I’ve been thinking lately about why, in debates (usually) about highly emotional topics, so many people seem unable to acknowledge even minor wrongdoings or mistakes from “their” side, even when doing so wouldn’t necessarily undermine their broader position.
I’m not here to rehash any particular political event or take sides - I’m more interested in the psychological mechanisms behind this behavior.
For example, it feels like many people bind their identity to a cause so tightly that admitting any fault feels like a betrayal of the whole. I’ve also noticed that criticism toward one side is often immediately interpreted as support for the “other” side, leading to tribal reactions rather than nuanced thinking.
I’d love to hear thoughts on the psychological underpinnings of this. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to “give an inch” even when it wouldn’t really cost them anything in principle?
You will realise that many people are too egotistic to back down.
The backfire effect. Here’s a nice funny comic to explain it. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
Also consider the Yes Ladder - in sales, getting someone to say yes to something small makes them more likely to agree to other things.
It also applies to other contexts. If a police suspect refuses to talk, they ask innocuous questions because once someone starts talking, it’s hard to stop.
Admitting incorrectness will make you more likely to concede other points too
I think we have an ecolutionary predisposition to be very defensive when we feel threatened. Add that to a social environment where we are CONSTANTLY and artificially condititioned to be threatened, considering that emotional intelligence and the ability to articolate and understand your own thoughts (let alone other’s) are virtually never taught if not en passant and indirectly (and often the wrong this are taught) and you have the perfect recipe for the Tower of Babel.
Humankind’s inherent incommunicability of internal thought is paired with an artificial and political cooptation of our survival instincts, the ones we evolved to defend ourselves from the people that a re manipulating us right now. That’s the reason antiauthoritarian thought is often patologized. They name the cure a sickness so that we keep ourselves under the Veil
I think I see what you’re trying to say, and I don’t necessarily disagree with everything, but based entirely on this one comment (which may not be indicative of how you generally communicate) I have to wonder if the communication issues you see stem at least partially from your own over-articulation of thoughts and use of “fluffy” language.
I think this bit highlights what I’m trying to say best:
are virtually never taught if not en passant and indirectly This statement feels like it’s saying the same proposition three times, but if I dig into it it is saying three things, but in a confusing manner. I think it would have been better served by replacing “if not” with something simpler like “or taught” to more easily connect the first idea with the other two in the reader’s mind. I probably would have replaced it all with “are taught incidentally at best,” which I think captures the meaning you are trying to convey in terms that are easier for anyone to understand.
I don’t say this to try to bring you down. I just find beauty in seeing a concept existing in one’s mind, unbounded by the world, given a vessel structured by the words of language not to constrain or limit that idea, but to focus it into something that can be shared and understood with others. The vast majority of the time I see that vessel be too loose without giving proper shape to the idea it wants to convey. Yours is one of the very few internet comments I see that does the opposite, where it feels forced into a shape that’s too rigid. That makes me want to say something, because the mind that does that is a mind I think could learn from stepping back a little, rather than being told to force itself forward.
This is as much me challenging myself to understand what bugged me about your comment as it is a comment on your comment, and for talking about giving shape to thoughts I don’t think I did a super job of it.
I do think that humans are one of the only creatures capable of overcoming the difficulty in communication between minds because we are one of the only creatures capable of complex language to do that stuff I said earlier. But it is a skill that is difficult and requires a lot of time and effort to learn or teach. I do think communication is highly valued, or at least a lot of frustration espoused about a lack of communication, but modern society does make it difficult to work up the effort and acquire the resources to develop that skill.
Read up on cognitive biases.
People are social animals. We form groups and we stick with them. Some of our cognitive biases are very clearly geared toward preserving the cohesion of the group. The truth is very much secondary to group cohesion.
Individuals vary a lot, however. And some individuals are much more open to changing their mind than others. Groups are stronger when they have a variety of different personalities within them. Different people can have different roles within the group and help it adapt to changes.
If you’re genuinely interested, then there are people studying and talking about this (beyond the expertise of Lemmy). There’s a fantastic podcast I listen to that talks in detail and there author has written a book about how minds change. Here’s a specific episode (out of many) that is relevant, but I would really recommend listening to all:
It can feel a bit lopsided - if I’m having a conversation about some divisive thing, and grant a point, even a small one: the other person will probably keep harping on the thing I was wrong about. Meanwhile, that person will never admit they were wrong about anything.
It’s a symptom of treating these conversations like debates. After you ‘lose’ a couple, you’re conditioned not to give an inch.
I’m not an expert, but…
even when doing so wouldn’t necessarily undermine their broader position
Conceding one wrong is proof that you, your view or argumentation, is flawed. Conceding just one minor point puts every point’s validity into question.
Even if you can conclude that it’s irrelevant both factually there’s social and emotional aspects to it.
We are driven not only by reason, but in large part by emotion, and our ingrained social psyche.
Even if it is factually irrelevant, conceding is confirming fault, and may cause anxiety about repercussions in terms of social standing (how you are seen by the others) and for your argument as a whole (will you be trusted when something you said was wrong).
What you describe as building identity is building that identity around a set of beliefs and group of people.
Depending on the group and beliefs, two aspects come into play:
Group dynamics of in-group and out-group. Loyalty may be more important than reason. The own group is likely seen as better than the “others”. Others may be seen as inferior or as enemies.
If you acknowledge just one point integral to the groups beliefs, what does that mean for you as a part of that group? Will you lose all your social standing? Will you lose being part of the group?
Somewhat unrelated and related at the same time, because self-identity is also a construct to build stable group associations; building your confidence and self-identity around a set of values, conceding on some of them means losing stability and confidence in yourself, your worth.
The human psyche is still largely driven by genetics developed in ancient times, and the environment.
As a social create, it was critically important to be able to join groups and stay in them, to have strong and stable bonds. This persists today, in our psyche and behaviors.
Very often on Lemmy, and maybe social media in general, discussions are pointless. People are not there to see the other side, they are there to fight for what they already think.
All these keyboard warriors think they are fighting a battle, weather its about defending trans rights or fighting antivax opinions, or whatever.
The discussion usually is for the benefit of lurkers and rarely results in changing the opinion of the opponent.
This is all true. it’s something that crosses my mind whenever I spend (i.e. waste, probably) any time at all in debate. In person too, BTW, although text feels even worse because of the way it disembodies your interlocutor.
And yet. Open debate is all we have. The alternatives cannot possibly be better. I tell myself that even if 99% of it is useless, that remaining 1% can make a lot of difference statistically. I can certainly think of occasions when I’ve changed my mind, or at least seen things in a new light, because of a single comment someone made in debate. But yes, it’s rare.
I dunno, man.
All I know is that open-mindedness is far less common than I’d once assumed.
And there are those people who aren’t actually interested in truth, but are instead interested in “winning,” because they see every conversation as a power struggle, with a winner and a loser (and as such, language is merely a tool to be wielded for gaining and maintaining social power, not actually finding out things for their own sake). Part of that game can include pretending to be curious and interested in truth, because of the positive image that can project for them.
When those of us who are actually curious about the world interact with one of these types, it can be quite a confusing and frustrating experience if we don’t know what we’re dealing with.
I’m not here to rehash any particular political event or take sides
checks post history out of curiosity oh.
Their name should give away that they are a troll.
the irony of their position and still asking this question is military grade, ironically enough in its own way.
To quote myself here:
I’ve also noticed that criticism toward one side is often immediately interpreted as support for the “other” side, leading to tribal reactions rather than nuanced thinking.
mmhmm, keep going…
Oh boy. If you really wanna understand this, there are like 80 episodes of the podcast You Are Not So Smart that look at this from different angles.
There’s not really a single reason. It’s a lot of inter-related ones.
Hmmm. There are a lot more opinions about this than I thought there’d be.
Personally, and without any real evidence? I think it’s just because conceding a point somehow feels as if it compromises your whole position. Like you’re getting scored, and admitting you’re wrong gives the other person a point and undermines your entire argument.
Lemmy is worse than reddit in almost every measureable way. The reason I haven’t gone back to reddit is purely out of principle and it’s not a principle if it’s not costing you anything.
Damn your opinions suck lmao. Were you the reason Blahaj defederated from feddit.uk?
Cuz it would be funny if one user could annoy a community so much that they decide to defedreate the entire instance.
Also the above comment being right next to:
Longest continuous edging streak. Hell, I might already hold that record anyway.
Perfect example of a reddit user lol.
What do you get out of going around insulting complete strangers? People being intentionally mean online is honestly baffling to me.
what’s baffling is that you don’t see it!
Because I am always right obviously
