismiss it.

Before Donald Trump’s New York conviction on 34 felonies, only 17% of Republicans said that a convicted felon should be allowed to be president. Immediately after the verdict, that portion rose to 58%.

“I am a good citizen. I wouldn’t vote for a true felon. But this case was just a political witch-hunt.”

Am I just lecturing Trump supporters to wake up and smell the coffee? Well, yes, but there is plenty of cognitive dissonance to go around. New York Times columnist David Brooks cites it for extremism on the left.

I remember the message of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as hopeful and welcoming. He had a dream everyone could share: White and Black people could partner in creating an America that lived up to its beautiful ideals. All of God’s children, Black and white, could be free at last.

Sure, Southerners resisted, but overall the message was so compelling that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed with huge majorities of both parties.

Sixty years later there is ample cause for frustration, but instead of building on what has been accomplished, some messages about race from progressives today are only condemnatory. America is hopelessly stained by structural racism. White privilege is a character blot.

Why so little perspective? A tenet of the progressive left is that the world consists of oppressors and the oppressed, and the oppressed are the good guys. But loud leftist voices often come from students and faculty at privileged universities and journalists at elite publications, i.e., card-carrying members of the oppressive system.

Enter cognitive dissonance. Brooks suggests that the way to reconcile the internal conflict between one’s identity as a progressive enemy of an oppressive system while enjoying privileged membership in that very system is to be its most shrill critic.

It is no surprise that the political opinions published by student newspapers at elite schools are much more progressive than those at other schools.

So are we fated to blunder around in the fantasy we create of our own perfection? No.

Tavris and Aronson highlight a powerful inner resource: self-compassion. If we remember that no one is right all the time, and we still don’t let ourselves off the hook too easily, we can work on a more genuine self-image: “I was wrong. My mistake caused harm. I can accept this and remain a smart, decent person who tries to do the right thing.”

Our nation is freighted with rigidity. The human tendency is to dig in just when we should be opening up to new, challenging information. If ever there was a time to take a hard look at ourselves, this is it.

Bruce Peterson is a senior district judge and teaches a class on lawyers as peacemakers at the University of Minnesota Law School.