On Sep 2, 10:24 pm, Pop Fly gmail.com> wrote:

I think the main thing is that the cardinals didn't believe evidence
from telescopes yet because they were so new. There was not really
enough evidence that they were not creating illusions or magnifying
what was really there. But you are probably right that their world
perspective was set, like ours is, and when something doesn't go with
what we decide we become aroused and must change one or more of our
conflicting ideas. So that his calculations were true relies upon
hindsight since the way we can prove that telescope magnify things was
not available evidence then. This made their religious theory all the
more competitive in reality with the heliocentric view.

The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/

Dissonance as a Consequence of Making a Decision

Suppose you are about to make a decision—about the purchase of a new
car, for example. This involves a significant amount of money, so it
is, by definition, an important decision. After looking around, you
are torn between getting a van and purchasing a compact model. There
are various advantages and disadvantages to each: The van would be
convenient; you can haul things in it, sleep in it during long trips,
and it has plenty of power, but it gets atrocious mileage and is not
easy to park. The compact model is less roomy, and you are concerned
about its safety, but it is less expensive to buy and operate, it is
more fun to drive, and you've heard it has a pretty good repair
record. My guess is that, before you make the decision, you will seek
as much information as you can. Chances are you will read Consumer
Reports to find out what this expert, unbiased source has to say.
Perhaps you'll confer with friends who own a van or a compact car.
You'll probably visit the automobile dealers to test-drive the
vehicles to see how each one feels. All of this predecision behavior
is perfectly rational. Let us assume you make a decision— you buy the
compact car. What happens next? Your behavior will begin to change: No
longer will you seek objective information about all makes of cars.
Chances are you may begin to spend more time talking with the owners
of small cars. You will begin to talk about the number of miles to the
gallon as though it were the most important thing in the world. My
guess is that you will not be prone to spend much time thinking about
the fact that you can't sleep in your compact. Similarly, your mind
will skim lightly over the fact that driving your new car can be
particularly hazardous in a collision and that the brakes are not very
responsive, although your failure to attend to these shortcomings
could conceivably cost you your life.

How does this sort of thing come about? Following a decision—
especially a difficult one, or one that involves a significant amount
of time, effort, or money—people almost always experience dissonance.
This is so because the chosen alternative is seldom entirely positive
and the rejected alternatives are seldom entirely negative. In this
example, your cognition that you bought a compact is dissonant with
your cognition about any deficiencies the car may have. Similarly, all
the positive aspects of the other cars that you considered buying but
did not purchase are dissonant with your cognition that you did not
buy one of them. A good way to reduce such dissonance is to seek out
exclusively positive information about the car you chose and avoid
negative information about it. One source of safe information is
advertisements; it is a safe bet that an ad will not run down its own
product. Accordingly, one might predict that a person who had recently
purchased a new car will begin to read advertisements selectively,
reading more ads about his or her car after the purchase than people
who have not recently purchased the same model. Moreover, owners of
new cars will tend to steer clear of ads for other makes of cars. This
is exactly what Danuta Ehrlich and her colleagues found in a well-
known survey of advertising readership. In short, Ehrlich's data
suggest that, after making decisions, people try to gain reassurance
that their decisions were wise by seeking information that is certain
to be reassuring.

People do not always need help from Madison Avenue to gain
reassurance; they can do a pretty good job of reassuring themselves.
An experiment by Jack Brehm demonstrates how this can come about.
Posing as a marketing researcher, Brehm showed several women eight
different appliances (a toaster, an electric coffee maker, a sandwich
grill, and the like) and asked that they rate them in terms of how
attractive each appliance was. As a reward, each woman was told she
could have one of the appliances as a gift—and she was given a choice
between two of the products she had rated as being equally attractive.
After she chose one, it was wrapped up and given to her. Several
minutes later, she was asked to rate the products again. It was found
that after receiving the appliance of her choice, each woman rated the
attractiveness of that appliance somewhat higher and decreased the
rating of the appliance she had a chance to own but rejected. Again,
making a decision produces dissonance: Cognitions about any negative
aspects of the preferred object are dissonant with having chosen it,
and cognitions about the positive aspects of the unchosen object are
dissonant with not having chosen it. To reduce dissonance, people
cognitively spread apart the alternatives. That is, after making their
decision, the women in Brehm's study emphasized the positive
attributes of the appliance they decided to own while deemphasizing
its negative attributes; for the appliance they decided not to own,
they emphasized its negative attributes and deemphasized its positive
attributes.

The tendency to justify one's choices is not limited to consumer
decisions. In fact, research has demonstrated that similar processes
can even affect our romantic relationships and our willingness to
consider becoming involved with alternative partners. In a study
conducted by Dennis Johnson and Caryl Rusbult, college students were
asked to evaluate the probable success of a new computer dating
service on campus. Subjects were shown pictures of individuals of the
opposite sex, who they believed were applicants to the dating service.
Subjects were then asked to rate the attractiveness of these
applicants, as well as how much they believed they would enjoy a
potential date with him or her—a possibility that was presented in a
realistic manner. The results of this study were remarkably similar to
Brehm's findings about appliances: The more heavily committed the
students were to their current romantic partners, the more negative
were their ratings of the attractiveness of alternative partners
presented in the study. In a subsequent experiment, Jeffry Simpson and
his colleagues also found that those in committed relationships saw
opposite-sex persons as less physically and sexually attractive than
did those who weren't in committed relationships. In addition, Simpson
and his co-workers showed that this effect holds only for "available
others"; when presented with individuals who were somewhat older or
who were of the same sex, people in committed relationships did not
derogate their attractiveness. In short, no threat, no dissonance; no
dissonance, no derogation.

In sum, whether we are talking about appliances or romantic partners,
once a firm commitment has been made, people tend to focus on the
positive aspects of their choices and to downplay the attractive
qualities of the unchosen alternatives.