Cognitive dissonance is the inability to intellectually grasp a situation due to emotional interference. For example: frustrated mother expresses frustrations. In response some people she associates with offer to help her, maybe even hide her and her children. Mother discusses things openly, maybe considers the repercussions but chooses not to do such a thing. Instead, she chooses to give the legally required notice before moving into a new residence, starts a legitimate job and lives openly. Her exes and those who enable them fail to grasp the facts of the situation: the mother did NOT try to run off and hide herself and children. It was paranoia/fear causing cognitive dissonance which caused the exes and their abettors to act as if the mother had chosen to run off instead.
Cognitive dissonance is a common condition amongst those whose environments are unhealthy, traumatic and/or abusive. It is prevalent whenever an environment is hostile unless a person's intellectual and emotional maturity makes them immune to it. It blurs the mind so effectively that a person fails to be able to read words clearly written in black and white before them. I have seen people actualy read words that did not exist on a piece of paper due to cognitive dissonance. I have witnessed people not hearing what was said, but instead hearing what they feared would be said. It causes offense to be taken when no offense has been committed, it "reads into" expressions and actions what is not existent in them. It is a malfunction of the brain where emotions cause imagination to blend with reality creating a distortion of actual events and memory of them. They cannot accurately see what is directly in front of them.
The condition of cognitive dissonance is prevalent amongst those who are part of "high control groups" religions or relationships, where a single person or a small group of people are very controlling and manipulative of the people they influence. The unhealthy levels of control create stress which overloads the subjected parties senses, traumatizes them and disrupts their ability to think, their brain function. This becomes a physical problem as it has disrupted the neuron pathways of the brain. Like a muscle, healthy thought patterns need to be introduced and exercised to overcome the physical handicap created by the abusive situation/traumatic environment.
We see this amongst people who engage in a lot of gossip and judementalism. The pressure of constantly being criticized and under scrutiny causes people to snap, spreading false rumors and exaggerations, causing more damage in ever elevating levels of community upheaval, leading to the violence of bullying and such extreme examples as murder within families, witch hunts, hangings, and genocides.
We see this in those who work high stress jobs. When people "go postal" they had already begun to experience cognitive dissonance, paranoid delusions, etc.
We see it a lot in those highly impacted by events like terrorism, violence in society, natural disasters, etc., which is much of the world's and our country's population.
You see it happen in courtrooms where lawyers try to create cognitive dissonance in those they are questioning and you see it in people questioned by police who give false confessions.
Fear causes brain damage. That brain damage manifests as cognitive dissonance. We've probably all been a victim of it at one time or another, either having misunderstood/misperceived a situation or been on the receiving end of someone else's misunderstanding/misperception of a situation.
Wikipedia's explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
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