“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”- Leon Festinger, psychologist
I’ve always been fascinated by the brain and how it works, both physically (neurons and synapses) and psychologically. Most people are surprised to learn that I’ve studied the brain quite a bit, because I’m an engineer and don’t engineers just learn about wires and metal? But my area of study was Artificial Intelligence and in order to create artificial intelligence, one must understand natural intelligence, so I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the subject.
Recently, someone in my “Machine Intelligence and Cognition group” (we send each other articles about developments in AI, robotics, and neuroscience) sent an article titled “The Science of Self Delusion,” and I couldn’t help but see the direct application of this to vegetarianism.
It’s no secret that I’ve become frustrated in the past when people who have been presented the facts about meat (like the rampant animal abuse, the widespread environmental destruction, and the deadly health effects), CONTINUE TO EAT MEAT! But as I read the “Science of Self Delusion” article (which has nothing to do with vegetarianism), I quickly realized that I am not just trying to combat ignorance, gluttony, or self-interest, I am up against psychology as well.
Cognitive Dissonance
The quote above is from Leon Festinger, a psychologist best known for his Theory of Cognitive Dissonance which states that people will change their beliefs to fit their behavior, rather than changing their behavior to fit their beliefs.
This theory, unfortunately, is extremely applicable to vegetarianism. Everyone in their right mind would agree that the type of animal abuse that occurs in the meat industry is awful and that the environmental destruction is horrid. Yet, even those who claim to love animals and those who are proud environmentalists, continue to eat meat! Instead of changing their behavior to fit their beliefs, they make exceptions in their beliefs in order to condone eating meat. It is completely irrational.
See, here’s the thing about humans: Our reasoning is filled with emotion. Not only are the two inseparable, but the emotion arises much more quickly than the conscious thought. It’s said that this is an evolutionary feature, so that we are able to quickly react to our environment. Of course we don’t operate solely on emotion – we certainly reason and deliberate – but the emotion is immediate, while the reasoning works a bit slower. And even once the reasoning begins, it doesn’t take place in an emotional vacuum; it is highly biased by our emotions.
And as it turns out, we apply our fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but also to data. We push threatening information away, and pull friendly information close. Often times, when we think we’re reasoning, we’re actually rationalizing, or biasing data in our minds to fit it to a predetermined conclusion. Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their predetermined belief. And disconfirmation bias is the tendency for people to expend a disproportionate amount of energy trying to disprove evidence that contradicts their predetermined beliefs.
It’s not that we don’t want to be unbiased, it’s just that we have a subconscious goal of self affirmation – maintaining the sense that you are “good,” “moral,” or “right” – and this goal often makes us highly resistant to changing our beliefs, even when the facts say we should.
Unfortunately, this completely blows away the notion that the way to persuade people is to present them with the facts. Actually, head-on attempts to persuade people can sometimes have the complete opposite effect, where not only will the person not change their mind when confronted with facts, but they will actually hold on to their wrong view even more strongly than ever.
So, it would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, well, the facts.
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Breakfast: Smoothie with just cherries & banana (and ice & water). It was delicious!
Lunch: Black bean tacos from Taco Cabana
Dinner: Pasta with squash, zucchini, bell peppers, onion, and marinara sauce
