4."When the pandemic started, a friend of mine got really obsessed with the fact that you can't leave your home or go near people without a mask — but it never reflected in his own actions. He judged ...

Conversation among us is peppered with observations of the division within the American population. The division is revealed in a number of forms. It may be the acknowledgement of the political gap ...

We all have it to one degree or another. It’s a mental state that causes havoc, from minor to major. Many, most perhaps, don’t know they have it. Others, recognizing it for the deadly disease it is, ...

Cognitive dissonance is what happens when a person holds two sets of beliefs at odds with each other. The human brain doesn’t like logical inconsistencies, so someone experiencing cognitive dissonance ...

In 1934, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake hit eastern India, killing thousands and devastating several cities. Curiously, in areas that were spared the worst destruction, stories soon spread that an even ...

Once upon a time, the words we used had dependable and agreed-upon meanings. Words describing people, events, beliefs, acts, and other experiences were either facts and truths or fictions and ...

If nations can suffer from cognitive dissonance just as individuals can, it’s easy to see why we elected Donald Trump. A good place to start thinking about this is football: As I often do in late ...

"Cognitive dissonance" is a fascinating term to ponder. My understanding is that it has to do with the distress created when one encounters something that is: 1, undeniable and irrefutably true; 2, ...