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I suspect most of the time we think this is going on, people are just saving face in the moment and will look for ways to unwind investment in the falsified belief later. Knowing you’re wrong and admitting it to a particular person in a particular situation are different things.
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Though I suspect when people have descended into full-blown true believer mass movement core, some version of genuine backfire effect does hold. Dunno if any of the 7 negative studies in this report looked at cult-like epistemic situations. Someone read the full report and share.
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Two good examples: 1) people admitting Iraq war bad, who previously knew it was bad but would not admit it because of the investment and political stakes; 2) people admitting Bill Clinton's personal behavior was bad, who previously knew it was bad but would not admit it etc.
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We tend to think of these kinds of things like switches flipping one way or the other. People and their opinions aren’t like that. Commitment to opinion is often dependent on the context of discussion. One person may arouse stronger defense instincts than another when engaging
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