Using neuroscience to track the activation of different brain regions, Professor Harmon-Jones and colleagues found that inconsistent beliefs really bother us only when they have conflicting implications for action. People have little trouble favoring both abortion rights and tax cuts. But when it comes time to vote, they confront a two-party system that forces them to align with Democrats who are abortion rights advocates but against tax cuts or Republicans who are anti-abortion but for tax cuts. If I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and I want to vote for a candidate with a decent shot at winning, my beliefs are contradictory. One way to reconcile them is to change my opinion on abortion or tax policies. Goodbye, dissonance.
This helps to explain why many people’s political beliefs fall on a simple left-right continuum, rather than in more complex combinations. Once, we might have held more nuanced opinions, but in pursuit of consistency, we’ve long since whitewashed the shades of gray.
It also explains why we can’t stand to vote for flip-floppers. We worry that they don’t have clear principles; we think they lack integrity. The reverse is part of Donald J. Trump’s allure: We might not agree with what he says, but we feel that we know who he is and what he will do. That consistency is especially appealing to political conservatives, who report a stronger preference for certainty, structure, order and closure than liberals. If you favor predictability over ambiguity and stability over change, a candidate who holds fast to his ideology has a lot of curb appeal.
from Stowe Boyd http://stoweboyd.com/2015/11/15/adam-grant-the-virtue-of-contradicting-ourselves/
