Psychological Defenses and Cognitive Dissonance

An Emotional Defense and a Barrier to Insight

Prejudices (gut reactions) are learned through classical conditioning.  One can learn to be afraid of a stuffed animal if conditioned that way. (View ‘How Prejudices Are Learned”).  

The main sign of stress is called the general adaptation syndrome.  The signs are the same whether it is a physical stress like exercise or a psychological stress like fear. The autonomic responses increase blood pressure, pulse, sweating, gastrointestinal symptoms like a stomachache or diarrhea, and cause hyperarousal.  Even a “good stress,” like getting married, might be stressful enough to make you sweat and your heart pound.  Stress or anxiety by this definition is anything that causes these autonomic responses, even though there are about 3000 words in the English language to describe our emotions. 

What We are Defending Against?

If our discomfort (stress or anxiety in a broad sense) is bad enough, and we can’t take direct action to ease it, we use unconscious mental processes called psychological defense mechanisms to ease it.  Generally, psychological defenses are only invoked to control “bad stress.”  We usually like the feeling from “good stress.” 

Psychological Defense Mechanisms

Psychological defenses reduce “anxiety” by altering our perception of ourselves, others, ideas, or feelings.  When successful, anxiety is reduced without anything changing except our view of the situation. 

The Harvard Grant Study of Adult Development, coordinated by George Vaillant (1994), confirmed the hierarchy of defenses that psychoanalysts knew from clinical observation.  The defenses are listed below as they seem to appear developmentally.  (Table 1 – Hierarchy of Defenses)

The earliest defenses are considered psychotic defenses because they distort reality.  They can be likened to a child who pulls a blanket over his head to stave off the boogeyman. Psychotic defenses can even occur in adults but are usually supplanted with “mature defenses.” The fact that psychological defenses seem to explain racist beliefs and actions, along with their seeming blindness to the obvious, implies they are using psychological defenses to avoid the psychological discomfort of some inner conflict or ambivalence. (Table 2 – Excuses for Prejudice) Typically, with racism, defenses resolve a conflict between stated values and actions and thoughts.  That is, one can either ignore the conflict exists or remodel the facts to justify one’s behavior and beliefs.

Targets of prejudice may use a psychological defense labelled ‘identification with the aggressor’ to handle their emotional discomfort.  The victim acts like the aggressor and endorses what the aggressor believes.  In a PBS Frontline documentary, a powerful Black man from an impoverished background got into an elite college that supported affirmative action.  He was once a liberal, but now openly objects to affirmative action or tolerance.  He sees no conflict in receiving gifts of hundreds of thousands of dollars from his newfound conservative friends who only sought him out after he got into his influential position.  To an outside observer, he seems to be fooling himself, but he denies any conflict. 

A Related Model – Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger first theorized that inconsistency among beliefs or behaviors causes people to change one of the inconsistent elements to reduce dissonance. For example, if for whatever reason you tell someone Ken is a bad guy when you really think he is good, you will try to resolve the dissonance (guilt of talking bad about Ken) by changing your view to think Ken is not good after all.  This frees your guilt and makes you wonder why you ever felt differently.  The effect of cognitive dissonance is that you double down on your choice, even if you’re wrong.

Handling Defense Mechanisms

Recognizing and dealing with psychological defenses is an important part of all psychotherapies and is important in dealing with prejudice as well. We need to develop the capacity for insight, which means we become aware when we are being defensive and when we may be hiding something from ourselves.  We can’t change without insight. 

From therapy experience, defense mechanisms are resistant to direct confrontation.  Developing skill at gently helping, and timing, is important in psychotherapy, but there is also a rich tradition of insight through individual meditation.  In either case, people have to let their guard down and take time to reflect.  Relief from a conflict only comes after we decide to take action to resolve whatever is causing the anxiety. 

Recommended and Coming Soon

Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America is a good example of how to work with a defensive and even hostile person. (PBS link) In this film documentary, a Black musician chronicles how he influenced dozens of Ku Klux Klan leaders to change.  His approach did not involve trying to change them but by just agreeing to talk civilly to try to understand each other.  If conversion happened, it was the byproduct of understanding.  Davis has a growing collection of KKK robes that Klan leaders gave him after they left the Klan.  The last time I looked, it was available on both Amazon Prime and Netflix as well as PBS. 

Future blogs will address a few methods to give you a better chance to have meaningful conversations with someone who doesn’t think like you.  I am calling this a Toolkit which will be discussed in future posts.  Although to tools seem easy, using them effectively actually takes a lot of practice.  Don’t be discouraged if you are not good at first.  There is always a progression from beginner to intermediate to skilled.  Some will have the natural ability to become masters.