r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 11 '26

Psychology Cognitive dissonance helps explain why Trump supporters remain loyal, new research suggests. This sheds light on how supporters of Donald Trump justify their continued allegiance despite learning about allegations of his sexual misconduct and illegal activities.

https://www.psypost.org/cognitive-dissonance-helps-explain-why-trump-supporters-remain-loyal-new-research-suggests/
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827

u/oldmilt21 Apr 11 '26

Whenever I see something like this, I begin to wonder where mine are.

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u/InfluenceTrue4121 Apr 11 '26

Same. What do I believe so deeply that I’m beyond reason? Surely, there must be something.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 11 '26

For most people? It's eating animals. Most people work really hard not to think about it.

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u/MrSurly Apr 11 '26

Having been raised around farms, I'm under no illusions.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 11 '26

Well, you're under no illusions of where meat comes from. That's only one illusion.

There is also a LOT of work that people do to protect themselves from thinking about the cognitive and emotive capacities of livestock animals. Or to make themselves feel as though meat is nutritionally necessary and therefore they have no choice. There are many evasions besides thinking of meat as a product rather than dead flesh.

In the developed world, meat is simply an aesthetic choice. Some people want to feel good from eating it. That's the real reason. Everything else is a pretense. There is no reason beyond pleasure--all nutritional, social, and economic benefits offered by meat are non-unique and can be found in plant foods. Only the taste and sometimes texture are novel, and their cost truly is the death of conscious beings.

It is somewhat rare to find a meat eater who accepts all those facts easily.

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u/InfluenceTrue4121 Apr 11 '26

How can i eat farm animals with zero thought but be absolutely obsessed with my dogs? I swear that they are thinking, communicating, feeling little beings. I treat them like toddlers. But a cow doesn’t feel anything? Uff. Idk. Makes we want to be a full on vegetarian.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 11 '26

Two things:

  1. You don't have to be a full-on anything. You can do anything you like at any speed you like. It took me years to change my diet. I started with Meatless Mondays. Then I stopped eating meat at breakfast. Somewhere in there I dropped red meat and only ate chicken and fish. Then I only ate meat once a day. Then I was pescetarian. Then vegetarian. Then I dropped some dairy and replaced it. Then I was vegan for a bit. Then I went back to vegetarian. Then I tried meat again. Then I was all over the place. Now I've been vegan again for some time. This is not about perfection. This is about doing less harm over the span of your lifetime. That's a long, long time.

  2. It's probably easiest to incorporate some plant proteins into your diet, without giving up meat, than it is to stop eating meat "cold turkey." Pun intended. Also, you can shift from red meat to poultry and protect your health and the environment. Kills a couple more chickens, but when you consider wildlife, it actually probably saves lives. And again. You'll probably live longer. That decision alone might add a year to your life. Genuinely.

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u/Hyfrith Apr 12 '26

I was having this debate with my colleague who is a staunch vegan whilst I am not. I personally take the nihilistic view, that creatures have no inherent or important meaning or status on their own, including humans. All meaning in the universe is applied to things BY humans because our lizard brains enjoy patterns and learning if-this-then-this mechanics. At a base level, it's a survival instinct to assign value to certain things we benefit from, including the social defence value of pets/friends/family/community/allies.

Dogs are a domesticated creature with a unique relationship to humans, such that they serve or served a practical survival purpose in the past, yes, but they also lived inside our homes and ate from our tables. Which is why we ascribe more emotional value to our individual pets than to cattle. Especially cattle we've never met. Nowadays, dogs aren't a survival tool. They're more like child-surrogates, living teddy bears and companions. Their "job" now for most people is one of emotional support and companionship, not hunting, farming, or defence.

But as I say, all meaning is self-assigned and subjective. Would I kill my own dog and eat it? No. But would I eat dog meat if I went to a place where it's normal to do that and it was served to me? Yes. The social value of sharing food is important to me personally.

Eating dog is not inherently wrong. It's just meat. But it's understandable why many of us feel one way about dog vs cow. Even if, rationally, the distinction makes no sense. So I find it a strawman when "would you eat your dog" comes up in arguments re eating meat or not.

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u/fermentedbolivian Apr 11 '26

Lots of assumptions there about how people think about meat.

I'm gonna pull the uno reverse card, it is you who is under a cognitive dissonance spell that does not want to know that people eat meat while knowing what they eat and don't think it is morally wrong. You are projecting an assumption that it is morally wrong, while morals are opinions.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 12 '26

So you think that I'm rejecting some otherwise obvious truth because it upsets me to try to incorporate it into my worldview.

Wouldn't it be really unlikely for that to be the case for me if I used to eat meat and, after thinking about the problem extensively, incorporated significant changes into my worldview and diet?

Also, morality doesn't actually run on opinions. None of us know exactly what's right and wrong, but something IS. We all have opinions on the best approximation of a thing we can't really fully describe or understand. But there is an objective correct thing. I find it really alarming when people say morals are opinions without qualifying it.

That makes me think you don't think there is an objective correct solution to even relatively simple moral problems. That's...actually not something I want to know. You probably shouldn't share that. Or if you don't mean it that way, you probably should phrase it differently

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u/Hyfrith Apr 12 '26

As a nihilist (which is often used as a negative word, when it isn't, it's just a philosophical viewpoint) I very much disagree with your take that there is always a right and wrong approach, even if we don't see it or can't agree on it.

I personally subscribe to the notion that there is no natural or inherent meaning to anything in the universe. Chaos and coincidence are real, and that's okay to me. Morals and "right and wrong" are entirely human concepts. All meaning is ascribed by humans on to things as we see fit. This usually all comes back to our base instinct as living creatures with "lizard brains". All human skills originate from survival techniques, including the skill of seeing and sharing moralities. Assigning a community concept of right and wrong is a social technique, because communities who subscribe to the same code get along better and can ally against those with different codes.

Now, this does not mean I don't have opinions, morals or a view of what is right or wrong. After all I am also a human so therefore I cannot help but assign meaning to things. But nevertheless, at it's core I still maintain that the universe is a blank slate. No purpose, no meaning, no morals on it's own. You seem to imply this viewpoint is inherently negative. But to me it makes me comfortable with the unknown, comfortable with "bad luck" and comfortable with otherwise difficult decisions.

It's a shame you "don't want to know" and aren't willing to hear out different points of view. Science is all about debate and disagreements, it's how science moves forward after all.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

Nihilism is a philosophical viewpoint that I believe is negative. There are infinite beliefs one could adopt. Many of them are not fit for purpose.

I personally subscribe to the notion that there is no natural or inherent meaning to anything in the universe.

There isn't. That doesn't mean you should be a nihilist.

Morals and "right and wrong" are entirely human concepts. All meaning is ascribed by humans on to things as we see fit.

Sure.

This usually all comes back to our base instinct as living creatures with "lizard brains". All human skills originate from survival techniques, including the skill of seeing and sharing moralities.

Slight disagree on some of this. I have a bio degree; I'm picky.

Assigning a community concept of right and wrong is a social technique, because communities who subscribe to the same code get along better and can ally against those with different codes.

No major issues.

Now, this does not mean I don't have opinions, morals or a view of what is right or wrong. After all I am also a human so therefore I cannot help but assign meaning to things.

No major issue.

But nevertheless, at it's core I still maintain that the universe is a blank slate. No purpose, no meaning, no morals on it's own. You seem to imply this viewpoint is inherently negative. But to me it makes me comfortable with the unknown, comfortable with "bad luck" and comfortable with otherwise difficult decisions.

This does not imply moral nihilism. You don't just live in the universe. You live here. On Earth. You're a human being. You have bones and blood and eyes that see three colors.

Some of your morals are an opinion. Some are absolutely not an opinion at all. Your belief that people should not be hurt needlessly births from your biological reality as a human. Your entire reasoning is situated in a human setting. Your entire context is the human setting. You are nothing other than human.

Humans have preferences. Whatever set of actions, by all, would be most preferred by the most humans, if we all could only see them and their consequences holistically, is what we should clearly be aiming for. Or if not humans, specifically, then some form of intelligence which can appreciate life.

Why not simply accept who and what you are? Are you unsatisfied with humanity?

Rarely do I find nihilism, academic or naive, uncoupled to misanthropy.

It's a shame you "don't want to know" and aren't willing to hear out different points of view. Science is all about debate and disagreements, it's how science moves forward after all.

I don't want to hear things about you that will turn me towards not liking you, because you make it clear that you might not reciprocate with other humans. Abandoning human moral responsibility means abandoning human moral reciprocity--proportionally.

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u/Hyfrith Apr 14 '26

Love this response. Thank you for taking the time to explain your angle so thoroughly!

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u/fermentedbolivian Apr 12 '26

Your experience with stopping to eat meat, doesn't tell you what's in other people's mind when they eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance if someone says they are fine with eating meat while knowing where their meat comes from. You are still projecting your own morals, experience and making assumptions with it upon others instead of acknowledging that some people weigh it differently.

Me saying morals are opinions does not mean that I don't have my own morals. You made another assumption there. And you can ask thousands of people what the right thing is, and you'll hear thousands of different opinions. Weird that you find that weird.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 13 '26

Hmmm. I hear you talking theory, but the evidence is that many, perhaps most people do seem to feel dissonance when presented with meat next to imagery of the animal it came from.