this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
1265 points (98.5% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
12900 readers
826 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hmm, I guess it stands to reason that people willing to argue with you about the subject are more likely to be emotionally invested in it. I wouldn't say that's overwhelmingly true though.
People become emotionally invested because they argue. Arguing fortifies their emotional stance.
In my admittedly anecdotal experience I regularly hear people arguing a point I made, that days earlier they were fervently fighting against. Either I'm incredibly persuasive, or I think it's really just ego. People can't admit they're wrong, even if they 100% know you are right. Once they forget they had their ego tied into your argument, they seem to often accept new information.
This I honestly don't believe in.
It's true though. It's about cognitive dissonance. Like actual cognitive dissonance, not the internet buzzword version.
When our actions and beliefs don't match up, it makes us uncomfortable. And as much as we'd all love to think we'd change our actions to match our beliefs, the truth about humanity is that we're just as likely to change our beliefs to match our actions.
Look at the Ben Franklin effect. Ben Franklin asks for a favor from his enemy, something small like borrowing a book. His enemy lends him the book because it would be impolite not to. Then he experiences dissonance. It makes him uncomfortable that he's being nice to someone he hates. Instead of not being nice, he lets go of his hate.
Any outward action you take that aligns with a certain belief moves your internal compass towards that belief.
I'm convinced this is the worst effect that social media has had on society.
never heard of the ben franklin effect before, neat.
It at least holds true for a lot of people, and is even enforced in some forms of leadership training. Some folks believe the worst thing is to be perceived as ever being wrong and will push hard against that outcome no matter what.
If you weakly hold an opinion, it's more malleable, but you are also unlikely to express that opinion strongly.
Okay I do agree with this, that the fear of being perceived as wrong pushes people to be unmalleable in their opinions. I am not sure I would describe that as "arguing fortifies your emotional stance," because I think there's a better explanation of the underlying mechanism as you pointed it out.