Consider the psychological concept of motivated cognition … essentially akin to emotional reasoning. ALL of our brains are doing this, ALL THE TIME
The best FMRI evidence (filming an active brain) we have to date, is that the emotional part of the brain is largely running the show. We feel rational. We think that free-will is governing our priorities & behavior, but this IS AN ILLUSION.
You have an identity; You have assumptions about yourself and the world;
You also have a HIGH PRIORITY program for homeostasis preservation (maintain status quo of identity) running on your hardware (DNA).
So your emotional brain, respecting the mandate of this program, selects & weighs ONLY the evidence that does not substantially destabilize your identity & worldview.
You select, delete, deny & distort the facts to meet your unconscious agenda.
We know this is how all normal human brains work. Any “personal experience” (aka subjective opinion) to the contrary is an illusion that is not supported by solid scientific evidence.
Even your urge to argue with this claim, BEFORE you have gone and read the neuroscience studies, should corroborate what I’m saying?? WHY??
Because as a smart person, you KNOW BETTER than to form your opinions BEFORE you have reviewed all the credible evidence. But you are arguing (against this obvious precept) against the point, BEFORE you have studied the evidence. If that does not make it clear that SOMETHING non-rational is in charge, there is not much more I can say to you.
It’s this very phenomena that makes the scientific method so crucial to finding truth. Here is an example of such likely distortions
So NO … the compulsion to be right is NOT a mental disorder … it’s the way a normal brain functions whenever it’s not:
- mindful of it’s unconscious or emotional agenda
- using the scientific method to mediate this powerful genetic program
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to Are the racists winning in the US?
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to Can you know if your therapist is no good in a month?
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to Is it likely that some people are genetically predisposed to codependency?