>> So, one way to understand that is by thinking about what comes first.
Is it the beliefs that we have that guide the things that we do or
is it the things that we do that guide the beliefs that we have?
So suppose that you are puzzling about this question,
you hear about this question for the first time.
And you're starting to look around and
you find a piece of evidence that resonates with you.
Now you've made like a little step in the direction of believing one side
over the other side.
You then might start talking to people about it,
which means that you're taking a public stance for this.
You're sharing this, you might have a heated argument with someone else who
disagrees with you, or someone might really put you down,
someone who has already a stronger conviction on either side.
Now, those moments where we are doing something, where we're taking an action,
where we're stepping out and
taking a public stance, those are moments that can change our beliefs.
Because what happens is when you take that action, and
when you then perhaps have an acrimonious exchange over it,
it creates what is called cognitive dissonance.
Which is a very visceral feeling of discomfort where we
are questioning perhaps ourselves,
the image that we have of ourselves is as intelligent people,
as people who can think critically.
And when that is being questioned in us, that generates the discomfort,
and the discomfort then puts in motion
the fact that our brains starts justifying what we have just done.
So we justify it to ourselves and we find reasons and additional reasons for
why our initial decision, our initial step in one direction, was the right one.
And so in the film, Right Between Your Ears, we used an analogy that
was devised by two social psychologists, Carol Tavers and Elliot Aronson,
and that's the analogy of the pyramid.
And they liken that initial moment
of not having a strong conviction at all to the tip of the pyramid.
And once you take that initial decision, and that sets in motion that cycle
of further actions, more discussing with friends,
and then finding additional reasons for your belief,
that is the descent of the pyramid.
And so the further down you go, the more convinced you become that you have
the right view on this, the more reasons and evidence you find for your view,
because obviously none of us would believe something that we think is nonsense and
that we don't have any reasons for.
And so, the further you go down, the more you become convinced.
And also, the further you go from your original position
of not having a strong conviction.
And the further you end up from someone who initially took that step of
the other side, and went down on the other side of the pyramid.
What you can end up with is that people at the bottom of the pyramid
are very convinced they are right and the other side is wrong.
>> Yeah, and they end up polarized because they are far apart at the bottom.
They start here and then as they take this pyramid of choice, it's called,
isn't it >> Yes
>> And they slide down with each
step of their conviction until they're poles apart, and can't see eye to eye.
And this is where you get the kind of ferocious battles that you get
with the authorship question, but with lots of other things as well.
So politics, all kinds of other areas, and lots of other academic areas as well,
where an academic will take a stance on one side for a theory and
another one against a theory.