A widely known but little understood phenomenon by the public is that of Cognitive Dissonance. A quick introduction with a quick comic is appropriate:
And now, for those who are gluttons for punishment, here is a book on the subject:
Ted Talks are both entertaining as they are informative. In this Tedx talk Ash Donaldson that illustrates the concept on Cognitive dissonance in a very great manner:
…”We can all, learn, not to start with conclusions and find evidence,” Mr. Donaldson definitely hits home with many of his points, and it really should allow some reflection on your own biases and how you approach them. And while the above is intriguing and enlightening, let’s look at another example:
Republicans and Cognitive Dissonance involving the ACA
But the information above isn’t from a scientific source, so let’s add some beef to the discussion:
You should now have a greater understanding not only of what CD is, but also have some methodology with how to mitigate its effects upon decision making. Much of the above is based upon peer-reviewed study of the phenomenon. The msnbc article is merely added to give a current real-world example of the process. Quite interesting, yes?!
