The Voice of Allan Zade
Abstract—The scientific method requires that all theories be checked against data from physical tests. The method works well as long as all relevant experiments give predictable data. However, new generations of measuring instruments provide data that does not match well-established theories, creating substantial cognitive dissonance in the human mind.
Cognitive dissonance (CD) occurs when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values (referred to as categories) or participates in an action that goes against one of these three and experiences psychological stress because of that. In 1957, Leon Festinger combined all relevant ideas and research data into a scientific theory.
The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance.
When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.
If two elements are dissonant with one another, the magnitude of the dissonance will be a function of the importance of the elements.
- Leon Festinger (1957)
The theory does not make any difference for persons with cognitive dissonance. Therefore, the level of education, social status, scientific position, or job position makes no difference in a given person's behavior in cases of cognitive dissonance. That is a cornerstone of the theory.
There is one more aspect relevant to the theory. That is a Mind Injection Problem (MIP). It does not have a direct relationship with the theory but closely relates to it. Logical actions with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences are mentally stressful. Therefore, cognitive dissonance becomes possible when more than one idea in the human mind becomes inconsistent with other ideas that look equally correct.
Therefore, an idea put in the human mind without contradicting other ideas becomes acceptable. Moreover, cognitive dissonance is less likely to appear in the case of lesser categories (in number) in the human mind. That happens because a new idea has a minimal probability of contradicting other ideas or categories. After all, most of them do not exist. For example, the statement "surface oscillations happen in some lakes" makes no cognitive dissonance in the mind of a peasant because he has no idea about "the right level of that surface."
Is it possible to find the human mind in such a condition that uses a minimal set of categories or no categories at all? Yes, it is possible. It happens whenever a new category comes to the human mind with no category in the scope of relevant categories.
The best example of such a condition is the mind of a child. In that case, a category can be easily put in the human mind without resistance, contradiction, or cognitive dissonance. That happens because a child cannot check a new category against another relevant category. After all, none of these categories exist in his mind.
In other words, the Mind Injection Problem appears as zero mind resistance to accepting a category from a scope that does not exist in the human mind when a new category arrives.
The best example of that aspect also comes from a child. Usually, parents instill the idea of Santa Claus in their children. Nothing like that existed in the child's mind before the injection of that idea. Therefore, a child accepts that idea because it does not contradict any existing categories of his mind.
Why does it happen? Usually, parents answer that question because they need to easily control their children's behavior. In the case of Santa Claus, they use that category to control their children's minds and behavior, easily telling them something like this: "Santa Claus gives gifts only to good children. You have not a gift from him if you do something bad!"
The problem of cognitive dissonance appears when someone else gives the child another idea in the same scope that Santa Claus does not exist. A new concept that contradicts another idea (that already exists in the child's mind) makes a cognitive dissonance.
Suppose now this. Other parents explained to their children that Santa Claus does not exist. Someone who he sees is no more than a redressed man who pretends to be Santa Claus. That child never believes in Santa Claus and never meets cognitive dissonance when someone tells him that Santa Claus does not exist. In other words,
The absence of mutually contradicting categories in the human mind never leads to cognitive dissonance.
- Allan Zade
1. Leon Festinger, A theory of cognitive dissonance, Stanford University Press, 1957