Cognitive dissonance

Introduction

Imagine if a spiritualist believed that they'd had a past life as Anne Boleyn. "Anne Boleyn used to like dancing and playing cards when she was young," the 46-year-old recalled. "When I was a girl, I liked to dance. And I also liked to play cards!" How extraordinary. This list of "similarities" may be scant, but they provide evidence of some sort of the connection they have with Anne Boleyn which serves to confirm their belief that they were Anne Boleyn in a past life. Of course, these two similarities are going to be outweighed by far with dissimilarities. But because these dissimilarities are irrelevant to the woman's beliefs, they will be forgotten. Instead, only what strengthens her belief (such as the two "similarities") will be remembered. This is called selective memory.Now, anything that reinforces the woman's belief is remembered, whilst anything that is not in accord with the belief (that she was Anne Boleyn in one of her past lives) is forgotten. This is called cognitive dissonance.

Definition of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is where "The psychic may only accept or notice information or experiences that confirms their belief, and rejects information that does not reinforce their belief." - 22nd explanation, from Animal Psychics post, Paranormal-Psychology blog. 

Cognitive dissonance in everyday life

Cognitive dissonance doesn't just occur with regard to psychic readings, past lives or mediumship.  It can occur in everyday life, too. For example, consider:

• A man believes that his son is naughty and is "always up to no good". The times that his son behaved himself the father cannot recall, but all the times that the boy was naughty - all the occasions that confirmed his belief that the son was naughty - the man could recall with ease. Thus the latter keep on reinforcing his belief. 
• A woman thinks that her daughter is always a good girl. She may relate to friends all the times that her belief was strengthened - all the times when her daughter was "good" - but will forget the times when her daughter behaved or acted badly. This will make it difficult for the mother to bear is she finds out, for example, that her daughter had landed herself into trouble with police, such as being caught shoplifting. 

Advantages of cognitive dissonance

If beliefs can be seen as a means for an individual to make sense of the world and their experience of it, as well as a means to establish a false sense of security, the advantages of cognitive dissonance is that, over time, the individual can find sufficient evidence that serves to confirm their belief. It may be helpful psychologically; furthermore, if there is a great deal of controversy amongst an individual for their holding what society, or their personal in-group of friends call "queer" or "eccentric" or "nonsense", if that individual discovers, over time, what they call 'evidence' which confirms their belief, they will feel an increased sense of confidence. At the same time, they may get rather full of themselves and may believe that their friends are deluded in thinking that their unusual beliefs are nonsense. At this critical period of time, the person may mix with people who share their beliefs, or who hold similar ones, and the individual may become influenced unintentionally by these friends, thus leading to becoming even more 'eccentric'. This may lead the individual to believe in certain things that are illogical; things which are similar in some way to their original beliefs (that believe in the existence of a similar thing to what the original belief concerned, or a belief that belongs to a similar philosophy). For example, if someone believes in spirits and ends up socialising with friends who hold a variation of that belief, the person may conform to the beliefs of their friends and end up believing in:

• the existence of angels and archangels
• the existence elemental spirits and devas
• the existence of mythical beings

It really depends on what the beliefs are of their friends and also whether the individual has any limits to what is possible and what isn't. If they believe that deceased people live on as spirits, they may have no problem in developing a belief in the existence of other spiritual entities such as angels, elementals or mythical beings. If they believe in the existence of psi or energy, for example, they may also be prepared to believe in the energies of the 5 elements. They may end up believing in chakras, meridians, auras and acupuncture points. Because they already believe in the existence of energy, it is not illogical or imperceivable to believe in other energies, either. This implies that the individual is biased towards believing in concepts that are of a similar nature to their own beliefs, which are held by their own circle of friends.

Another advantage to cognitive dissonance is that it allows the individual to make predictions or assumptions based on previous experiences, which may have been helpful for humanity's evolution, but also may play an important part in everyday situations.

Disadvantages of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance allows for an individual to believe that their beliefs are correct and may cause them to become arrogant in also perceiving themselves to be superior. Because they had got their "evidence" that supports their beliefs, they consequently think that their beliefs are correct and those held by others are incorrect or wrong. Cognitive dissonance is also unhelpful because it can and does bias a person's perceptions and memories towards their beliefs. Thus their memory is distorted and unreliable because memories that are not in accord with their beliefs are discarded and forgotten, leading the person to remember only certain memories.