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Articles: Cognitive Dissonance |
Posted by
feralucce on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:50 PM PST
Cognitive Dissonance: -n; anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like, as when one likes a person but disapproves strongly of one of his or her habits.
This is the dictionary definition of cognitive dissonance. Modern psychology has a more in depth definition of it. Cognitive dissonance is that odd feeling in your head when you try to consider conflicting ideas at the same time. Psychologists go further in this definition. It is the the perception of incompatibility between these conflicting ideas, as opposed to the true incompatibility that is the main source of dissonance. Psychology refers to cognitions as opposed to ideas. Cognition is defined as any element of knowledge, including attitude, emotion, belief or behavior.
We all experience cognitive dissonance. Most people will experience it many times on a daily basis. You smoke, yet you know they are bad for you. When someone mentions this, you get irritated, not because of the person telling you the obvious, but because your mind generates dissonance between these two ideas. The human mind is equipped with mechanisms to deal with this dissonance in a safe, non-disruptive and non-destructive manner. Basically, one of the ideas that you hold in your mind is weaker than the other. The psychological addiction is stronger than the need for good health, therefore when the dissonance registers higher than the desire for health, the mind makes a decision and dissonance is resolved.
Let me give you an example. You are siting around shooting the breeze with your friends. Everyone went to the same restaurant for dinner and got a large drink. Now that you are in your living room, there are 4 or five large sodas sitting around. You love Doctor Pepper. You reach for your cup, and take a long, hard pull on it. It's not your drink. It's Sierra Mist. That moment, those fifteen seconds where your mind short circuits and tries not to induce a seizure from surprise, shock and confusion, is cognitive dissonance.
Those with Apserger's Syndrome (AS) have a harder time with cognitive dissonance than normal people do. The AS has no shades of gray. There is not subtlety to thought, reasoning or belief. Simply put, the AS mind has 3 settings on most topics. Love. Hate. Don't give a shit. As a result of this, there is never a stronger and weaker concept in the AS mind. So, when dissonance occurs, there is no way to resolve it. The same mechanism that saves mental anguish in the normal mind is in place in the AS, but does not resolve the issue. The dissonance is not resolved because neither of the concepts is weaker. This may not sound like a problem to you, but I assure you – it is a major problem. Imagine that Sierra Mist moment lasting hours, or days... or in some cases, not ending. That moment of cognitive dissonance is stressful, rough on you emotionally. Extended periods of cognitive dissonance can be profoundly damaging.
Now, let's apply this to a social situation. The AS mind is does not assimilate the “unwritten rules” of social interaction. The social interactions of AS are based on logical progressions - based on learned, reasoned responses. While this unnerves the normal people that the AS deals with, it is mentally exhausting for the AS. Imagine doing quadratic equations while attempting to look something up in the encyclopedia and holding a conversation.
Our social interaction is based on logical progression. Person A says this. Person B says this. Therefore the proper response should be this. When this fails, everyone stops talking and looks at you like you like you have sprouted a second head. You have no response to that. You sit there and experience a social Sierra Mist moment. For several moments, there is utter and total cognitive dissonance. While this is not an issue for the average mind, it is for the AS. You can shake it off and move on. The AS is stuck. While that Sierra Mist moment is uncomfortable, you can walk away. That moment, HURTS. And what's worse, it does not fade. Until the AS mind can understand the information that has caused the source of dissonance, it will not go away.
So, tell me. What is your reaction to pain? Do you want to hug someone? Talk? Interact in any way? No... for that few moments, when the pain is at its worst, you want to be left the fuck alone. Cognitive dissonance, while uncomfortable for you, is downright painful to the AS mind. All thought processes and reasoning come to a shuddering, crashing, painful halt. Thing is, the normal minded people, don't even notice what has happened. They are unaware that the social interaction application of their conversational partner has crashed and is currently taking up all the processing power of the AS unit.
Blissfully unaware, the normal continues talking – adding more information to the situation. Until dissonance is resolved, this additional information is like pouring salt in the wound. It just exacerbates the problem. You cut yourself and if someone does that to you, you lash out. The dissonant AS is the same. There is an outburst of what is perceived to be temper or complete social inappropriateness. In reality, the AS is simply saying, “Leave me the fuck alone till the pain passes.”
Here's the kicker. Most AS don't know that they are. Most don't understand the way their mind works. Most of them don't understand a damn thing that is going on around them. All they know is that they are mystified, and sometimes people will say something that confuses them and then they lose a friend because they were angry as a result. Let me tell you, it sucks.
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Cognitive Dissonance | Login/Create an account | 9 Comments |
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance
by Thanatopsis (to_much_nothing@yahoo.com)
on Mar 23, 2007 - 02:06 AM
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Damn man that sucks. im sorry for you having AS. Do you know how long you have had it? I hope everything pans out for you as far as having it goes and hope all is working right for you as far as your life is going.
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by magari (chill550@gmail.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 02:53 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.chill-fu.net | What would you call a situation where one does not know how to respond and therefore begins an internal debate of what to respond with along with when and why we want to respond in the first place..... Personally I end up just shutting up and letting someone else take control of the conversation. Ever since I was young I got used to escaping conversations due to this anxiety and then letting go of the topic at hand. In my opinion Silence is the best response to situations like this however sometimes I still feel like a response is needed, then I end up debating whether or not I have disappointed my partner in conversation by not providing a response. This in turn provides more anxiety. Words are only so useful in my opinion and if I can accept silence as a decent answer why cant others? |
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 05:14 AM (User info | Send a Message) | Sounds like this guy has much the same problem. It sort of reminds me of the "1 in 166 children will be diagnosed with autism this year" commercials I've been seeing lately. Asperger's is a form of autism. I think this is a much more wudespread problem than we thought. I know I've read over the symptoms list posted, and can name half a dozen people whom with I interact regularly, who exhibit such symptoms. It's like we're all coming down with this anti-communication disease. Personally, I think it is because the world has gotten more complicated than we can handle, and it gets harder for us to relate to the world and each other. This makes us unable to function properly.
It's just a thought.
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by feralucce (feralucce@wayoutonthecorner.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 08:59 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.wayoutonthecorner.com/feralucce | it is a good observation... though not to nitpick... it is related to autism, but is not autism... it is part of a whole spectrum of disorders with similar symptoms... add is in the spectrum as well... but to say it is autism is to say that denge fever and malaria are the same because they both cause debilitating disentary |
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 09:25 AM (User info | Send a Message) | Which is why I said it is a form of Autism, not autism proper. Form of, related to.. same thing. Everything I read said it was a higher-functioning form of Autism. |
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by magari (chill550@gmail.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 10:19 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.chill-fu.net | If relating to autism as a disability, I really do not consider it so. I have easily conquered it through meditation and experience none of this unless I choose to. ;)
to quote Meranda_Jade...
"Personally, I think it is because the world has gotten more complicated than we can handle, and it gets harder for us to relate to the world and each other. This makes us unable to function properly. "
I believe this has always seemed to be the case. Words and language are only tools to communicate thoughts so new thoughts usually end up needing new words. The problem I think we are realizing is that thoughts are unique and words are dead, made up!
Have you ever had a conversations with an individual without using words?
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Re: Cognitive Dissonance by Schizo (Aranea@Spidersdance.com) on Apr 02, 2007 - 02:39 PM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | a hundred times. And even more times, I have conversations in spite of words...
And regarding Aspergers... I have read explanations of the disorder saying that some authorities do not consider it as much a disability as an other ability... more like a different but equally valid way for the brain to be hardwired. The problem comes, not because of faulty thought-processes, but because the thought processes don't match up with the majority of society. Not being A.S., as far as I know, at least (I do display many of the symptoms, but that does not mean anything - much of it I think is situational rather than wired right into my brain) I can't say for certain. I do know that the two people I have known who have been diagnosed with the syndrome have been two of my favorite people ever... and I have never had any difficulty communicating with either. In fact, I felt with both that I had finally found someone who speaks my language.
It makes me wonder what society would be like if the majority had the Asperger's mind. Communication patterns would certainly be very different.
It raises a question in my mind - do two people with Asperger's end up understanding each other better, or worse than they understand the rest of humanity? |
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