The Power of Dissonance

[BB]

Ahh. Polar bears. A good choice. On a trip to Alaska I learned that if a polar bear sees you in the wild, there is like a 90% chance that it will try to eat you. Everything that moves is on their food chain and they are usually starving.

So, more likely you would sidle up to one just before you became extinct!

Sorry for the distraction.

[Barrett Dorko]

What the Nitro taught me

Okay class, back on task.

Eventually, everything we currently believe will be revised. What we believe, then, is necessarily untrue. We can only believe in things that are not the truth… I think.

Max Guyall

Because they’d run out of mid-sized cars in Augusta on Tuesday I was given a Dodge Nitro instead. This is a big, ugly SUV and I don’t normally mind that since I’ve never felt defined by the sort of car I drive. But in the dozen miles between the airport and the hotel I noticed that this monstrous vehicle had a mind of its own, and though it agreed with me in terms of the general direction I wanted to go, it persistently swayed slightly and arhythmically from side to side while making its way there. In my perch high above the road I actually felt a little motion sickness.

I knew that this problem was there but I put out of my mind until about a mile into the drive to Columbia South Carolina on Wednesday. Not quite lurching but certainly swaying unexpectedly the whole 70 miles on the freeway, I thought about the trip I have to make 150 miles to Myrtle Beach this afternoon, and about 40 miles in I decided to do what I had to do to get another car.

Obviously, I was faced with a situation that produced a lot of dissonance (namely, "I believe that this is a safe enough car because Avis wouldn’t have given it to me otherwise vs. I believe that in another mile or two I might throw up") but it took quite a while for me to stop denying this sensation and accept the evidence that this was an unsafe vehicle. In fact, it took about 50 miles of driving, which, when you think about it, is a pretty good way to measure my distortion of and resistance to new information.

It seems that when people actually feel ideomotion in their own body, the evidence for its presence and purpose is harder to distort and ignore.

Of course.

[Diane]

I've heard SUV stands for Supid Ugly Vehicle.

[nari]

The 'trueness' of everything is disputable at any point in time. Just ask an astronomer or a physicist.
I was listening to Fred Watson, astronomer and an ex-Scot, on the radio a few nights ago. He is living in the outback, at one of Australia's major observatories at Coonabarabran. When listeners ask him questions on cosmology, they inevitably ask "Is it true that...." to which Fred answers, starting with: "In science nothing is true for more than about 5 minutes..."

Clearly some listeners become quieter, probably because the faith in science so many value has suddenly become a Dodge Nitro. Their dissonance is almost palpable. But Fred, being a nice guy, sometimes adds: "But science is all we have, it's full of surprises and fun, as well". Like Richard Dawkins, he is spellbound with science's ability to astound us. I don't think they experience dissonance except with their peers, perhaps...

People experiencing ideomotion for the first time cannot deny its purpose and the evidence for its purpose. It's quite spellbinding.

Nari

[Barrett Dorko]

Nari,

Great post. I think that this faith is misplaced when it comes to science. I certainly have faith in science's tendency to work to make things clearer, but not to be right at all times. People have a tendency to think that scientists are dogmatists and that "people of faith" are "more open." The opposite is true.

This came to me this morning.

Dorko’s Dissonance Formula

Take the number of times you hear something from Barrett that creates cognitive dissonance in you (A), multiply it by the number of people you work with that you know don’t want to hear any of this (N), add the number of times Barrett has asked the class to remember the origins of pain (G), divide by the number of books and research reports on the front table you’ve actually heard of (R) and add the number of times Barrett asked a question you didn’t want to hear again (Y).

The answer isn’t an actual number but may be deduced by writing out the equation.

[Jon Newman]

Hi Barrett,

After listening to Eric's recent thread on sound perhaps you add a subtitle to your course

Simple Contact
The Rite of Spring

[EricM]

Yes Barrett, I too was thinking you might start playing Stravinski's Rites of Spring rather than that Jazz you've got going. Counter dissonance with dissonance.

[christophb]

Hey Barrett, how about opening your course with something like this? It's a Derren Brown clip on belief and Voodoo.

[Luke Rickards]

D=(AN + G)/R + Y

[Luke Rickards]

:clap2::clap2:

[Diane]

Dissonance = angry?

[Barrett Dorko]

Dissonance can produce anger.

That is, if the sensation concurrent with the arrival of two psychologically opposed ideas (dissonance's definition) is felt by a therapist who really doesn't like it, didn't expect it and certainly didn't pay to have a continuing education course introduce it.

[Diane]

Then I propose the following amendment:


D ⇔ (AN + G)÷R + Y

or:

D≅(AN + G)÷R + Y

[Jon Newman]

This study may shed some light on the relationship between the two.

[Barrett Dorko]

Diane,

I’m sure you’re right.

Jon,

Another great find.

In the Alien Abduction thread there’s paragraph in post #3 that fits here:

“…true discovery is rare and disproving the conclusions others have drawn from their previously done research is equally so. What strikes me as unusual about the revelations of the neurobiologic revolution is that they didn’t result from research conducted just beyond the grasp of our predecessors in the profession (those who connected pain and posture to muscular strength) nor did it disprove the conclusions drawn by previous research done by therapists into the nature and origins of commonly seen painful presentations. It turns out that they hadn’t done any research to refute nor had they drawn any conclusions they could effectively defend with a theoretical construct of human functioning. My classes find that this is simultaneously true and nearly unbelievable. Believe it.”

Frankly, it’s difficult to distort the evidence I carry with me. I make sure of that, knowing what dissonance I’m going to introduce. But on top of that, many therapists realize at some point that they never really had any plausible theory to begin with. They can’t articulate it when asked, and if they do I am bound to question its biologic plausibility.

No matter how gently I do this, therapists who practice on the basis of a belief system are often likely to see my questioning as an attack upon that, and anger is their first defense. The issue of evidence is easily lost here, and realizing they can’t attack that, they are left with only one other thing to go after, often angrily.

Guess who?