Dissonance, ignorance & Lib Dems

Several of you have mocked Vince Cable’s claim that the Lib Dems have broken no promises in raising tuition fees. What you haven’t pointed out, though, is that this is a particular instance of a common behaviour - the things we do to reduce cognitive dissonance.
Dissonance happens when we hold two conflicting beliefs - such as “I’m an honest person” and “I’m acting in a way contrary to what I promised.” Such a conflict is uncomfortable. Cable’s solution is to use self-deception: “that promise wasn’t really a promise at all.”
Another solution in other contexts is simply to try to ignore the consequences of our actions. A new paper shows how widespread this is.
The authors got a bunch of students to play a dictator game, in which they were given some money and offered the choice to split it evenly or 7-1 in their favour.
36 of the 90 subjects chose the even division. This looks like pro-social fair-minded behaviour.
But what’s the motivation here? Do people really care about others? Or do they simply care about themselves, and wish to maintain a self-image of themselves as fair-minded?
Another experiment was used to adjudicate.  Subjects were asked to choose among random pairs of pay-offs to themselves and a random partner. They were shown their own pay-off, and given the option to see their partner’s pay-off as well. However, two-thirds of the people who chose the even split in the pure dictator game chose not to see their partner’s pay-off. This is despite the fact that someone who wanted to make a genuinely pro-social choice would have to do so. The authors say:

People do not show other-regarding behavior because they care for others, but because they want to maintain a certain self perception.

This corroborates this paper by Jason Dana and colleagues, and this one (pdf) by James Konow.
What’s going on here is a form of dissonance reduction. People have two conflicting beliefs: “I want to make money” and “I’m a fair person.” One way to reconcile these beliefs and reduce dissonance is simply to choose not to know the effects of one’s actions upon other people - which allows one to believe that a selfish choice was in fact “fair“.  People use strategic ignorance to reduce dissonance.
This doesn’t just happen in laboratories. The classic example was General Tommy Franks’ statement in the Iraq war: “We don’t do body counts.”  This was an attempt to save him from the dissonance that would have arisen from trying to reconcile the belief that the war was justified with the evidence that tens of thousands were dying.
Another example is this effort from Nick Clegg, in which he argues that, for “new progressives” what matters is not lifting people out of poverty but increasing social mobility. This too is a form of strategic ignorance. Poverty (in the sense he dismisses) is easily measurable, with only a short lag: how many have an income less than 60% of the median? But social mobility can only be measured decades after policies have been implemented: it’ll take 30 years for us to tell whether the pupil premium has increased mobility.
What Clegg is doing, therefore, is choosing ignorance: he’s asking for his actions to be judged by a measure that won’t be available until he’s long-forgotten.
Of course, I’m not arguing that the Lib Dems have a monopoly on egregious means of reducing cognitive dissonance. They don’t.
My point is simply that what appear to be moronic political statements are in fact the outcome of quite common psychological mechanisms.

Comments

[Luis Enrique]

does this just reduce to "people don't like admitting they're wrong?" with added "especially politicians"

[Brian Robinson]

Is it that politicians don't like admitting they're wrong even to themselves?

[alanm]

Slightly off topic but I'm puzzled why people are so surprised when the Lib Dems do something that contradicts their pre-election positions.

How can it be otherwise in coalition? So we all knew this would be the state of affairs as soon as the coalition happened.

If the Lib Dems agreed with 100% Conservative policy before the election they would have been Conservatives.

[redpesto]

What's worse, is that Clegg's been trying to rationalise his decision/deal with his cognitive dissonance by repeatedly attempting to elevate to a 'progressive' political philosophy. And repeatedly failing to convince every time.

[RH]

Is it an acceptable explanation to say "at least I am honest about my dishonesty"?

[Minnie]

Cognitive dissonance is essentially about saying one thing while believing another. As Chris explains so well, it allows people to say or do things they know are wrong/rubbish while simultaneously and subsequently retaining a firm sense of their own rightness/goodness/integrity - or 'Doublespeak' as 'win:win'.

[Anon]

Are the following beliefs an example of cognitive dissonance?

Belief 1:
People believe that Politicians are good guys and are trying to do something to help them. However, when it comes to implementing promises they suffer from cognitive dissonance.
Belief 2:
People believe that politicians are lying bastards that say anything to get your vote.