Cognitive Dissonance – Contradicting Beliefs
Cognitive dissonance occurs when a thought, idea, concept, or belief contradicts an already existing belief.
For example, if you believe in Santa Claus, and someone disagrees you might get triggered.
The old belief X = Santa is real is being contradicted with a new belief.
New Belief Y = Santa Claus is fake.
The byproduct is a form of stress on the person who beliefs in Santa Claus.
Any time you challenge an idea or a belief of yourself you may experience some stress.
People will fight to keep things the same.
Particular beliefs about themselves and reality they hold to be true.
Realistically speaking no one enjoys to challenge an idea about themselves.
It very much feels like stress and it feels like more work.
The same can be said about learning a new skill especially in a social environment.
If you are in a social environment and your skills are not well refined you will not appear good in front of your peers which cause you to feel more pressure and stress.
This is because we want to look good in front of other people because our egos does not want to feel bad or even perceive itself as bad.
The ego which is designed to be view as a positive contributing person in society will fight to be perceived in the positive form.
As previously stated no one like to see themselves in the negative. No one likes an old belief to be challenged. No one likes to feel stupid in front of others as this will be embarrassing to feel.
The ego is a very slippery mechanism as it attempts to keep things the same and preserve the concept of the I/Ego.
Which is why you will often find people have all sorts of blind spots.
It is very easy to see in others, not so much in yourself.
Why is this? Because as a watcher your ego is detached.
What will happen is you will see people making mistakes and is very easy to spot.
But, in yourself it is a tricky thing because it will require you see your own mistakes and then admit you made a mistake(which most people don’t want to do).
What should be done?
Ideally, you smoothly and gently present people with a different way of looking at life or a new type of thinking that doesn’t make them feel worse off.
Present them the better solution.
What will happen in this case is instead of holding onto old beliefs they will change their way of thinking to match yours(if it’s better or they perceive it as better).
People don’t want to admit a mistake because it will make them feel bad about themselves, and even more so, if this is done in public.
If you want to correct someone it is better to do so in private on a 1 to 1 basis as this will be much more easier.
Doing so in public causes one to feel shame or another negative feeling.
You want to avoid this at all cost.
Not only is this very socially inappropriate you would be making people feel on the spot and look like an idiot in public.
Most people can’t really admit they they made a mistake in public as this a humbling experience, and again very difficult on the ego.
So when in doubt, don’t expect others to be able to manage their own egos or want to do something that is harmful to their egos.
Simpy, present them with a better way of doing something and let them feel like it’s the better option without forcing it onto them.
As people get older they will have more biases and cognitive dissonance because they will put more things under the rug as to avoid seeing negatives in their own character.
Any time you try to make someone see a negative in themselves, you can usually expect people to get triggered.
People put things down in their memory banks because they want to purposely avoid feeling a certain type of way.
And most of the time this is perfectly okay.
Life is about moving forward to the next thing not looking at yourself in thousands of different ways to self-hate.
Looking at yourself in the negatives about what you don’t have is not very good to the ego, nor, is it an effective strategy to have.
All this does is create stress on the person and damages one’s ego.
Yes, people do need to be able to see their mistakes and flaws, but not most of the time in life.
Looking at yourself in the negative will keep you stuck.
When in doubt NEVER make people feel worse about themselves this is a sure-way to lose friends and make enemies.
Which will attract “haters” and enemies.
If you ever noticed we live in a very PC(political correct) society, needlessly so.
When in doubt it’s best to be on the safe to avoid triggering people or offending people.
There is a time and place to correct people and there is a time and place just to allow people to have space to learn, grow, and improve.
Which is why forcing others to change and grow hurts the brain.
It is much better to go slow, because, the ego can only handle so much.
if you ever studied any difficult subject in school you know exactly what I am talking about!
Conclusion
Cognitive dissonance is very real and occurs when a new belief challenges an old belief. Usually, this will feel like stress on someone. Everyone has all sorts of biases and blind-spots because they want to purposely avoid feeling bad about themselves. And you want to avoid people’s vulnerable spots(generally speaking). Sometimes, you do want to challenge people’s way of thinking as to “upgrade” their reality, but, generally this is not recommended. People want to avoid anything that contradicts their reality and their filters. Be very careful when working with others and trying to reveal their flaws. DO NOT FORCE PEOPLE TO SEE THEIR FLAWS. Instead, present them with a better solution to their problems. A better way of looking at something.