[spindritf]

> For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”).

This is a great technique because most people's beliefs about most things are shallow and weak. Anyone even slightly versed will quickly flip those ("You know what we call a system with no unemployment? Slavery.") but you can chip away at what seems like very fundamental convictions (democracy, human rights, capitalism, heliocentrism...) with relative ease because most people have never been confronted with any half-intelligent criticism of those.

Partially, it's a problem of our education system rewarding recitation of canonical answers. Fundamentally, humans have not evolved to be philosophers.

[mistercow]

Cialdini has a different take on it in his analysis, which hangs this on a much lower level tendency that cannot be easily overcome by education - consistency pressure. The idea is that the prospect of being perceived as wishy-washy is so devastating socially, that we have evolved to actually change our self-image and our beliefs to reflect our actions and words. There's a scary amount of evidence for this effect.

The worst part, when applied to how we reason, is that being smarter can actually make it worse. I've sometimes found myself arguing for some downright idiotic positions because I made an uninformed declaration early in the conversation, and then found myself compelled to defend it. If I were dumber, I might run out of things to say and stop talking in those situations. Instead, I have from time to time actually convinced people - or at least convinced them that my ignorant position was worth considering.

[hosh]

The "devastating socially" is itself, a mask. That particular reaction relates to fears of rejection. Fears of rejection are internal experiences.

Being smarter makes this effect worse, usually because someone who is smart (or likes to see themselves as smart) and likes to argue, are typically disconnected with their emotions, not because they put argue themselves into a corner. They seek social acceptance by being right, often because they lack emotional skills to work with acceptance and rejection.

It's not really about being dumb or smart. It's really having attachments to self-image. There's this maxim: if you have no pride, then you have no shame. Without attachment, you let your self image go, and the shame goes along with it. You laugh at your folly and have a good time :-)

I will note, the methods the sociopath used on the Marine is pretty much the same kind of methods pick up artists use for seducing women, even down to the "you have to get them away from their friends."

[mistercow]

The problem is that evolutionary causes often don't link cleanly to psychological causes. The evolutionary reason that I like things that taste sweet is that back when most of my ancestors lived, sweet usually meant "calories", and not getting enough calories was a more pressing threat than diabetes or cavities. But no matter how deeply I internalize the fact that this reasoning is obsolete, that calories are bountiful, and that my best strategy is to eat a well rounded diet, I'm still going to enjoy sweet things.

The same problem comes up when you talk about psychology. Yes, the evolutionary cause for consistency pressure is to prevent rejection, as rejection could easily lead to death for early humans. But that does not mean that the psychological basis for consistency pressure is fear of rejection. High level psychological phenomena are a beautiful solution for an ever-changing environment, but with relatively constant factors (like rejection -> death), hardwired instincts are far more reliable.

That doesn't mean that fear of rejection as a high level phenomenon doesn't also exist. There's no optimizing flag in our brains that says "If there's an instinct to handle environmental factor X, ignore X while adapting". But those high level phenomena do not motivate our instincts.

So given the universality of consistency as a need during most of our evolution, and the apparent universality of consistency bias as a flaw in human reasoning, I would give a very low prior to it being something you could reprogram by "digging it up by the roots". Rather, overcoming consistency bias is likely to require high level compensation techniques.

[hosh]

Linking evolutionary causes to psychological causes is interesting if that is what you are studying. However, knowledge of such link does not actually give you emotional skills. Those skill require awareness and practice. It might be enhanced with a knowledge of links between evolutionary causes and psychology -- or knowledge of psychology for that matter -- but it is not necessary when actually exercising the skill.

It doesn't matter how much you know or don't know about rejection. What matters more is how you feel about rejection and your skills at working with emotions.

In any case, I suspect what you are doing in writing that response is exactly the process I had described: the use of intelligence and knowledge to avoid actually being aware of what you are feeling and underlying emotional currents.

Digging up the roots work. There's a little bit more to it than that. However, I don't have an interest in convincing you that it works. :-)

[Bulkington]

Granted the author was a sad drunk, and perhaps just a second-rate intelligence who could string together some pretty syllables, but I've always found this useful:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." -- F.S. Fitzgerald.