When a person has a certain idea or makes a decision and will stand behind it despite so many people protesting it. It’s very hard to reason with them and discourage them from a decision they’re about to make.
What’s so different in their brain from normal, conforming, non confrontational people?
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I don’t know that it’s part of the brain so much as learned behavior. There are a lot of reasons someone can be that stubborn, like it can go along with conduct or personality disorders. But without knowing the person it’s hard to say. My advice would be to not try to reason or argue with someone like that. Just distance yourself as much as possible and give short, boring responses if they try to bait you into an argument (look up the grey rock technique if you like.) I know that’s easier said than done. Good luck, I understand it’s incredibly frustrating
It’s hard to say if it’s even nature (“part of their brain”) or nurture, i.e. how someone was raised. If you go through childhood getting stubbornness as the only example, or needing to be stubborn to be able to overrule siblings, or being praised over and over for being stubborn (“so strong and determined!”)… Insecurity, anxiety, looking for or faking extreme stability…
However if you specifically want to know what part of the brain is related to some behaviours that may be called stubborn, it would be the rostral cingulate zone. This zone is said to be involved in learning from mistakes. It has to do with dopamine (satisfaction) levels that are normally raised when something good happens and go down when something bad happened. Most people,when they try something and it turns out to be a mistake – they will be “satisfied” and try something else. There is a theory that people with a certain genetic mutation have fewer receptors in that part of the brain causing a lower production of dopamine when a mistake is made, leaving them unsatisfied about the fact that it’s a mistake and trying the exact same thing again hoping for a different result.
It’s good to note that although this has some obvious disadvantages, it does also have a positive side. These people don’t give up quickly – repeating mistakes on the one hand, but also reaching goals that need lots of determination and perseverance on the other hand.
Read more about it [here](https://www.medindia.net/news/stubbornness-is-ingrained-gene-study-31552-1.htm).
Anything that makes humans humans (by definition, anything involving self-cognition) originates in the prefrontal cortex.
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