Are irrational or emotional beliefs more strongly defended, psychologically?

[Piggy]

I hope some folks will be able to point me toward resources in psychology and cognitive science regarding this phenomenon.

I recently had 2 experiences which put me in mind of a theory that I seem to recall from years back.

1. A coworker spams the office with an email regarding a blizzard up North, in which everyone fires up the woodstove, shovels out, and no one requests FEMA aid, compared unfavorably to the whining and crying that went on after Katrina. I respond with the observation that he might want to try firing up the woodstove and shoveling his house out from under 20 feet of water. He replies that he was only trying to make a point about folks in Louisiana using the hurricane as an excuse to get federal money. I reply with an attachment: a copy of the request by the Northern governor for FEMA aid. He becomes furious -- the only time I have seen him get this mad -- saying he was only trying to make a point. (I did not reply that a point supported by lies is no point at all.)

2. My aunt says that people who are not Christian should not immigrate to the US, because this is a Xian country, founded by Xians on Xian values. I point out that the founders were not Xians, for the most part, and they went out of their way to assert that our government is in no way based on Xian doctrine. This is a topic I have to confront frequently, so I had concrete evidence that took less than a minute to explain. She literally dropped what she was doing, became red in the face, and declared "I am just saying..." <insert repeat of what she said before>. My uncle had to calm her down.

Is there scientific evidence that irrational or emotionally-based beliefs are more vigorously defended, psychologically, in the face of counter-evidence, than other sorts of beliefs?

I cannot imagine either of these people getting so worked up if, say, they claimed that the Titanic had sunk intact and I cited evidence that it had broken up, or if they had claimed that Richard Nixon was Methodist and I pointed out that he was Quaker.

My aunt, btw, is an outspoken fundamentalist evangelical, and the coworker is an outspoken "conservative" who is vehemently critical of the "welfare state".

[Miss Whiplash]

I wonder how your coworker would respond to the corporate welfare state? It exceeds social welfare. A blizzard is a bit different than being under 20 feet of water. One can't light up the wood stove to solve that problem

[Dogdoctor]

I think the less logical your argument the more emotional you have to be to defend it.

[Walter Wayne]

Perhaps people who become less emotional during arguments are more able to digest the
criticism, and thus have fewer irrational beliefs.

A kind of "which came first question."

[Piggy]

Perhaps people who become less emotional during arguments are more able to digest the
criticism, and thus have fewer irrational beliefs.

A kind of "which came first question."
It wouldn't seem so, given my experience with these 2. It was only when their demonstrably incorrect beliefs, on issues they emotionally identified with very strongly, were challenged with direct evidence that they became visibly upset and rushed to defend those beliefs. This was rare behavior which neither seems generally prone to.

But that's strictly anecdotal, which is why I'm wondering if there are studies.

[athon]

We can't escape our 'animal' way of thinking, unfortunately. Millions of years of being hunter-gatherers in small social groups versus a few thousand years of modern civilisation with emphasis on making decisions logically? The former will win out.

Emotions make sense in the absence of critical thinking; associating information with moments of feeling good and secure means you will seek out that sort of information again and again, because it's probably going to benefit you. Most of the time, this is true. Of course, often it isn't, but it would have been beneficial when we didn't have the luxury of extra time and energy enabling us to contemplate our universe.

Therefore, I'd imagine we will defend emotionally-inspired beliefs over logically deducted ones. As for there being any studies, there are none I'm aware of.

Athon

[Elaedith]

I am a cognitive psychologist planning some research into individual differences in reasoning and belief formation, and there is a huge body of research that relates in some way to that question although I don't know of any that use 'vigour of defence' as a dependent variable. You can't just design a study to see if 'irrationally based' beliefs are more defended without a way to define and measure 'irrationally based beliefs' that is non-circular (ie doesn't depend on resistance to change as a measure of irrationality).

There is quite a lot of research on the effects of individual differences and emotional investment on belief bias.

There are also dual-process models of reasoning that distinguish between heuristic/intuitive/magical thinking and analytical/rational thinking, arguing that the former type does not involve evidence evaluation and is therefore more resistant to change. Beliefs based on the former type of thinking have the function of making the world seem more understandable and predictable and therefore any threat to them tends to provoke an emotional response.

There is also work on individual differences in accuracy orientation versus belief maintenance.

It sounds as though both the cases you cited are examples of somebody constructing a rationalisation to meet their emotional needs (ie feeling superior or wanting to avoid people with different values) and that sort of rationalisation is not intended to be part of an accurate or logical model of the world.

[Piggy]

Interesting stuff Elaedith.

Any cites and/or links?

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not sure emotion plays a part in what we defend in the face of contradictory evidence. But emotion is why we defend it.

People don't like to be wrong, even when they are. You see it all the time in these forums. Show and/or tell someone they are wrong and you get a thread going back and forth over every detail. Sometimes there is talking past each other or both are correct but talking about different things (the limits of language). But sometimes people just can't say, "OK. you're right."

And ever notice when people tell you a fantastic story that it "happened to their friend or cousin" or they had some other personal experience that supports the credibility when in reality the story is bogus so someone is making something up? My son and I always joke when we hear the, "It happened to my cousin" reference since it usually means the story is merely one being passed on.

Why not say, I heard from someone? Why is there a need to pretend you have personal knowledge of an event? Because the person telling the story has a need to be believed, even when there is nothing riding on being believed except maybe someone else's perception of how gullible you are.

For whatever psychological benefit, we have a need to be right and a need to be believed.

[CapelDodger]

I cannot imagine either of these people getting so worked up if, say, they claimed that the Titanic had sunk intact and I cited evidence that it had broken up, or if they had claimed that Richard Nixon was Methodist and I pointed out that he was Quaker.
I've noticed that people often get angry when you start to get through to them, when a little doubt creeps in, or they feel their position being undermined because it has no foundations. Many positions are based on assumptions which derive from prejudice. Point out that an assumption is invalid and they have nowhere to turn. Your conservative assumed that the rugged Northerners didn't appeal to FEMA - because rugged northerners don't do that sort of thing - then used that supposition to "prove" his prejudice. He probably didn't think of it himself, he more likely heard it on his favourite radio station, but it wouldn't occur to him to question it. He liked it so much he felt inspired to spread the message. Then you ruined his day. In the end he was left to defend his "point" which, as we all know, is zero-dimensional. When you're left defending a point you've surrendered all territory.

My aunt, btw, is an outspoken fundamentalist evangelical, and the coworker is an outspoken "conservative" who is vehemently critical of the "welfare state".
Dripping with prejudice. Your aunt assumes that the US is a Christian foundation because it's a good place (or was before ...), ergo Christian. For the WASP, see above.

An aunt of mine married a Christian. I think the Christian did it because he wanted a serious cross to bear, and she got into it because of the judgemental element. My aunt I can get on with, she knows me and despises just about everybody so we have plenty of overlap. Her husband will not give up on me, but nor will he be angered. That's how committed he is. It drives me wild. He comes out with some drivel, I point out it ain't so, and he's, like, "Oh". Down the line, some other drivel. How do you defeat a foe like that?

Another aunt is a dedicated airhead, made a fair living out of head-shops but believes it all herself, which infuriates me. She knows me, and we talk about music and drugs and retailing. No ologies.

We're a pragmatic family, all in all.

[Elaedith]

Interesting stuff Elaedith.

Any cites and/or links?

There wouldn't be anything directly on the question you asked, its more a case of putting the pieces together across large bodies of research. I'll look through what I have when I go in to work next week. I have been reading a lot of work by Stanovich which is not directly to do with emotions but does look at individual differences in various types of reasoning error and bias. http://leo.oise.utoronto.ca/~kstanovich/reasoning.html

The work on accuracy orientation was from a unpublished dissertation by Mary Polstra in 2005, titled 'Individual differences in processes of motivated reasoning: Goals, prior beliefs, and the collection and evaluation of evidence' and is cited from Dissertation-Abstracts-International:-Section-B:-The-Sciences-and-Engineering. Vol 65(8-B) 2005, 4330.

[Godmode]

I think frustration plays a part when you can't think of a logical argument, but still feel somehow that you're "right". That would tend to get you worked up and agitated, which is something I'm sure we've all experienced at one point or another.

[CapelDodger]

I think frustration plays a part when you can't think of a logical argument, but still feel somehow that you're "right". That would tend to get you worked up and agitated, which is something I'm sure we've all experienced at one point or another.
The trick is, of course, to stay calm and examine your own opinion to see if there are any unsupportable assumptions behind it. You must be prepared to be wrong.

The two examples Piggy brings us are clearly too dependent on their prejudices, too invested in their beliefs, to reconsider them. Contrary information or arguments are either not heard, or are met by such responses as "Well, you're a liberal, you would say that".

[meg]

Here is an old article from Skeptical Inquirer discussing belief systems, and how they are tied to our survival instincts, possibly explaining the seemingly excessive emotions you encountered when you "attacked" those beliefs.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html


Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die
Because beliefs are designed to enhance our ability to survive, they are biologically designed to be strongly resistant to change. To change beliefs, skeptics must address the brain's "survival" issues of meanings and implications in addition to discussing their data.

[Piggy]

I think frustration plays a part when you can't think of a logical argument, but still feel somehow that you're "right". That would tend to get you worked up and agitated, which is something I'm sure we've all experienced at one point or another.
Y'know, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I think that in both cases there was a sense of, "Well, even if I chose a bad example, I'm still RIGHT!" or "Well, even if you can show that some of these quotes aren't accurate and you can dredge up other citations that seem to point in the other direction, I'm still RIGHT!"

There's an old "Mother Goose and Grimm" cartoon I've kept for years. Dog thinks "E=MC2"; dog says "ARF!"; dog thinks "This is very frustrating".

I know that feeling very well. It was especially acute during my first months living overseas. I had perfectly rational and perhaps even eloquent points to make, but it came out sounding like Injun Joe from the old Tom Sawyer shows.

I'm sure they were feeling that. They wanted me to understand the ideas they were trying to convey, while I seemed to be focused on the small details instead.

But as others have said, it's the dogmatism of the belief that underlies that feeling in these cases.

For instance, earlier this week, that coworker came to me with what seemed to be an error which had been caught by another department. I looked over the document and spotted a required reference in an earlier paragraph -- the apparent error wasn't an error after all. He said, "Ok" and that was that. He did not have to change the document, and that was good.

In this case, there was no underlying dogma being threatened, so demonstrating that his belief was incorrect did not result in an emotional response. No frustration, because there was no psychological investment in having to be right.

[Alphaba]

A couple of thoughts about this interesting topic:


In both examples provided in the OP there is an obvious moral component, and it is possible to see them as mostly moral judgements about human groups: group X (the Northerners, the Christians) is morally 'better' than or 'superior' to group Y (the Southerners, the non-Christians). And yes, discussing people values or moral convictions with cold-logical, rational arguments tend to render them emotional. In a sense, for many people it is sort of a category error in casual discussions...


Decades of observation of mores in Academia in my country made me certain that people can become very emotional about boringly rational topics and arguments.

[Roboramma]

You know, I find it really frustrating when I make a very well reasoned argument to which someone has no response, and then they come back with, "well, you might be better at arguing about this/know more about this than me, but that doesn't mean you're right!"

The funny thing is though, they're right. I can remember times when exactly that has happened. When I've had a very well reasoned position, and the other party admitted to being incapable of arguing against it, but still refused to admit that they were wrong. And in the end, it turned out that I was wrong.

Of course that doesn't mean that we should ignore rational thought or just blind ourselves to the arguments of others when our emotions won't accept them. After all, while there are cases where the ideas that we grasp against reason turn out to be vindicated (perhaps because of missing information), I think there are far more cases wherein the opposite is true.
I just think that we should realise that people's emotions are usually pretty smart. Which is one of the reasons that they (we) so often trust them.

There are times when that breaks down however. Not really sure what I'm trying to say, just seemed like it should be said. :)

[infornography]

Politics is a big one here. Possibly bigger than religion, which is saying something. If someone identifies themselves as either Republican or Democrat, they will defend tooth and nail anything their party does, even if in other circumstances they would have insulted the other for such a stupid action.

My parents raised me to be a rational thinker but they are both devoutly republican (yes I meant to use that word) and it took 6 years to finally convince them that maybe GW isn't the greatest president we have ever had. I still can't talk with them about politics unless it is an issue that the republican party does not have a solid stance on. Its like hitting a brick wall repeatedly.

Both of my parents are very rational people not prone to fanciful arguments or underthinking a situation, but when it comes to politics they become very hard headed.

[CapelDodger]

You know, I find it really frustrating when I make a very well reasoned argument to which someone has no response, and then they come back with, "well, you might be better at arguing about this/know more about this than me, but that doesn't mean you're right!"
I recall one poor soul who snapped at me "It's easy for you, you have all these facts!". The discussion was about some sort of woo, and included the ever-popular "We only use 10% of our brains".

[lenny]

Y'know, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I think that in both cases there was a sense of, "Well, even if I chose a bad example, I'm still RIGHT!" or "Well, even if you can show that some of these quotes aren't accurate and you can dredge up other citations that seem to point in the other direction, I'm still RIGHT!".
isn't the interesting bit what comes next?

arguably Einstein was in this position for most of his life; he kept on coming up with the absurd implications/contradictions implied by quantum mechanics (the experiments kept coming up with absurd results). he advanced our understanding of the hypothesis he attacked, to its benefit.

one of the neat things about science is that very effective, devastatingly deep insights can work against your position. i wonder if the frustration (for most of us) of not being able to formulate those critical questions is greater or less than the frustration at seeing the experiments come out the "other" way?

[CapelDodger]

isn't the interesting bit what comes next?

arguably Einstein was in this position for most of his life; he kept on coming up with the absurd implications/contradictions implied by quantum mechanics (the experiments kept coming up with absurd results). he advanced our understanding of the hypothesis he attacked, to its benefit.

one of the neat things about science ...
One of the neat things about Einstein is that he never resorted to arbitrarily denying the absurd results. If they were repeatable he took it on the chin and applied himself to thinking up deeper implausibilites. He outpaced the quantum physicists, and drew them on to new understandings even though that wasn't his intention. A great mind.

[Nessus]

I find alot of the time that you have your idea on what is right, and they have their idea (contradicting of course, else its not interesting). You know YOUR right because sometime back you did alot of research in books/net whatever. When you come to argue the best you can do if they dont agree with your (hopefully) logical argument is to quote some sources, say that this is the current scientific theory or whatever source convinced YOU your idea is the right one.
However unless they are nice rational people, they usually wont go out and check the sources, its not in their best interest to actively go out and destroy what they KNOW is right (i.e: their idea).

[CapelDodger]

Politics is a big one here. Possibly bigger than religion, which is saying something.
The two have only recently become differentiated in the Western world, and signs are that the differentiation will be short-lived in historical terms.

Politics separated from religion is about the here-and-now, taxes (high or low and on what), individual versus communal, the meaning of "society", the schools you're kids go to. That's bound to arouse people more than pie-in-the-sky religion.

[Piggy]

arguably Einstein was in this position for most of his life?
I don't think so.

The position we're discussing is:
-I have a belief;
-Someone shows that the presumed facts underlying the belief are in doubt, or are certainly false;
-I resort back to my belief, get uncharacteristically emotional, and offer no counter-evidence.

This kind of thinking has nothing to do with how Einstein made his greatest contributions. And when he is accused of putting himself in this position, it's invariably a criticism, usually of his resistance to the implications of other scientists' developments in QM.

So I don't see the comparison here.

[Dark Jaguar]

Here's an anecdote with that one individual I have mentioned before.

I see her cooking, it's lettuce. Nice meal being made, sure to be enjoyed by all. She, as she is want to do, outburts "this is ORGANIC lettuce" *stress her's*. I decide to use the suggested "asking questions" method someone mentioned before, sort of. In retrospect I think it came off smarmy...

"As opposed to inorganic lettuce?"
"Yeah."
"Isn't all lettuce organic?"
"Yeah well, it has no chemicals."
"No water even?"
"Well no pesticides."
"So when they say "organic" they mean "no pesticides"?"
"Yeah"
"I think perhaps that's not entirely clear."
"Perhaps not for you but for anyone with a little intelligence it's obvious."
*At this point I'm a little taken aback by the rather blatant insult. I thought we were having a little fun back and forth.*
"Well, perhaps I'm not that smart, but nonetheless it doesn't seem all that clear that that's what is meant."
"Well then maybe you should wise up!"
*At this point she walks out of the room rather quickly. I'm pretty sure I managed to offend her. In retrospect I think that the way I asked those questions was condescending, or were taken to seem that way.*

[HidariMak]

I hope some folks will be able to point me toward resources in psychology and cognitive science regarding this phenomenon.

There's something I thought of as soon as I saw this.

Q: What's the most difficult thing to prove, the belief which is 100% based on belief?
A: Religion

Q: What is responsible for more wars, more deaths, and more torture than any other single cause?
A: Religion

No ideas on published studies, so that's as close as I can come.

[Admiral]

Q: What's the most difficult thing to prove, the belief which is 100% based on belief?
A: Religion

Q: What is responsible for more wars, more deaths, and more torture than any other single cause?
A: Religion

You'd be interested in another thread where we're discussing this exact this issue, the forum titled "To the Christians here..."

As a quick piece of my argument against your stance (check out the other thread to find more), consider that

a)Correlation does not imply causation. You just stated two things about religion- that doesn't mean they're related. It's a logical fallacy.

b)There have been far, FAR more religious people in the last few millenia than there have been atheists. Therefore, it's just going to be true that there will be more religious tyrants than atheist tyrants, more religious soldiers than atheist ones, and so on. This is of no more importance than the fact that there have been more right-handed tyrants than left-handed ones, and more right-handed soldiers than left-handed ones.

c)Atheists such as Josef Stalin have committed some horrific genocides and caused a lot of terrible torture as well. Some people will be wired to seek power and destroy those who are different from them- religion is not a factor.

Anyway, I hope to see you join the discussion.

[Kopji]

There's a Greek term called 'aporia' might be similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia

Wiki is rather polite. I'd always heard this defined as the kind of confusion you get when someone has stomped you in a debate. :)

[Kopji]

In Plato's Meno (84), Socrates describes the purgative effect of reducing someone to aporia: it shows someone who merely thought he knew something that he does not in fact know it and instills in him a desire to investigate it.
ibid


Yeah. I'm not sure how to turn them on to investigating though, rather than just being mad. Gandi had a great idea about anger being like a kind of power (like wind to a windmill) that can be harnessed to do something useful. If it were rage instead of anger, it was destructive instead of helpful.

Without trying to sound too fortune cookieish, that journey starts within. Their anger could serve to inspire them to work out an answer if they let it. Maybe that is a starting place.

[Katana]

Politics is a big one here. Possibly bigger than religion, which is saying something. If someone identifies themselves as either Republican or Democrat, they will defend tooth and nail anything their party does, even if in other circumstances they would have insulted the other for such a stupid action.


The problem comes when people first identify themselves as one or the other and then support every action of that party lest they feel that they are not truly a republican or a democrat to do otherwise. I grew up in a republican household, so I identified myself one, too, until I became more interested in actually learning about politics and the differences between the parties.

What I realized is that I'm certainly not a republican, but I don't think that I'm a democrat either. I'm ok with that now. I'll vote for the person who does the best to represent my opinions/priorities as much as possible. I wish others did the same and used their brains instead of their emotions (oh yeah, that's the theme of the thread) or their need to identify with a specific group.

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's something I thought of as soon as I saw this.

Q: What's the most difficult thing to prove, the belief which is 100% based on belief?
A: Religion

Q: What is responsible for more wars, more deaths, and more torture than any other single cause?
A: Religion

No ideas on published studies, so that's as close as I can come.There might be an argument that greed and desire for power was the root cause and religion the propaganda tool.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You'd be interested in another thread where we're discussing this exact this issue, the forum titled "To the Christians here..."

...
Anyway, I hope to see you join the discussion.Couldn't you provide a link so we don't have to hunt for it?

Link to last page of the thread as of 06/28/06. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58636&page=12&highlight=Christians+here)

[Dustin Kesselberg]

If you look back at the history of scientific discoveries and debates you will quickly find out how aggressive and emotional people can get when defending their theories. Scientists who make new discoveries and are confronted with opposition in the scientific community will get very emotional inorder to defend their discoveries.

This isn't something limited to wrong beliefs. It's something that happens with all beliefs.

This is something that depends on the person. Some people get angry and aggressive defending obvioiusly logical and true beliefs. Some people stay calm and moderated when defending absurd and false beliefs.

[blutoski]

Is there scientific evidence that irrational or emotionally-based beliefs are more vigorously defended, psychologically, in the face of counter-evidence, than other sorts of beliefs?

I think it's interesting that the two examples you've raised are political debates, which is a domain of knowledge that does not lend itself to flexibility or objectivity.

Politics is a very primitive part of the human mind, so I suspect there's just as much to learn about our reaction to challenges in the fields of primatology and biopsych as there is in cognitive psych.

My experience is that you can't catch a partisan dead-to-rights, because the conflict becomes about you versus them, not about the original topic. At first, the scenario #1 fellow was supporting his political 'pack', then when you challenged him, he interpreted it as a dominance play within the office-space for alpha status.


One of the previous posters suggested that there may be a chicken/egg situation here, wherein certain people who have a particular personality that needs to attach to dominance seek out political activity to acquire security, and not surprisingly, defend their views with the same approach. It may be that they are attracted to irrational views because of their exploitation of tribalism instincts, rather than the other way around.


There are also known pathologies that I personally believe characterize partisans, apparatchiks, and unfortunately, also many skeptics. (Would you like to lock horns with Penn Gillette, for example?)

[lenny]

The position we're discussing is:
-I have a belief;
-Someone shows that the presumed facts underlying the belief are in doubt, or are certainly false;
-I resort back to my belief, get uncharacteristically emotional, and offer no counter-evidence.

This kind of thinking has nothing to do with how Einstein made his greatest contributions.
the (?relevant?) point was that Einstein continued to maintain his belief (i said/implied nothing about "uncharacteristically emotional") and that he did offer tests to look for "counter-evidence." thereby advancing science.

and regardless of the results, he maintained his belief; and pushed deeper. still advancing science. still seems an on-topic remark to me at least!
And when he is accused of putting himself in this position, it's invariably a criticism, usually of his resistance to the implications of other scientists' developments in QM.well mine was explicitly NOT a criticism nor was CapelDodger's, so that wipes out your claim of "invariably a criticism" (forever).

mine was a complement and an observation that this is a useful thing to do in terms of the advancement of science. there is a similar story connected with continental drift...
So I don't see the comparison here.
clearer now?

i'd strongly recommend the (now in english) edition of the Born-Einstein Letters, in particular Pauli's role in the 50's of resolving Born's mistaken beliefs regarding Einsteins beliefs... (i'd post a link but it might be classified as spam???)

[lenny]

Q: What's the most difficult thing to prove, the belief which is 100% based on belief?
A: Religionthere are, of course, many other such beliefs which are impossible to "prove", so i expect your's is a multiple choice question, with "All of the above" at the bottom. i have a suggestion for the penultimate option as well, but before then how about adding options like:

A: Religion
B: that mathematics accurately quantifies reality
C: that our Laws of Nature constrain reality (not merely describe it).
D: ???

where i've taken your use of "prove" as in mathematics/logic, of course
any offers for option (D, E, ...)?

[Dancing David]

I hope some folks will be able to point me toward resources in psychology and cognitive science regarding this phenomenon.

I recently had 2 experiences which put me in mind of a theory that I seem to recall from years back.

1. A coworker spams the office with an email regarding a blizzard up North, in which everyone fires up the woodstove, shovels out, and no one requests FEMA aid, compared unfavorably to the whining and crying that went on after Katrina. I respond with the observation that he might want to try firing up the woodstove and shoveling his house out from under 20 feet of water. He replies that he was only trying to make a point about folks in Louisiana using the hurricane as an excuse to get federal money. I reply with an attachment: a copy of the request by the Northern governor for FEMA aid. He becomes furious -- the only time I have seen him get this mad -- saying he was only trying to make a point. (I did not reply that a point supported by lies is no point at all.)

2. My aunt says that people who are not Christian should not immigrate to the US, because this is a Xian country, founded by Xians on Xian values. I point out that the founders were not Xians, for the most part, and they went out of their way to assert that our government is in no way based on Xian doctrine. This is a topic I have to confront frequently, so I had concrete evidence that took less than a minute to explain. She literally dropped what she was doing, became red in the face, and declared "I am just saying..." <insert repeat of what she said before>. My uncle had to calm her down.

Is there scientific evidence that irrational or emotionally-based beliefs are more vigorously defended, psychologically, in the face of counter-evidence, than other sorts of beliefs?

I cannot imagine either of these people getting so worked up if, say, they claimed that the Titanic had sunk intact and I cited evidence that it had broken up, or if they had claimed that Richard Nixon was Methodist and I pointed out that he was Quaker.

My aunt, btw, is an outspoken fundamentalist evangelical, and the coworker is an outspoken "conservative" who is vehemently critical of the "welfare state".

Please don't ask your co-worher about any roads in the area, they are paid for by people who never use them, just as the feds drain the national guard of all it's resources, and big companies never pay taxes.

back to the OP,

yes and no.

If some one believes in something and their emotions are involved then the emotions act as an amplifier or sorts and get them all worked up, but present some sort of off the wall belief to some rational calm scientist and you will often get them very emotional. Emotions often impair judgement as well.

But is is also in the nature of belief, it is very disturbing when you first start working with delusional people, they are totaly convinced that thier beliefs are true. And just as if every one else started saying the sun rose in the west, they get very upset when you challenge their beleifs. It is much better not to, so I would say that part of the social nature of humans makes us want very much to share the same beleifs as our culture and we get very upset when those beleifs are challenged. Even when we know those beliefs are irrational. So beliefs and our view of reality are imporatant to us regardless of the emotional compnent.

Alternatively, beliefs and emotions may be hard wired together.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Reading the above made me think of an observation I have made in 17 years in occupational health. When someone injures themselves, they are much less aggressive with an occupational injury claim typically than when they believe someone else caused the injury. And there are a lot more claims made against chemical exposures at work than exposures in the home and elsewhere.

For an example of the first observation, health care workers who stick themselves with a needle don't react the same way as those who are stuck by a needle in someone else's hand say the surgeon even though the actual risk of disease is the same.

And in the second case, people claiming multiple chemical sensitivities or sick building syndrome (vague symptoms with no clinical findings), very rarely blame exposures from their home like a newly installed carpet. Yet a new carpet at work brings frequent complaints. And lawsuits have something to do with it but lawsuits cannot explain the entire phenomenon.

[lenny]

I hope some folks will be able to point me toward resources in psychology and cognitive science regarding this phenomenon. so i am told (by a tame psychologist) that this is effect is called "Projection" and has been long discussed as it is:

> >... a cornerstone if dynamic
> > psychology, one of the basic defense mechanisms. we project our
> > unconscious attitudes onto others and see them, not us as having them.

and that it would be covered in "any" text in intro psychology or psychoanalysis. "just check the index".

i've asked for a specific reference.

[lenny]

I hope some folks will be able to point me toward resources in psychology and cognitive science regarding this phenomenon.

I recently had 2 experiences which put me in mind of a theory that I seem to recall from years back.from "years back":

freud,a., the writings of anna freud, the ego and the mechanisms of defense,vol II,
new york, international university press 1966, originally published in 1936

[paintedbird]

The position we're discussing is:
-I have a belief;
-Someone shows that the presumed facts underlying the belief are in doubt, or are certainly false;
-I resort back to my belief, get uncharacteristically emotional, and offer no counter-evidence.
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I have just started reading "Passion & Reason" by Richard S. Lazarus. In a chapter titled The Logic Of Our Emotions, he states:

Although the process may get out of hand and result in imparied thought and foolish action, emotions are aroused by a pattern of reasoning that is based on the fate of goal commitments, which are judged to be at stake in an encounter. The judgment may be unwise, even foolish and counterproductive, but given the goals and beliefs on which it is based, the emotion aroused is always rational, in the light of what a person wants and believes.
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I think we can continue along that path to accept that our emotions are responses to judgments we have formed as high level valuations contributing to our belief system. Incorporating those judgments into our psyche we consequently come to believe those judgments as determinates of our self-worth. When those judgments are criticized, we do not simply see them as challenges to our thinking but as threats to our psychic equlibrium, in effect, we feel our existence is on the line. Consequently, we are feeling (at a primal level), the need to let our reptilian "fight or flight" processes take over to protect our "self." What appears as an irrational reaction to a situation (looked at from the outside), is in fact, within the psychic equilibrium of the individual's belief structure, a biologically supportive and protective reaction.

Daniel J. Siegel's, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, and, Parenting from the Inside Out, might interest you. There is a chapter in the Parenting book, How We Feel: Emotion in Our Internal and Interpersonal Worlds, where he states, "Emotion can be thought of as a process that integrates distinct entities into a functional whole. *** Emotion as a fundamental integrating process is an aspect of virtually every function of the human brain. ***...the brain needs an integrating process to help it achieve some form of balance and self-regulation. Emotion is the process of integration that brings self-organization to the mind. *** ...integration may be at the heart of a sense of well-being."

Our emotions connect us to our thinking and feelings about the world and our role in it. We tend to become a mite upset when someone less than extremely gently starts messing with our personal sense of existence. I think I can appreciate that.