One of the books Im reading right now is The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. The book is written by Jonathan Haidt, a professor of moral psychology, which is an outgrowth of developmental psychology. One of the central tenets of the book is that between reason and emotion, emotion will take the role of the elephant while reason will simply serve as the rider of the elephant. Meaning: your affective reactions occur so quickly and so powerfully that they, in essence, are in control. Intellect and reason can try to steer but this is hardly guaranteed. More often than not, reason and rationality simply serve to provide justification for what emotions cause to happen. Of course, a central point of the book is this: theres no point in arguing politics or religion with people. Part of this is due to confirmation bias in which people assimilate information based on their preconceptions. But there is also the fact that the more aggressively you challenge someones beliefs or opinions, the harder they will dig their heels in. Theres really just no point.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 20:05:49 +0000
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