Psychology: being told something too much → believing opposite

[Delvo]

Is there a phenomenon, described by psychologists, in which someone who's been told the same thing over & over & over throughout his/her life, in a variety of ways from a variety of sources (even to such an extent that laypeople might call it being "inundated" or "bombarded" with that message), ends up believing that it's false? What have they said about the circumstances under which that happens, instead acceptance of the prevailing message as true?

(I know that strong & clear evidence against the message could do it, of course, but I'm more interested in the angle psychology would take on it: contributing factors other than the evidence.)

 

[theprestige]

The other day our CIO at an all hands meeting told us that the layoffs were over and now we could focus on moving forward with the new vision. That was good to hear, because there had just been two round of layoffs in two months. Then he said it a couple more times during his presentation, and I was feeling pretty reassured. Then he said it a couple more times, and I thought, yeah, we get it already. Then he said it a couple more times, and I thought, ****, there's going to be more layoffs. The next week, there were more layoffs.

 

[Delvo]

Well, the short supply of responses & examples says something all by itself...

 

[wasapi]

Are you talking about brainwashing? Or religious sects? Cults?

 

[Delvo]

Any of that, or anything more mundane, like common aphorisms or mainstream cultural ideas... anything anybody can think of where people simply don't buy whatever message they receive a lot... in other words, counter-examples to the idea that people will believe whatever they're told if they're just told it enough

(Yes, there is a specific subject which made me ponder this, and yes, I am avoiding mentioning it because then all subsequent posts would end up being a fight over that specific example, not on the actual subject of this thread.)

 

[Dancing David]

The only phenomena I cam think of is cognitive dissonance , where a belief is more strongly held and rationalized depending on the personal investment in that idea.

So if an individual say have belief X that is frequently disputed, each time X is disputed the person reinforces their own belief X. Then there are the bod standard conditioning events as well, emotional attachment, denial and cognitive bias.

This plays out pretty well in the whole CO2 debate.

 

[MetalPig]

I'm reminded of the way Penn Jillette plays rock, paper, scissors. He makes it very clear beforehand that he will choose rock. Really, he will play rock.

And then he does.

 

[theprestige]

I'm reminded of the way Penn Jillette plays rock, paper, scissors. He makes it very clear beforehand that he will choose rock. Really, he will play rock.

And then he does.

If Penn Jillette told me he was going to play rock, I'd assume he was going to play rock.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

 

[oopsboom]

I can't think of a term for that, as far as i know that's the opposite of how it normally works. In most cases like what you describe what a person is 'bombarded' with all their lives is considered by them to be the norm and is essentially unquestioned unless they are culture shocked by exposure to something different. Even then change is questionable.

The 'what we say' and the 'what we do' don't even necessarily have to be in sync. As long as neither is causing extremely negative feelings to the person to the extent that it causes them to question the situation. And even if they question, if information is controlled tightly enough by the messenger you can still keep them in bubble and believing most things.

"Ask a random Chinese citizen about the history of Tienanmen Square" would be an easy example.