4. The More Uncertain People Are, the More They Defend Their Ideas
In #3, I mention the idea of cognitive dissonance—the uncomfortable feeling you get when you have two ideas that conflict with each other. You don’t like the feeling, so you try to get rid of the dissonance by either changing your belief or denying one of the ideas.
In the original research on cognitive dissonance, people were forced to defend an opinion that they did not believe in. The result was that people tended to change their beliefs to fit the new idea.
What Happens When People are Forced to Support New Ideas?
In recent research by Vincent van Veen (2009), researchers had people “argue” that the fMRI scan experience was pleasant (it’s not). When “forced” to make statements ...
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