 Yesterday, after weeks of battling with YouTube, they removed the strike from my channel and reposted my video debunking QAnon COVID conspiracy theories. In my video, I was debunking a QAnon channel by the name of destroying the illusion. In his video, he was explaining why he's anti-mask and encouraging others to not wear masks as well. As someone who tries to teach people critical thinking skills, I feel it's important to explain why videos like his are not only wrong, but they're also dangerous. If you need further evidence of what these QAnon videos are capable of, look at the scenes from a recent protest that took place in St. George, Utah. Well, this morning I was informed that the video from destroying the illusion was taken down by YouTube, and I thought that this would be the perfect time to make a prediction and discuss the psychology of cognitive dissonance. I predict that not only will Jordan Sather from destroying the illusion say that YouTube took down his video because he's right, but I also predict that in the comments of this very video that you're watching right now, you'll see QAnon members who now have stronger convictions that Sather was right. Take it from a guy who lives in Las Vegas that if I was to bet you on this prediction, it'd be a bad idea for you to take it. Thousands of psychological studies over the years are on my side with this prediction, and today we're going to try to understand why. There's a common misconception that people from QAnon and other conspiracy groups aren't intelligent, but that couldn't be further from the truth. By understanding the thoughts and behaviors of groups like QAnon, we can better understand ourselves to avoid the same thinking traps that they fall into. So in the first part of this video, we're going to discuss the work from famous psychologist Leon Festinger and dissonance theory. But before we get started, if you're new to the Rewired Soul, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Here we use critical thinking and practice skepticism to improve our own emotional intelligence and overall well-being. And as usual, all of the books that I reference will be linked down in the description below. There are affiliate links, so when you use my links to read these awesome books, a little bit comes back to support the channel. Leon Festinger was a psychologist who came up with one of the most important psychological theories when it comes to understanding why we humans can sometimes be so irrational. Festinger and his fellow researchers tell the story of the origins of dissonance theory in their 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, a social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world. In the 1950s, a group by the name of the Seekers believed that on December 21st, 1954, God was going to flood the earth and aliens were going to save the chosen ones in their flying saucer. The Seekers were led by a woman by the name of Marion Keech, which was an alias to help protect her identity. Before creating this group, Keech followed Scientology and she believed that she could communicate directly with an alien species from the planet Clarion. Keech started to gain followers and over time, they started to proselytize others. Members of the group quit their jobs, dropped out of school, and sold all of their possessions in preparation for the end of the world. Through her quote-unquote communications with the aliens, Keech told members that they needed to remove all metal from their person before being lifted into the flying saucers as well. The problem was that when the saucers were coming changed a few times, so the members were regularly told to remove any metal that they were wearing. When Leon Fessinger and his fellow researchers heard about the Seekers, much like we're now predicting with QAnon, he predicted that when the aliens did not come, it would just strengthen the Seekers beliefs. And to fully document everything, some of the researchers infiltrated the Seekers to have a first-hand experience of what went on. And by the way, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you read that book if you want to learn more about this story. So, as you've probably guessed, on December 21st, the end of the world did not happen and aliens did not come. Afterward, the researchers followed up with Marion Keech and the other Seekers and Fessinger's prediction was correct. Keech and her followers believed that they ended up saving the world due to their strong faith, so their beliefs grew even stronger after the disconfirmation. Cognitive dissonance explains why members of groups like QAnon and the Seekers have such a difficult time seeing the reality of the situation. Dissonance happens when the mind holds two incompatible beliefs and in order to ease dissonance, the mind comes up with post hoc rationalizations. After researching the Seekers, Fessinger found that there are five conditions that can strengthen cognitive dissonance. When we understand these conditions, we can better understand what's going on with the QAnon members. So, here are the five conditions. Number one, a belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action. That is, to what the believer does or how he or she behaves. Two, the person holding the belief must have committed himself to it. That is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual's commitment to the belief. Number three, the belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world, so that events may unequivocally refute the belief. Number four, such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief. And number five, the individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence that has been specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, the belief may be maintained and the believers may attempt to proselytize or persuade non- members that the belief is correct. So, of all these convictions, Thessinger believed that the strongest factor was that last one, social support. Groups like QAnon strengthen their beliefs due to the fact that they all reinforce one another's beliefs. As a recovering drug addict who has helped many people get sober, a saying that I've personally passed on to others is, always travel in groups of three because it's easier for two people to think that really bad ideas are really good. I'm under no delusion of thinking that all QAnon members will see my video and understand the problems with their beliefs, but I do hope that I can impact just at least a few of them. More importantly, I do this work to help us better understand ourselves and the world around us. I've had many of you leave comments or reach out and say thank you because you better understand a loved one who fell into the QAnon rabbit hole. And others come to simply learn a little bit more about why we think the things that we do and do the things that we do. Although people like Jordan Sather from Destroying the Illusion and other QAnon members are spreading dangerous ideas, none of us are safe from cognitive dissonance or other biases of our minds. One of the most well-versed people on this subject is Professor Jonathan Hyde from the University of Virginia. He's also the author of one of my favorite books, The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Hyde explains that we think it's a scientist in our mind who argues our point, but in reality, it's really more like a lawyer who is trying to justify our emotions and what we already believe. In his book, The Political Brain, the role of emotion in deciding the faith of the nation, Professor Drew Wesson tells of a study he did where he presented people with information that challenged their political beliefs. Wesson's team used fMRI brain scans to see how the brain responded to this information when the person was asked to discuss the information that they were presented with. While you would think that people would argue from the rational part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, to defend their beliefs, the emotional part of the brain was the part that was doing all of the work. Like Jonathan Hyde theorized, our inner lawyer defends our beliefs, not the inner scientist. While we may not be able to pull everyone out of the rabbit hole, we can all learn more about our own minds to catch ourselves when we fall into our own self-deception. Personally, I'm constantly reading books that help me better understand how flawed my thinking can be. Currently, I'm reading Hide and Seek, The Psychology of Self-Deception by Neil Burton, and I just finished the phenomenal book The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf DeBelli. At the end of the day, none of us will ever be entirely rid of our own self-deception and ego defenses, but we can avoid falling into cognitive traps like QAnon by gaining knowledge and becoming more self-aware. All right, everybody. Thanks for watching this video. And again, like always, down in the description, I've linked all of the books that I referenced in this video. All right, they're all amazing books. And I highly recommend you check out when Prophecy fails. I recently just read it after wanting to read it for a long time. Like if there's a psychological theory that I'm really fascinated with, I love reading an entire book about it. And this one was great because it was all about the origins of it. But anyways, when it comes to cognitive dissonance, like anybody who has ever taken a psychology class, they like throw this word around, right? But it's important to understand that we can all struggle with it. We all have our own biases and our own motivated, motivated reasoning and all these things that cloud our judgment, especially when we're discussing serious topics like wearing masks, getting vaccinated, we're coming up on the elections pretty soon. There's going to be a lot of arguments and a lot of debates. And what helps me have better discussions and calmer discussions is understanding not only what's going on in the other person's mind, but my own mind as well. Like it's so important to look at these different studies and understand how our inner lawyer is defending things. And sometimes we're being completely irrational. So what we want to do is what Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman says, activate our system too, which is the most more rational part of the brain. And that only happens when we pause and really think about things. Alright, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. 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