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\centerline{\textbf{Mastery Mailing 3: Cognitive Dissonance and Purity
Attitudes}}

Hi Uncle Dak,

You've probably heard the term ``cognitive dissonance'' thrown around in
a popular-psychology way, especially in political or debate areas.
I've recently been studying this concept in psych class, and there are a
lot of interesting results on how people quietly change their minds to
keep themselves consistent.
Cognitive dissonance is a really wide-reaching part of reasoning and
tells us that we are very rarely as rational as we think.
I used to misunderstand this concept as the ability to hold to mutually
incompatible beliefs at the same time, but it's actually more like
making consistent any beliefs or decisions you identify with, regardless
of more ``rational'' chains of logic.

My textbook explains it with the following counterintuitive example.
Imagine you and a friend participate in an experiment where you're asked
to eat fried grasshoppers (a typically ``undesirable'' food).
You get an experimenter who is kind and polite, so you manage to eat
three grasshoppers.
Your friend gets a rude and distant experimenter, and they also eat
three grasshoppers.
A lot of people expect that after this experiment, you would like the
grasshoppers more than your friend, but we actually see the opposite
effect \autocite[433]{textbook}!
You have the explanation ``I did it to please the nice experimenter''
for why you ate the grasshoppers.
But your friend has to rationalize why they ate the grasshoppers, so
they are more likely to rationalize that they liked the taste.
This affect is called an ``attitude,'' a composite of the actions,
feelings, and ideas you have on a topic, and cognitive dissonance
usually brings these components into line with each other
\autocite[431]{textbook}.

\begin{figure}[ht]
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        \href{https://youtu.be/DF4gdOlP-fc}{%
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        \par\emph{A PBS segment on Cognitive Dissonance with
        Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo (Click to View)}
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\end{figure}

I found a very high-quality study on moral beliefs about ``impure
actions,'' and its central question was: do people rationalize that
things are harmful because they are socially unacceptable/immoral or do
people realize that things are immoral because they are harmful?
It examines attitudes towards ``impure behaviors:'' unsanitary,
improper, or sexually deviant acts.
The study also analyzes socio-economic status and religiosity variables
in two different cultures: the United Kingdom and Colombia.
The study finds that people tend strongly towards rationalization (i.e.
deciding an action is harmful because it is immoral rather than the
other way around), especially low-SES theists
\autocite{rationalization}.
It also gives a potential treatment option, that reflecting on how
harmful a behavior is can, in some cases, reduce perceived immorality of
a behavior.
The study authors argue that this is applicable to a secular-liberal vs
religious-conservative political divide, and I know that you're
eternally frustrated by religious-conservative moralizers, so I thought
you'd enjoy hearing these results \autocite{rationalization}.

While the study doesn't have a lot of insight into the inner workings of
its subjects' minds, it posits theists may have a more intuitive
thinking style than nontheists, and that that thinking style morally
punishes impurity.
The authors say this might be due to ``non-consequentialist'' moral
evaluation, where things are forbidden independent of the harm they
impose on others, which would track with existing research.
Personally, this has made me reconsider how I approach this type of
discussion.
I think using a more open dialogue about harm-done can convince people
to accept traditionally ``impure'' behaviors like homosexuality or
abortion.
But my biggest takeaway is that others' and my own beliefs are way less
rational than we assume, so I will be more critical of my own beliefs
and accepting of others'.

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