Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance is an uncomfortable sensation, akin to shame. You get it when you discover (or someone else discovers for you) an incongruity between your beliefs, your experiences, and/or your values.

Suppose you were in an argument where you felt pretty strongly about the topic. If your interlocutor then introduced a new fact, previously unknown to you, which put your position in serious doubt, you would experience the sensation of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is an important cognitive function. It presumably evolved so that humans, some of the time, would change their minds. The way an individual reacts to cognitive dissonance determines much about that individual's character. The default reaction to cognitive dissonance is defensiveness: "Shut up." The enlightened reaction to cognitive dissonance is curiosity: "How did I not know that?"

The enlightened person changes his mind, over time, to achieve integrity. In a mind with integrity, beliefs, experiences and values have been examined for the kinds of incongruities that produce cognitive dissonance, and beliefs have been amended to minimize the incongruities. Persons of integrity effectively avoid cognitive dissonance, most of the time. But this does require a habit of conscious, conscientious work.

Persons who react defensively to cognitive dissonance are stupid.