A failure of doublethink; The Psychologically Stressful Underpinning of Poor Decisions, Irrationality and Mass Hysteria in Scottish Politics. 

Doublethink: “To simultaneously hold two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both.”

In George Orwell’s 1984, ‘DoubleThink’ symbolises the totalitarian regime’s power, embodied by the Party, to control not only citizens’ actions but citizens’ beliefs. Winston is tortured until he genuinely believes that two plus two can equal five if the Party says so while simultaneously knowing it equals four. This is “doublethink”: 

Doublethink is the Party’s victory over Cognitive Dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the stress we experience from holding conflicting thoughts – that might be two mutually exclusive beliefs or when a behaviour conflicts with a value. The mind needs to spend effort and energy coping with the constant conflict, and we can become uncomfortable, stressed and even irrationally angry when our attention is drawn to them. 

In this article, I look at the research and the long-term impact of cognitive dissonance on people, show examples of how cognitive dissonance appears in nationalist thought, share what the likely outcomes are from being stressed by such internal conflict over an extended period – that research shows extended psychological tension pushes people to coping strategies that can result in sub-optimal outcomes ranging from poor decision-making to mass hysteria. I suggest an approach for helping people resolve their cognitive dissonance. 

The Conflict of Constant Inconsistency 

The American psychologist Leon Festinger first proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance in 1957, positing that we strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (or dissonance) is experienced, individuals will seek to reduce it, often resorting to denial, justification, or behaviour/belief change.

There are two key planks to the theory: 

• 1. The existence of dissonance [or inconsistency], being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance [or consistency].
• 2. When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.

The Smoking Gun

Continuing to Smoke Vs. Knowing it is very harmful 

Festinger illustrated his research with the example of someone who smokes, even though they know it harms their health. This gap between their actions and knowledge creates internal conflict, which will worsen if not addressed, and the person only has three options to lessen the inner conflict: Denial, Justification and Change. 

Denial

They could deny their knowledge about the impact of smoking, convincing themselves that it’s not as detrimental to their health as people say. 

“My grandfather smoked two packs a day and lived until he was 83.”

Justification

They could seek confirmation or adopt beliefs that smoking has benefits 

• “Smoking is social.”
•  “Smoking keeps the weight off.”
• “Smoking helps me cope with stress.”

Although justification can effectively reduce dissonance, the reasoning may not be rational, factual or beneficial. For example – while they may believe that smoking relieves stress, what it really does is cause stress through nicotine addiction and withdrawal.

Change

They accept that smoking is bad for you, and to act consistently with that, they stop smoking, or at least make an effort to. 

Note that from denial, justification and change – only change is actually beneficial. Denial and justification may lessen the symptom causing the cognitive dissonance; only change will deal with the root cause.

Cognitive Dissidents 

We see cognitive dissonance in the Scottish political realm: A person may support a political party with policies that contradict their personal beliefs; or that conflict with things they know to be true. When presented with information that exposes this conflict, they might dismiss the data or double down on their support to alleviate the discomfort caused by this dissonance or, rarely, change their beliefs. There are many such conflicts – between the propaganda and the rhetoric, between the claims and the reality; here are some of the key stress points for these “Cognitive Dissidents.” Here are just some of the conflicting beliefs. 

Political Autonomy vs. Interdependence:

The campaign for independence is about breaking apart from the rest of the island of Great Britain. Yet, many of the people who believe they support this also want to express values of cooperation and interdependence. For example, most supporters of leaving the United Kingdom were in favour of remaining in the European Union. 

The campaigns for Brexit and Scottish independence are more similar than many of their supporters like to admit; They are both populist, nationalist movements seeking power by scapegoating a ‘foreign parliament’, making rhetorical pleas to the sovereignty of ‘taking back control’, and using misinformation to try and win a bare-majority plebiscite to take us out of a flawed, but reformable and fundamentally beneficial, socio-economic-political union. 

If we suppose supporters of remaining in the EU have values of cooperation, low trade barriers, pooling and sharing of resources and see benefits in economies of scale, then they face psychological conflict when also advocating that with the rest of the UK, we stop coordinating, we erect barriers to trade, we stop pooling and sharing resources and we lose economies of scale. 

The arguments they make against Brexit must somehow not be considered to apply to independence. ( And vice versa – this is similarly applicable to Brexiteers who argue for sovereignty and taking back control but won’t allow that as an argument for Scottish independence) 

Reducing this Brexit / Scexit dissonance manifests in three ways: 

Denial

They may deny that there is a similarity 

“Brexit was the insular bad type of separatist nationalism; we are the good type of separatist nationalism.” 

They can deny that independence will damage trade in the way Brexit has.

 “England isn’t going to stop trading with us just because we are independent.” 

However, this same argument was used by Brexiteers, who told us that the Germans would still want to sell us their cars, the French their wine etc. This tactic may fail when confronted with the fact that this claim has not been delivered for Brexit. 

Justification 

They might rationalise leaving the UK union by claiming we would be back in the EU, saying something like, 

“We are leaving a market of 50 million to enter one of 500 million”. 

Again, this exact same justification was used for Brexit, telling us we were “leaving the EU market to trade with the rest of the world.” And again, it has failed to deliver, which will weaken the effectiveness of this psychological self-defence.

Change belief

Or: if they can admit the similarities between independence and brexit, and believe that Brexit has been a disaster, then they can change their belief that Scottish independence would be simple and beneficial. This does not necessarily mean that they entirely change their views on independence – they might still believe in it in principle. Still, it might mean that they hold the campaign to a higher standard of evidence before committing to repeat the mistake of Brexit with another leap in the dark. 

Scotland would be better off vs. Lack of Economic Case. 

At various points, the claim is made that Scottish independence will make Scots better off. This is despite Scotland having far higher public spending than tax revenues – creating the nominal deficit that is plugged with Barnett consequentials. 

Denial: 

Nationalists may seek to deny the economic reality as expressed in the Scottish Government’s books. These ‘GERS deniers’ variously claim that Scotland’s wealth is hidden in the figures because GERS are a Tory fiction, Scottish goods exported through English ports aren’t counted, or whiskey export duty ( a tax that doesn’t exist) isn’t counted. This is despite the GERS methodology and publication being completely under SNP ScotGov’s control. 

For many nationalists, it is now a reflexive core belief that somehow Scotland subsidises the rest of the UK, shoring up the pound and that without Scotland’s vast exploited wealth, the UK economy will collapse, and that is why the UK is “desperate not to let Scotland free.”

They may even deny there is a deficit, as Kate Forbes did… while simultaneously publishing The annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) report showing Scotland’s notional deficit more than doubled to £36.3 billion in 2020/21 – the highest yearly figure since devolution.

Justification: 

They may justify the lack of an economic case by saying it isn’t possible anyway because GERS relies on estimates, so ScotGov isn’t given access to all the real figures. 

They may say that UK-wide Spending allocated on Scotland’s behalf may be spent differently. ( it may be, but digging into the detail, this never produces the saving claimed. Even “Scrapping Trident” doesn’t make a considerable saving that could be spent elsewhere, as NATO membership still requires the same 2% of GDP to be spent on defence) 

They may justify the lack of an economic case by claiming one has been published. ( the low-on-detail “building a new Scotland” which makes several bold assumptions on EU membership, on post Scexit stability, on Oil windfall, and on set up costs – and while it says low growth, low productivity, stagnant wages, and high inequality in the UK are bad it does not outline a plan on how they would be reduced in an independent Scotland. 

https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-stronger-economy-independence/ ) 

Change:

They may reconcile the conflict by changing a fundamental belief: they may accept the evidence that an independent Scotland would be poorer. 

While if they want to maintain our high public spending that is possible within the UK, this means dropping independence, this isn’t necessarily the case. The Growth Commission, designed to be an updated and ‘more realistic’ case for independence, outlined a decade of austerity but claimed it might be worth it in the long run. ( See also Jacob Rees Mogg saying the benefits of Brexit may not be seen for 50 years) 

World Leader in Environmentalism Vs. It’s Scotland’s Oil 

The dissonance is the simultaneous belief that Scotland is leading the world in being green and environmentally friendly and that when the case was made for independence in 2014, it relied heavily on 20% of the economy coming from Oil & Gas. This dissonance is rooted in the independence causes’ historical reliance on oil revenues and the growing demand for climate action among the younger voters they must attract. 

This conflict is not just in voters but an inherent contradiction in Scottish Government policy. For example, simultaneously, Nicola Sturgeon claimed that Scotland was leading the world and setting the global agenda on climate change while her Government was slashing millions from energy efficiency schemes. 

Denial: 

They may look to take advantage of oil taxes while denying any responsibility – For example, when Siccar Point Energy applied to start drilling in the Cambo oilfield off Shetland, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon refrained from expressing her own opinion on the matter, despite the decision having significant implications for both oil revenues and the environment. This way, nationalism can avoid any responsibility for a decision to extract fossil fuels while still maintaining a grievance on the claimed loss of fossil fuel revenue. 

Justification:

Justification may come in the form of 

• “We can use oil money to create green jobs.” 
• “We can put the oil money into a wealth fund like Norway, so the social goods are worth the environmental damage.” 
• “The only alternative to burning our own oil is importing oil with a higher carbon footprint.” 

The claimed creation of green jobs here may also lead to denial that this policy has failed outright. With most windfarms built abroad, only a fraction of the promised Scottish Green jobs have been created, while thousands of Scottish jobs still rely on oil and gas. 

Change:

Faced with this conflict, nationalists may change beliefs – either rarely to embrace climate change denial – or discount oil as a factor when calculating the economy of an independent Scotland. 

Following the oil price crash, they effectively needed to do this anyway, resulting in the Growth Commissions plan for a decade of deeper austerity. Given the need to move away from oil and gas, the UK’s underwriting of Scottish public spending through the Barnett formula is more important to maintain than ever. 

Long Term Effects

A society where a significant proportion of the population has high rates of cognitive dissonance is a society that prefers comfortable falsehoods to uncomfortable truths.

Prolonged exposure to cognitive dissonance presents serious risks. Consistently ignoring the dissonance leads to a distorted perception of reality, causing individuals to persistently choose suboptimal strategies, make poor decisions, and build a habit of denying contradictory information. 

Some of the conflicting beliefs in Scotland have now been so long established that in some circles, they have become canon. Nationalists, when challenged on them, can slip into denial or justification by reflex – though, as the polls clearly show, there is hope as some have also changed their behaviours and beliefs: that’s why even with demographics changing, support for independence has not increased in the polls. 

Over time, the chronic effects of cognitive dissonance can be severe, leading to mental stress, denial, hypocrisy, and even discord. When societies or groups allow cognitive dissonance to dictate their beliefs and actions, they risk descending into collective irrationality, marked by the rejection of inconvenient facts and acceptance of comforting illusions: and so more susceptible to the lies of populist, nationalist demagogues who use misinformation and fear to trigger people into acting against their best interests. 

Change seems to be the hardest way. 

 Of the three coping strategies, denial, justification and change, you will notice that behaviour change is often the most rational and beneficial – often the only one that actually resolves the conflict. It also seems to be the hardest for people to adopt. 

Having conflicting beliefs comes at a cost – but changing behaviours also comes at a cognitive cost. While cognitive dissonance comes from wanting our concurrent beliefs and behaviours to be consistent, we also want our future behaviours to be consistent with our past behaviours.

Changing Course 

This cognitive resistance to change is a psychological phenomenon where individuals resist alterations to their established routines or beliefs due to a desire for consistency. This resistance is often rooted in the human tendency to value predictability and stability, making the change feel threatening or uncomfortable. 

The principle of cognitive consistency suggests that we strive to align our future behaviours with our past actions and beliefs to maintain a coherent self-concept. This can create a barrier to change, as adopting new behaviours or beliefs may require acknowledging that our past actions were misguided or ineffective. This cognitive dissonance can lead to resistance, as individuals may prefer to continue their current behaviours rather than face the discomfort of change. 

What is to be done?

Cognitive dissonance plays a significant role in shaping our perceptions and decisions. While it is a natural psychological process, it leads to poor decisions and collective irrationality. Helping voters recognise and understand their cognitive dissonance and the mechanisms by which it works is crucial in promoting rationality, reducing mass hysteria, and fostering a healthy society.

Make it Uncomfortable 

“I cannot teach a man what he thinks he already knows” – Epictetus. 

When you are speaking with someone who has an internal conflict that is causing them cognitive dissonance, they will be employing either denial or justification.

Thinking back to the classic cognitive dissonance of the smoker – these are powerful psychological forces at work. If they were easy to break, then smokers would quit the first few times they saw “Smoking causes cancer” on a pack. When we encounter someone with cognitive dissonance, they will resist correction. 

If you highlight the conflict and provide cast-iron evidence, they will still have a remarkable capacity to deny the evidence or justify the conclusions – often while giving abuse! 

It is still worth doing. When we highlight their conflicting beliefs, it adds to the stress of holding them. We should nudge them to self-analyse the conflicts in their beliefs using the deny-justify-change framework and the Socratic method. 

The Socratic Method

The Socratic Method, named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of dialogue-based inquiry used to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas. It is not so much a specific method or formula but rather an attitude towards argumentation that involves questioning critical reflection and an openness to changing one’s mind. It systematically interrogates a position, breaks it down into individual assumptions, and then scrutinises those assumptions to determine their validity.

One of the key features of the Socratic method is its focus on questioning. Instead of directly contradicting an opponent’s views or presenting an alternate argument, the practitioner of the Socratic method probes the other person’s beliefs with thoughtful inquiries. Doing so encourages the person to scrutinise their beliefs and possibly recognise inconsistencies or weak points. This approach can be particularly effective when discussing sensitive or contentious issues, as it tends to reduce defensiveness and foster a more open and collaborative exchange of ideas.

The Socratic method can be a powerful tool when dealing with cognitive dissonance – the psychological discomfort that arises from holding contradictory beliefs. Rather than directly challenging a person’s beliefs (which can often provoke defensiveness and resistance), the Socratic method can help them explore the contradictions in their beliefs in a less confrontational manner.

Let’s consider the situation of an individual who believes that the trade barriers and hard border established by Brexit are problematic but doesn’t see a similar issue with the trade barriers and hard border that could potentially result from Scottish independence.

Using the Socratic method, you might begin by asking questions that explore their belief in the detriment of Brexit’s trade barriers and a harder border. For example, 

“Could you help me understand why you believe the trade barriers and hard border created by Brexit are problematic?”

 They may cite economic disruption, impact on peace in Northern Ireland, or damage to international relationships.

Next, gently transition the discussion to their views on Scottish independence. You might ask, 

“How do you see the impact of potential trade barriers and harder border in the case of Scottish independence?”

 If they dismiss these as non-issues, it might be useful to delve deeper.

 “How do you think the effects of trade barriers and a hard border in Scotland would differ from those resulting from Brexit?”

By asking such questions, you guide them to critically examine their beliefs, identify inconsistencies, and potentially understand their cognitive dissonance. The purpose is not to corner them or make them defensive but to encourage self-exploration of their own ideas and beliefs.

Remember, the goal of the Socratic method isn’t necessarily to change someone’s mind on the spot but to stimulate critical thinking and self-examination. Over time, this process can lead to greater understanding and potential change. It’s important to approach such discussions with empathy and respect, creating a safe space for open dialogue and growth.

By questioning in this way, you can help the individual recognise and reflect upon their cognitive dissonance. This, in turn, can prompt them to reassess their beliefs or behaviours, fostering change. The Socratic method, therefore, can be a respectful and effective way to help others, and indeed ourselves, navigate the complexities and contradictions of our beliefs. This not only helps in the realm of personal growth but also plays a crucial role in enabling constructive and insightful political discourse.

Key Takeaway 

When confronted by people with cognitive dissonance, we must make the cognitive cost of maintaining their conflicting beliefs through denial or justification higher than the cognitive cost of changing them. In this way, we may create a more resilient, more rational Scotland, able to face uncomfortable truths and make better-informed decisions.