Eli5: The psychology behind cognitive dissonance

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Eli5: The psychology behind cognitive dissonance

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When someone’s worldview is challenged, they feel threatened and emotionally torn in the face of evidence that contradicts what they believe to be reality. As a coping mechanism, people will often reduce mental discomfort by expressing negative emotion and restricting the source of contradictory data, or coming up with new explanations for why the evidence that contradicts their worldview is false. Some people will throw out all rational thought just to hold onto the belief that their worldview is the correct one, because it’s deeply mentally uncomfortable to be shown that you do not actually know as much as you do.