Cognitive Dissonance or How we Resolve our Dissonances.

[_Jersey Girl]

charity

I don't have a theory. I have questions. Convergent thinking, the one right or best answer, seems to fit the one true gospel and Church concept. Divergent thinking many right answer, no wrong answers, may fit well in some venues. Which is what the traditional Christian world is, or even the world as a whole, but it certainly is not the Lords' way. Just one example: Matt. 7: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Convergent thinking has not a thing to do with "the one right or best answer".

[_charity]

charity

People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

How do you figure that? Come on, let's hear it.

Isn't the mantra of the anti-Mormon that they want archeological proof, and scientific facts, etc.? Sounds pretty concrete operational to me. "If I can't see it, I can't consider it."

On the other hand, religious truths are abstract, require an open mind, a willingness to believe in what can't be seen. Doesn't that say formal operational to you?

[_Jersey Girl]

charity,

You as an apologist for the LDS Church and/or belief, naturally engage in convergent thinking when the topic hinges on religion and spiritual. When you are presented with information, you will naturally attempt to "fit it" into your religious/spiritual belief system. Convergent thinking draws the conclusion first and tries to fit incoming information in such a way as it converges on the previously drawn conclusion.


Convergent uses a pre-made box.
Divergent constructs the box.
Compartmentalization has two or more boxes in which to store information.

Taaaa Daaa!

Jersey Girl take a bow!
;-P

[_charity]

charity,

You as an apologist for the LDS Church and/or belief, naturally engage in convergent thinking when the topic hinges on religion and spiritual. When you are presented with information, you will naturally attempt to "fit it" into your religious/spiritual belief system. Convergent thinking draws the conclusion first and tries to fit incoming information in such a way as it converges on the previously drawn conclusion.


Convergent uses a pre-made box.
Divergent constructs the box.
Compartmentalization has two or more boxes in which to store information.

Taaaa Daaa!

Jersey Girl take a bow!
;-P

Don't break your arm patting youself on the back.

Science is convergent, you know. One paradigm. One right answer to the problem.

[_Jersey Girl]

charity

People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

How do you figure that? Come on, let's hear it.

Isn't the mantra of the anti-Mormon that they want archeological proof, and scientific facts, etc.? Sounds pretty concrete operational to me. "If I can't see it, I can't consider it."

On the other hand, religious truths are abstract, require an open mind, a willingness to believe in what can't be seen. Doesn't that say formal operational to you?

First off, I don't deal in mantra's but, to answer your question in terms of this topic...let's change the "anti-Mormon" to "skeptic".

The skeptic wants evidence with which to evaluate the religious assertions. This is why JAK repeatedly dowses you in "truth by assertion" in his posts. He wants to show you that because you say it or think it, doesn't make a thing true. He is asking you what evidence you have (besides your subjective spiritual influences) to demonstrate to him that what you say is truth. Just trust me on that one, I've been around more blocks with JAK more often than I could possibly count.

Think about JAK in these terms...let's say you're on a senior mission and you happen to knock on JAK's door. After the butler announces your arrival ;-) and you begin to present Mormonism 101 to him, JAK wants you to demonstrate to him WHY he should believe you. He is essentially saying "show me". Well, that's a brief lesson on JAK. No extra charge!

Back to the cognitive stuff...

You are mistaking "tangible" and "abstract" for "concrete operational" and "formal ops". Think about that...

Formal ops is neither abstract or concrete...it is the ability to transfer between processes when appropriate and the circumstances warrant it, knowing when to transfer between processes and draw conclusions based on the appropriate mental manipulation of information. Formal ops isn't one or the other abstract or concrete, simply put, it is both. What distinguishes Concrete Ops from Formal Ops, is the ability to think abstractly but not to the exclusion of other types of cognitive processes.

Your online instructor,
Jersey Girl
:-)

[_Jersey Girl]

charity,

You as an apologist for the LDS Church and/or belief, naturally engage in convergent thinking when the topic hinges on religion and spiritual. When you are presented with information, you will naturally attempt to "fit it" into your religious/spiritual belief system. Convergent thinking draws the conclusion first and tries to fit incoming information in such a way as it converges on the previously drawn conclusion.


Convergent uses a pre-made box.
Divergent constructs the box.
Compartmentalization has two or more boxes in which to store information.

Taaaa Daaa!

Jersey Girl take a bow!
;-P

Don't break your arm patting youself on the back.

Science is convergent, you know. One paradigm. One right answer to the problem.

No, it is not, charity. Science inquires and revises.

[_Jersey Girl]

Grabbed this off an old post I made...I didn't supply a link but I'm sure it came from a Piagetian site:

"The stage of formal operations is quite different from concrete operations. While both are logical and systematic thought functions, people in the formal operations stage can apply these processes to more abstract problems and hypotheses. This is Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development, after this he proposed “no further structural imrpovements in the quality of reasoning” (Wadsworth, 1989. pg.115). Unfortunately, it is believed that not all adults arrive at formal operations although most have reached their full potential by about 14 - 15 years of age.

There are several structures that are developed in this stage, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, scientific-inductive reasoning and reflective abstraction. Piaget (1981) described the capacity for hypothetico-deductive reasoning as the ability to be able to deal with not only objects and experiences but with hypotheses as well, with "the possible as well as the real". Conclusions can now be deduced from hypotheses rather than just physical facts. This highlights the persons ability to make conclusions by going from general to specific (deductive reasoning).

Scientific-inductive reasoning is the ability to think like a scientist, to make conclusions by going from specific observations to generalisations. When people in this stage have been confronted by a problem they can think about it abstractly, and can think over each of the different variables and how they, or combinations of them would affect the situation while sytematically testing for these. A common problem used to study this type of reasoning is the pendulum problem in which young people are given strings of different lengths that can be attached to a pole, they are also given objects of various weights to hang from the string and make pendulums. The underlying problem is to find out what it is that makes the pendulum swing faster, the length of string, the weight of the pendulum, the height from which the weight is dropped or the force exerted on the weight when it is dropped (Bjorklund, 1995). It is not till children reach the formal operational stage that they can systematically go about solving this problem and arrive at the correct and logical conclusion.

Another structure that has developed over this period is reflective abstraction, a mechanism by which knowledge (such as logical-mathematical) can be gained. According to Wadsworth (1989) “reflective abstraction is internal thought or reflection based on available knowledge”. Analogies provide a good example in which to study reflective abstraction. Analogies are about constructing relationships between objects, and these relationships can only come about through reflective abstraction."

[_Runtu]

Classic categorization tactic.

Charity's inner dialog: "Beastie was one of THOSE Mormons"

Believers are taught that there are a limited number of reasons for a Mormon losing faith. Sinning, wanting to sin, laziness, pride, or never having believed in the first place. Obviously Charity is eager to figure out in which slot to place me.

The fact is that I was such a faithful, loyal believer that members of my ward were shocked when I left the church.

Me too. I was in the high priests group leadership, and my bishop was beside himself when I told him. And as far as I can tell, there wasn't any sin or laziness or pride involved. If anything I was too eager to learn about the church and the gospel. One of my non-member friends was visibly shaken when she found out I had left. She said of all the Mormons she knew, I was the only one who really believed with all my heart.

[_Runtu]

Isn't the mantra of the anti-Mormon that they want archeological proof, and scientific facts, etc.? Sounds pretty concrete operational to me. "If I can't see it, I can't consider it."

On the other hand, religious truths are abstract, require an open mind, a willingness to believe in what can't be seen. Doesn't that say formal operational to you?

This is a fundamental mistake I see over and over. There are religious truths that you must take on faith (God exists, Jesus died for our sins), and claims that religions make that can be tested (a Hebraic people migrated to the Americas in 600 BC and lived there for 1000 years). When we conflate the two, then facts don't matter in the least. If your religious truth involves 12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians dwelling in 1940s Argentina, then you can take it on faith and no one can or should convince you otherwise.

[_Blixa]

Love that sig line, runtu.

Jersey, keep up the good work.