On 09/22/2017 01:13 PM, Razer wrote:
Jan '17, from youarenotsosmart.com (YANSS), a 'celebration of self-delusion':
[...]
By placing subjects in an MRI machine and then asking them to consider counterarguments to their strongly held political beliefs, Jonas Kaplan’s and Sarah Gimbel’s research, conducted along with neuroscientist Sam Harris, revealed that when people were presented with evidence that alerted them to the possibility that their political beliefs might be incorrect, they reacted with the same brain regions that would come online if they were responding to a physical threat.
[...]
In full with links and podcast: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2017/01/13/yanss-093-the-neuroscience-of-changi...
... which tells us why supposedly "smart" people start howling and pounding their chests like gorillas when presented with mere facts that contradict their indoctrinated beliefs. This applies especially on the political front, where propagandists have /always/ exploited the mechanisms of family and tribal bonding to condition people to defend their rulers' interests, even "to the death" where and as necessary. But what strategic cognitive manipulation has done, strategic cognitive manipulation can also undo: Displacing a rigidly held irrational belief takes time and effort, but once the conversion process has gained enough momentum it can become a self driving one-way process - especially if the old belief system depends on "facts and logic" that stand out as obvious lies and fallacies when seen in a new light. We have our little ways, and I just ran across an excellent introduction to some of the most powerful tricks of the counter-indoctrination trade:
We’re reluctant to acknowledge mistakes. To avoid admitting we were wrong, we’ll twist ourselves into positions that even seasoned yogis can’t hold.
The key is to trick the mind by giving it an excuse. Convince your own mind (or your friend) that your prior decision or prior belief was the right one given what you knew, but now that the underlying facts have changed, so should the mind.
But instead of giving the mind an out, we often go for a punch to the gut. We belittle the other person (“I told you so”). We ostracize (“Basket of deplorables”). We ridicule (“What an idiot”).
Schadenfreude might be your favorite pastime, but it has the counterproductive effect of activating the other person’s defenses and solidifying their positions. The moment you belittle the mind for believing in something, you’ve lost the battle. At that point, the mind will dig in rather than give in. Once you’ve equated someone’s beliefs with idiocracy, changing that person’s mind will require nothing short of an admission that they are unintelligent. And that’s an admission that most minds aren’t willing to make.
https://heleo.com/facts-dont-change-peoples-minds-heres/16242/ This brief article presents techniques in the context of working on oneself; but once applied, turning around and applying them to others presents no challenges - only a bit of work in changing /external/ habits to conform to new internal ones. :o)