Cognitive Dissidents of Cognitive Dissonance

A more recent Barry Ritholtz article spurred re-reading of his entry from Jan 6th, 2016 remarking on the Big Short, and those of us frustrated by recurring myths can at least take some enjoyment in his prose. At least for some of us, worth a second read.

"These false claims, however, delight fans of cognitive dissonance, and they provide us with a textbook case of what occurs when facts intrude on an ideology that has failed real-life tests. Indeed, some of the people who helped cause the crisis are the biggest proponents of this counternarrative: radical deregulators, free-market absolutists and others simply couldn’t accept the facts, and rather than change their belief systems, they simply refuse to reckon with reality. The psychology behind this is well-understood: The reason to ignore a mountain of facts aligned against an ideological narrative is the brain’s refusal to cope with the possibility that a deeply held belief system might be wrong."