Whenever somebody "loses their shit" it is because their self-image was threatened and they transitioned from feeling good about themselves to feeling bad about themselves. When they were feeling good they had the inner resources to deal with it but feeling bad they regress to when they were a toddler and they act that way.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_of_the_Self
2. Because our educational systems have not prioritized conflict resolution skills (along with a host of other critical soft skills). It seems insane to me that we can teach a HS kid calculus, but not how to manage relationships.
- They don't have an argument - They don't believe the other person will listen to their argument - They don't have time to argue - They're tired and don't want to feel like it - They don't know why they believe what they believe - They know their idea is wrong
Some of the reasons above are rational, some are not. But you don't usually feel anger if you feel like you have a rational path forward. (i.e., you have an argument that you enjoy explaining to people that you believe will listen to).
> - They're tired and don't want to feel like it
Why do these two make them angry?
More seriously, I suspect that it's related, at least in part, to (as are many stress/anger-inducing things) insecurity and/or frustration.
If you "know" something and another person disagrees, that's sometimes considered an insult or affront to that person's value as a human. If one is insecure about themselves, it feels like an attack.
Even if you're interacting with, say, a flat-earther and they categorically deny that we live on an oblate spheroid, and no amount of evidence or explanation will convince them, that can be frustrating.
I wonder if such reactions are related to (poor) impulse control?
This is a useful observation, because I was thinking about these kind of cases especially. Other cases are easier to explain away, but I think we're missing something that this kind of case captures: Why would someone be mad when a definitely wrong person disagrees with them? How is that their problem? I don't think ego or insecurity or any of these typical lay theories explain that at all. Is it just a matter of not getting what one wants, i.e. for there to be less wrong people in the world or something?
Why does the person have an impulse to control in the first place?
1. I, as a human, like to inform people. I trained to be a librarian and quite enjoy teaching/educating roles. It's never fun to be reminded that some people just...don't like learning. I find it kind of appalling.
2. I have to live in a society with these people. These people are why we have all the stupid rules ("Who would be THAT stupid?"), and there are just so. many. little. annoyances. about daily life that would go away if we increased everybody's IQ by 10. Also that person has a vote equal to mine, it's entirely likely that they're more successful than I am in life, etc. They're symbolic of all the absurdities we have to put up with because some other hairless ape won't think for five seconds.
I recognize that it's not productive anger, and I don't hang onto it any more, but it's still there.
I'm just a very angry person.
It's not a good thing, but that's why.
The anger itself generally revolves around how these people get other people to do more work in order to coddle their obliviousness. Think people in supermarkets who are so oblivious they make everybody else walk around them/go around the aisle, etc. It's the assumption that everybody else has to adapt to them, and that drives me bonkers because it's an implicit assumption of superiority. ("My needs are the only ones that matter.") I'm VERY sensitive to people thinking they're better than me. (Or myself thinking they do).
Not the best part of myself, but one that's worth being aware of so I can do things like curb any authoritarian tendencies that try to use my anger to worm their way into my brain.
An ad absurdum case: would you find it easy to ignore people who thought drought management laws were a joke and should be ignored? Maybe it depends on where you live.
What about people who disagreed that rape was a bad thing and should be punished?
I know these are extremes, but I think it's reasonable to say that there is a spectrum of disagreements we are willing to tolerate. Not to mention that our recent history is filled with some rather deadly disagreements...
Historically, I image those who ignored their brand of Brutus may have received the Darwinian knife to the back.
1. You imagine, create or otherwise accept some explanation for things.
2. You start building identity facets on the myth from (1).
3. Based on your identity concepts, you start orienting yourself in social groups and to other people. You're a Bleen so you oppose Nerps. You're pro-Xlarg and you oppose the anti-Xlargs.
4. Someone refutes your myth from (1)
Now that person isn't just attacking some boring bit of data but they are attacking your core identity, both how you define yourself in isolation and how you define yourself in relation to others. If your Bleen identity is a sham, then you can't even be sure if other Bleens are your friends!
Thus most arguments have little to do with truth finding and much more to do with staking out identity statements.
We like these kinds of prebuilt identities (I support Xlarg, therefore I am a Bleen) because it removes danger. It's a resistance to feeling like an imposter. We attack others who may have doubts about this whole identity ("What if we've been wrong this whole time about Xlarg?") because to accept the doubters would undermine our own identity construct.
This also makes a given identity more exclusive over time. We make ourselves extremists because we want to be the most pure of the Bleens so nobody can doubt us. We attack other "imposters".
It's specifically those identity facet making points that become scary disagreement zones. No facts or logic will help you win.
I wouldn't say flat earthers refute any myth, yet they disagree with people and it enrages some of those people.
You really think people have an identity of being a round earther?
Sometimes, that effort's enough to be it's own identity.
If you don't have a great concept on why we know the earth is round and you defer to things like "well every science book I have read says the earth is round!", then I could see a clever flat earther really getting beneath your skin. You can see how that faith based belief can be disrupted - it is a mythical belief even if it has accidentally aligned with reality.
People do.
> faith based belief
I think you're confusing faith and trust.
I'm sure there are others with a faith-based relationship to science.
It is faith.
A good rule for whether something is trust or faith is whether you can make estimates on how wrong they are. Faith demands obedience, trust expects mistakes.
If you are weighing them against sources, if you are looking for mistakes, if you are evaluating that information against a wider context and you can accept there are absolutely going to be mistakes - now we are in a realm of trust.
As a simple question: How do you know that expert isn't lying to you? How do you know they aren't wrong? Is the fact in question even (currently) determinable?
There are parts of science that the current correct answer to is "We don't know". We have a lot more unknowns than knowns. Science is a process, not a result.
> If you are weighing them against sources, if you are looking for mistakes, if you are evaluating that information against a wider context and you can accept there are absolutely going to be mistakes - now we are in a realm of trust.
You're being ridiculous. You yourself have neither the competence nor time and energy to do this for 99% of the subjects int he world. You have to trust experts.
> As a simple question: How do you know that expert isn't lying to you? How do you know they aren't wrong? Is the fact in question even (currently) determinable?
You don't. That's a risk you take in trusting them. They can and occasionally to betray you.
Districts usually select the books, based on publisher relationships. This is different in colleges, where your professor may be the author.
Your teacher did not vet or select the book.
> You yourself have neither the competence nor time and energy to do this for 99% of the subjects int he world.
You can and should spot check texts, and peek into their authors. No, you can't fact check every single claim but you can check 1/20, and you should check anything that seems magical or surprising.
As late as the 1970s, there were expert published books that suggested drinking and smoking during pregnancy were ok. We have had research since the 1930s that made it pretty clear it was dangerous.
> You have to trust experts.
You should verify, check and question your experts. If your doctor says surprising things to you, get a second opinion. If your science teacher tells you an invisible sky man made the Earth in 7 days, maybe check a few other science books.
At the end of the day the burden is on you. Nobody else. If you take bad advice, only you and your loved ones suffer.
You should also always know the "why". If you "trust" the world is round, you should understand how to check that (this is a great activity for kids). You should be able to explain why the sky is blue.
As I said, you're being ridiculous, nobody has time, energy nor competence for that.
According to existential philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, "true beliefs" are very old ideas that we have 'inhabited for centuries' and have come to trust implicitly - without question. What we call "beliefs" are "ideas" (about reality) that function as coping mechanisms. They help us deal with the crisis of 'not knowing'.
Both are subject to reinforcement/agreement or challenge from "the world", society or by individuals. We like reinforcement and agreement because it makes us feel safe. When someone challenges our beliefs, it threatens to throw us into crisis. It can make us angry because it goes right to the core of our sense of safety. I think a lot of political i.e. socio-economic, religious and tribal disagreements fall into this category.
Humans must have an "organ" (let's call it that, it is not actually physically a seperate organ) for keeping our world view constant. Think about it: if we did not have constant world view, we would be unable to operate in the world, even to lift a glass of water to drink it -- because the next moment we would not know what this object we have in our hand is. So such an organ is necessary for us to be able to function in the world. We can call this "organ" the ego.
Our world view consists of various kinds of beliefs. We could say that each belief has an associated valency -- i.e. how strongly we believe in it. When we learn something, initially we assign high valency to the belief -- this is essentially the Dunning-Kruger effect. Everybody knows that somebody who has just converted to a belief (such as any -ism or religion) is the most vocal proponent of it.
Over time, when we encounter things that challenge our beliefs, we may start questioning our beliefs or our beliefs may become stronger. What happens depends on multiple things.
For example, how we encounter things that challenge our beliefs. It is easiest to swallow something if somebody is "feeding us with a small spoon". Also, our mental state when we encounter challenges to our world view has a huge impact. Our personality has an impact as well.
I believe it’s possibly a fundamental mechanism of intelligence.
We have a drive to “be right”. We feel “good” when our model of reality is stable - where we feel confident that we can reliably predict the future.
Destabilizing our model or reality makes us feel bad by possibly triggering things like adrenaline, cortisol, etc.
Our primitive brain solution to this destabilization is raising our voice and going into fight mode.
Hard to overcome. I like to think I’m decent at staying chill and level headed but I occasionally have spikes of anger when I hear things that are wildly out of sync with my models.
We’ve got a neural net wrapped around a lizard brain. We’re human.
> Our primitive brain solution to this destabilization is raising our voice and going into fight mode.
I find this reaction interesting because I can't see how it will help. Like are we going to intimidate, harm or kill people who disagree? I can't see how any of this would accomplish the goal of getting the person to agree, so maybe I'm missing what the goal originally was in an evolutionary context.
Yeah, I'd say yes they definitely do, and this may be a great example. I have definitely seen people express frustration and even anger when flat earther's views are expressed.
> I find this reaction interesting because I can't see how it will help. Like are we going to intimidate, harm or kill people who disagree?
We aren't perfectly rational beings though. By and large, I'd predict that most people operate on heuristics guided by more primitive feelings.
Also, yeah, killing someone or incapacitating them is a great way to stabilize your reality. Our primitive brains aren't taking into consideration human laws or customs.
> so maybe I'm missing what the goal originally was in an evolutionary context.
Evolution isn't optimizing for intelligence, nor does it really have a "goal" - it may be more accurate to say that what exists because of it is just what is more fit for survival and reproduction. Our unique intelligence seems to also be a very new thing in the broad scope of humanity.
How would they do that when what they're saying is clearly false?
> Also, yeah, killing someone or incapacitating them is a great way to stabilize your reality.
How? I don't see how this would solve anything in this situation. It's not a fight over resources...
> Evolution isn't optimizing for intelligence, nor does it really have a "goal" - it may be more accurate to say that what exists because of it is just what is more fit for survival and reproduction. Our unique intelligence seems to also be a very new thing in the broad scope of humanity.
No, I didn't mean evolution had a goal, but the behavior had a goal, like getting the other person to agree or, as you say, stabilizing reality.
They don't need to be right to destabilize one's model of reality. I don't believe a "stable model of reality" is necessarily correct in terms of objective truth either. It's only correct enough such that we can make accurate predictions about the future. Take Newton for example. His models of reality were technically wrong at certain scales of reality - but they were correct enough for most applications of physics. Newtonian physics created a model of reality that was thus "stable" for over 200 years until challenged by new discoveries.
> How? I don't see how this would solve anything in this situation. It's not a fight over resources...
Our primitives brain is triggered to behave as if it is a fight over resources though. We are not perfectly rational.
All it takes is to trigger a feeling of doubt in the listener to "destabilize their perception reality"
> How? I don't see how this would solve anything in this situation. It's not a fight over resources...
It removes the source of the doubt/discomfort, doesn't it? It's easier to ignore your doubts if you don't have a reminder walking around and talking to you about it.
1. It's their ego and identity wrapped up and it's a threat there.
2. They've been gaslighted so much that the disagreement is poses as a derailment (This is when the disagreement is disingenuous)
I'm sure there are other reasons as well.
If a dog bites you, what use is it for you to blame the dog? It's just an animal. The more judicious use of time is to manage the situation the best you can. Avoid the dog in the future.
Someone disagrees with you, are they acting as an animal or human? Is it on an important issue? Is there any merit to their argument? If no to both just avoid the animal.
If you are disagreeing with someone, are they responding as an animal or human? Same, engage the human, avoid the animal.
If someone (including yourself) is getting angry when someone disagrees with them, the question is really "what are they afraid of?" The answer can very in detail greatly depending on the relationship to the person, environment, and all sorts of other circumstances.
However, much of the fears we experience stem from a fear of loss, or a fear or a fear of failure. [1] "The fear of failure is a fear of not being loved, valued, appreciated or wanted. The fear of loss is a fear that you won’t have what you need, want or deserve." That means that after sifting through the various situational specifics it will eventually boil down to either a loss or a failure. That doesn't mean there is a realistic/logic reason for why an opinion of "A" directly leads to the painful outcome of "Z". It does mean we, at some level, believe it will nonetheless.
Over years in management, I've found a lot of material support such a line of reasoning from all over, but I don't know where to give original credit to. I'll add a few seemingly respectable references that refer to similar sentiments that I gathered from a quick search.
[1] https://www.ksl.com/article/24314970/anger-management-ndash-... [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201811/h... [3] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mindfulness-practice_b_420856... [4] http://www.psychologyineverydaylife.net/2012/05/29/masks-of-...
Whether different races are inferior? Should sick people just be allowed to die if they can't afford healthcare? Now you've got my wind up, because those are opinions that actually affect the quality of my life or the lives of other people. They're not just intellectual exercises, even if they see that way to you - likely because you're not the one with something to lose.
Things like eugenics don't really bear arguing about, because the science is irrelevant in consideration of people and their right to live and be happy. If your brain can't sort that one out - and I'm not saying youra can't, I mean in general - it's probably not other people who are defective in this situation.
Tl:dr; some opinions draw blood and should be considered carefully before keeping, much less wielding.