Cognitive Dissonance (Wiliiam Stanhope)

It amazes me sometimes how people can seemingly reject facts,  ideas and practices (personal and political) that are clearly good for them in favor of emotional biases that are purely personal and have no overall positive effect on society. This is explained by cognitive dissonance or the inability for most people to make a clear and rational decision because of the emotional pain associated with a strongly held belief system. .

Politicians, as well as others in positions of power,  know how to exploit this human weakness; they know how to package ideas to maximize the emotional content and to minimize the factual content. They know that certain hot button issues and highly charged words will illicit a very painful reaction in people and those people will reject the facts.in favor of a course of action that reduces their emotional discomfort.

Here in North Carolina we just passed an amendment that will do great harm to a large number of people because it will only legally sanction marriage between a man and a woman. Every other relationship, including any form of civil union or domestic partnership, will have no legal standing. The facts are that certain people will be adversely affected. Children will likely be affected because any benefits their parents enjoy will possibly be removed placing them in a less stable position. End of life decisions and medical decisions will become more delicate, possibly impossible, for partners that have no legal standing. Estate planning and wealth management will become more complicated, leaving partners (straight or otherwise) in a precarious position without legal protections, especially if contested by blood relatives.

This amendment was passed because the power brokers used the 2 "G" words; God and Gay, even though same sex marriage is already illegal in NC. They connected those two points of reference, ignoring the facts and rarely if ever mentioning the negative effects passage of the amendment would have for a very broad range of the population. Many people acted against the better interests of the group as a whole in favor of a more palatable emotional decision, one less emotionally painful but logically not the correct decision in terms of overall benefit to the collective society. How so?

Stable relationships benefit society as a whole on all levels. Children are less vulnerable. Families are less financially challenged. People are happier. There is less discrimination when people are allowed to participate in society as fully recognized and legally protected members. Equality, meaning equal protection for all, is served and this supports the constitution of the US. (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)


I am saddened that once again cognitive dissonance has prevented the majority of people in NC to make the right decision. I am disappointed that powerful people have chosen to undermine collective well-being through appeals to emotionally painful issues and personal preference, especially religious beliefs often used to divide rather than unite groups of people. Billy Graham, who is now 93 years old, took out full page ads in 11 newspapers the weekend before the vote, which appealed to the emotional discomfort of people by invoking the 2 "G" words, thus making it impossible for them to make a rational decision.  How sad that his parting shot in this world (at 93 there can't be much time left) would cause so much pain and harm to so many people in NC.