When I saw how the American President Trump reacted to his defeat in the presidential elections I had to think of the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance. I have written here already more about it, although it was already eight years ago, but, in a nutshell, the theory says that we try to bring our beliefs into line with the facts, when we notice that the facts are not what we originally believed. We call this cognitive dissonance reduction: The gap between our beliefs and the facts is reduced, if not closed.
Cognitive dissonance reduction is a normal and daily phenomenon. You want to buy a certain tool. You think that it costs € 25,-, but in the shop you see that it costs € 40,-. You think that you were wrong and that € 40,- is the real price. Then the gap between belief and fact is closed: your belief is adapted to the fact. However, it is also possible that you think that the shop owner made a mistake or that you can get a reduction of € 15,-. You ask the shop owner, and if it appears that you are right, and if the shop owner makes a new price tag, the fact is adapted to your belief. Now the gap is closed.
Such belief-fact dissonances and then adaptions are normal in life and usually the adaptions are rational. What the belief is and what the fact is is clear, and the one is adapted to the other in a rational manner. However, often it doesn’t happen this way. People don’t always want to give up their beliefs but the facts are adapted, even if it is clear that facts are correct. For example, a smoker hears about the bad effects of smoking and he quits. Nevertheless, it is also possible that he doesn’t believe that smoking is bad for your health and that he thinks that the positive effects prevail, for instance because his grandfather, who was a fervent smoker, has become hundred years old, or which other positive reasons for smoking may come to his mind. Such an irrational adaptation of the facts to the beliefs happens so often and is so striking that the theory of cognitive dissonance reduction has become almost synonymous with a theory that explains this irrationality.
The Leon Festinger et al. famously described in When Prophecy Fails an extreme case of cognitive dissonance reduction in which the gap was closed in a remarkably non-rational way: Members of a small sect thought that the world would be destructed by a flood but that only they would be saved (by a UFO). The believers came together at the pre-determined time and place and waited for the UFO that would save them but nothing happened. Then they thought that there must be a reason that nothing happened, and they came to the conclusion that the world would get a second chance, and they adapted their behaviour by trying to convert the world to their belief so that the world will be saved as yet. In this case the cognitive dissonance is reduced by giving the facts a new interpretation (or the facts are changed, if you like), although it would have been rational to give up the belief.
Such an extreme irrational adaption of the facts if a belief fails especially happens if
1) The belief is a very deep conviction.
2) The belief is supported by relevant actions.
3) Events can unequivocally refute the belief.
4) Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and is recognized by the believer.
5) The individual believer is supported by others.
And that’s what we see in the case of Trump’s defeat. Of course, it’s normal that in elections candidates say that they’ll win, but (1) from everything that Trump said and did during his campaign and after the elections it is clear that he didn’t only say that he would win, but that he was 100% convinced that he would win. (2) Moreover, Trump did everything he could to win the elections and (5) there were many people who actively supported him. He would (3,4) have failed if the election result showed that his opponent would be the winner.
Normally participants in elections know that it is possible that they will not win, even if the pre-election polls say that they will. In the end, the voters determine who wins and not the convictions of the candidates. A candidate who has lost may be disappointed but s/he knows that losing is in the game and it’s usual to congratulate your winning opponent. The facts are what the facts are.
Not so for Pres. Trump. Because the facts were not in accordance with his conviction that he would win, only one thing could be the case: Not his conviction was false but there was something wrong with the facts: The facts (the elections results) were fake and had been falsified, even though there was not any reason to think so. Who were the frauds? His opponent and his supporters, of course: the Democrats. Trump had been cheated. The votes (in some states) must be recount, so he says. Of course, it’s not unusual to ask for a recount in case of a close election result; you never know whether mistakes have been made. But that’s not the essence in Trump’s case. For him it’s so that if the facts don’t match his conviction, the gap between them must be closed by changing the facts and not be changing the conviction. Only then the cognitive dissonance will have been reduced for him.
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