Why we are inclined to support those who fool us and how to break out of it.
The modern world is caught up in a tsunami of lies. You may want to blame Trump for this who broke all records, making no fewer than 30, 573 false of misleading statements during the four years of his presidency, but the trend didn’t start with him. Before him Obama also has his share of untruths as does Biden. Politicians lie everywhere, most of the time.
The reason they lie is simple: to get the support of people whose votes they need. Research has shown that a lie, once aired, becomes more pervasive and persistent. It takes effort to debunk it and, afterwards, there is no guarantee that it will change people’s opinions. The primary reason for that is that we rely upon memory and feelings to make our decisions and lies confuse us about what we remember and what is real by forcing the brain to forget what does not align with the lie.
This happens because of the cognitive load we experience as our brain tries to hold onto two different types of reality. Cognitive load leads to increased energetic costs for even the most basic cognitive tasks. The brain is designed to optimize itself to lower the resources it consumes in order to function. Neuroscientific research carried out by the Department of Clinical Psychological Science at…
