On Mon, 10 May 2004, Bill Bartlett wrote:
> At 11:51 AM -0700 9/5/04, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >The thing I want to stress is that this is not
> >a tendency of ignorant or nonreflective people;
> >this is a basic cognitive tendency (at least
> >in industrialized societies). We all do this;
>
> I don't believe I do and I've noticed at least a couple of others
> here that don't seem to. Perhaps you can give examples where each and
> every one of us has done this? Or perhaps this is simply a deeply
> held belief that you have, which you haven't tested against the facts?
>
It's a generalization based on hundreds of experiments conducted with diverse samples. Do I know for certain that you personally have done this? No. But much like I can assume that smoking cigs will increase your risk of cancer, I can assume that you try to resolve cognitive dissonance. (If I were snarkier than I am, I would suggest that your post above is an example of reducing cognitive dissonance. But I won't go there.)
Miles