Guestpost: Attitude Inoculation

Attitude inoculation is a phenomenon closely tied to the much more well-known idea of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the state that arises from the simultaneous possession of two or more beliefs that are incompatible with each other. The term "dissonance" is borrowed from music or perhaps acoustics in general. It refers to the turbulence in sound that arises when two frequencies are not harmonic. Think of playing a black key on a piano that is adjacent to a white key, or the sound of a guitar player tuning his instrument. What you hear—that clashing, shaking sound of the two notes interfering with each other—is dissonance. In much the same way two thoughts can be dissonant with each other.

People achieve resolution of cognitive dissonance by adjusting one or more of their thoughts. A classic example is a person who knows that smoking is unhealthy yet continues to smoke nonetheless. The thought of "I shouldn't do unhealthy things" conflicts with the thought of "I am doing an unhealthy thing." Smoker often discount the extent to which smoking is unhealthy, offering evidence that only a small percentage of smokers die from smoking related illness. Smokers may also attempt to minimize their own personal perception of their consumption by saying that they only have one or two a day or that they only do it during certain circumstances; such as socially or while drinking alcohol. Note that in one case the smoker attempts to adjust one cognition— the smoking is not really so unhealthy— and in the other the smoker attempts to adjust the other— I don't really do that much smoking. The more you think about cognitive dissonance, the more examples of it you discover in your everyday life and in the public discourse.

Attitude inoculation is a particularly excellent way for an outside agent to induce the resolution of cognitive dissonance in a desired direction. Immunological inoculation introduces a small, weakened form of a virus so that the body can develop immunity to any other form of the virus with its white blood cells. In much the same way attitude inoculation introduces weakened forms of a belief or cognition so that the individual's own cognitive resources can develop immunity to that belief. For example, an outside agent attempting to get a smoker to continue smoking would expose the smoker to weak arguments for not smoking, such as "it makes you smell funny" or "it can cause birth defects" and "this can cause some health problems."

Attitude inoculation is a technique commonly used within the ‘punditverse’ of American media. For example when considering an issue like affirmative action, the network can't just start throwing red meat out to their viewers saying that white people are better or that they don't like black people. Instead, they introduce the topic by saying that affirmative action is a policy designed to make reparations for slavery. Of course this is not even a valid reason why affirmative action was implemented, but the typical consumer of conservative media doesn't care about why affirmative action was implemented. These consumers instead want information that will support their already-held beliefs (aka confirmation bias) about affirmative action; namely that it is an attempt to take resources and opportunities from white people out of residual guilt over slavery.

Let's return to cognitive dissonance for a moment. The listener has been confronted with two contradictory thoughts. One is that they themselves oppose affirmative action measures; another is that affirmative action measures are an attempt to make up for the monstrosity of slavery, and yet one more is that any decent person should feel guilty about slavery. It is difficult, if not nearly impossible, for a pundit to make the case that people should not feel guilty about slavery and to suggest that affirmative action measures are a good thing is unacceptable to their goals. Thus, they work on the second belief. That's where attitude inoculation makes its appearance.

To say that affirmative action exists primarily to make reparations for slavery is an easy explanation. Everyone understands that African-Americans used to be slaves and so the case can be made that African-Americans are owed something for their centuries of unpaid labor, loss of freedom and appalling treatment. Pundits, however, can then make the case that there are no slave owners remaining in our society. There are most likely no sons of slave owners remaining in our population, in fact, and so it is unfair to make every white person pay the cost of slavery because of the behaviors of other people's ancestors. How long must we pay the cost, the pundit can ask, and how long must we feel guilty? In this way, the pundit has minimized the motivation for affirmative action and equal rights. They have intentionally guided the consumer to resolution of the cognitive dissonance posed by their beliefs and steered them towards the belief they wish to impose on others.

The erstwhile blogger and free-thinker, Steve Barry, recently brought to my attention a recent research study indicating that low-effort thought leads to endorsement of conservative ideology. Myself a psychologist, I immediately wondered why this was the case and in my armchair psychologist way I immediately thought of attitude inoculation. Pundits, columnists, and other conservative "journalists" do not even ask their consumers to think. Instead, they guide them through low-effort, simplistic arguments that deliberately lead the consumer to incomplete or flawed conclusions through the use of incomplete or flawed premises and arguments. What is so insidious and admittedly brilliant about the conservative punditry's exploitation of attitude inoculation is this: it allows the consumer to retain a sense of righteousness. I believe it is this method precisely that allows the conservative media's consumers to retain their belief in the inherent goodness of their beliefs while simultaneously leaving the rest of us scratching our heads in disbelief that otherwise good people could hold to such cruel belief structures such as those behind the Ryan budget proposal.

—Joe is a psychologist, plays guitar and also responds to the name “Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo.”

A Natural Agent

If events in the natural world were influenced by a supernatural agent we would see the effect of that agent in the natural world.

Imagine a delicate ecosystem of fragile bacteria that is dependent on the pH of the water it lives in. Now imagine that you poke your dirty human finger into that ecosystem. The moment you interact with a system that you exist outside of, you become part of that system.

If the Hand of God truly does intercede in aspects of reality we would be able to track and measure the outside force as it entered the equation of any system we intimately understand. We would be able to trace the moment the system went haywire from an anomaly.  It would be documented in every field from medicine, to cosmology, to plate tectonics.

If the dew point mysteriously raises enough to rain on a barren Somali village the science of meteorology would have to account for the change using existing scientific theory or the current theory would be discarded.

In fact all theory would need to account for a “G-factor” when explaining and predicting the behavior of a natural phenomenon. Scientists would have to describe a process that occurs only in the absence of divine intervention.  In all fields of study where we could account for the traits in a closed system, there would be a clause for the occurrences when all of the rules break down and something mysterious happens.

The G-factor does not exist in science because we can account for the changes by natural phenomena through observation and experimentation. The actions of a supernatural agent would become natural as soon as they came into contact with a natural world. The outside force would become a part of the closed system and it would be measurable.

We have no data to support the existence of this effect on anything that we measure. A god that does not affect the Universe in any measurable or significant way is not a god that is necessary. A god that does nothing does not need to exist.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the perception of incompatibility between two simultaneously held attitudes or cognitions.  When there is a conflict between beliefs, there is a level of  discomfort proportionate to the strength of the conflicting beliefs.  This tension is most prevalent when an individual’s beliefs are inconsistent with their behaviors.  

The theory originated in 1957 when Leon Fastinger observed cult members who believed that the Earth was going to be destroyed by a great flood.  When the flood did not happen, some members abandoned their belief in the cult’s doctrines, while others who were more committed and had left homes and jobs to commit to the cult continued their belief.  These individuals interpreted the survival of the Earth to be a direct result of their faith.

The theory of cognitive dissonance holds that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance.

Two factors affect the strength of the dissonance: the number of dissonant beliefs, and the importance attached to each belief. There are several ways to eliminate dissonance: (1) reduce the importance of the dissonant beliefs, (2) add more consonant beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, or (3) change the dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer inconsistent. (4) override the anxiety of the inconsistent beliefs by accepting the dissonance ex: Orwellian Doublethink.

The most recent example of this was in Harold Camping’s failed rapture prediction.  When faced with the reality that the faithful were still on Earth on May 22nd, Camping concluded that the Rapture was a spiritual one and that the faithful that were chosen on May 21st would ascend to Heaven when the Universe is destroyed on October 21st.

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Perception

The primary function of the human brain is to integrate sensory stimuli into what we call "experience."

We marvel when we see a connection between the objects or events that we perceive and assume that the connection is an act of divinity.

We praise the symmetry of the world around us while completely ignoring that the synthesis of the mass of sensory static occurs in our brain.

God is literally in our head.





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The Age of Reason: An Excerpt

"From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the christian system, or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was: but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church, upon the subject of what is called Redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son, when he could not revenge himself any other way; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.

It seems as if parents of the christian profession were ashamed to tell their children any thing about the principles of their religion. They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the goodness of what they call Providence; for the Christian mythology has five deities: there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the christian story of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people to do it, (for that is the plain language of the story,) cannot be told by a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and better, is making the story still worse; as if mankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell him that all this is a mystery, is only making an excuse for the incredibility of it."

Charles Darwin on Slavery

Proponents of Social Darwinism should note that the term was introduced in Europe in 1877. It is often attributed to Herbert Spencer who coined the term "Survival of the Fittest" Although Spencer was not an actual Social Darwinist, (he was a Liberal Utilitarian) he forever changed the interpretation of Darwin's work. Spencer was further bastardized by Richard Hofstadter in Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944). Charles Darwin's abhorrance of slavery was a significant motivation to explore the concept of a common human ancestry. Charles probably would have given both men a sound beating.


The Division of University Studies Honors the Bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s Birth February 12, 1809
Charles Darwin on the Brutality of Slavery


"I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernamabuco, I heard the most pitiful moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was a case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house were a young household mulatto, daily and hourly was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass that was not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master’s eye…
It is claimed that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty; as if self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage masters. It is an argument long since protested against with noble feeling, and strikingly exemplified by the illustrious Humboldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves to our poorer countrymen: If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin…"

"Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; -- what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope for change! Picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbors as themselves, who believe in God, and pray His will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendents, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any other nation to expiate our sin*."

From: Darwin, C., The Voyage of the Beagle, 1839, pp. 433-34 in the Meridian Version first published in 1996.
*Darwin is referring here to the British action in outlawing the Transatlantic Slave trade in 1807, the British naval squadron efforts in intercepting and capturing slave runners, and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.