The totalitarian (TERROR) ego
By retaining previously used cognitive categories, the conservatism bias ensures that similar information encountered at different points in time is encoded into the same categories; such consistency of encoding over time preserves access to already stored information in a growing organization of knowledge
Without the integration of new information, you reaffirm the neural pathway to hold a fixed view or to repave old memories (further grounding them as ‘fact’)
Just as it is possible to SHAPE your memories and reintegrate them in order to heal and move on from them - rescripting
The single MYSELF view // totalitarian ego often leads to dogmatic attitudes of “sticking to a theory as long as possible” aka “self-made” (this is an impossible feat)
Though no theory of order could ever prepare us for future events without observation (and flexibility)
Beneffectance bias - is associated with effective performance in citations which perseverance might be the critical determinant of effectiveness
Beneffectance or egocentric bias (focus on the perspective of one’s own self-view), where in moderation we own desirable outcomes but disavow undesirable ones
Self-efficacy theory, (Bandura, 1977), beliefs tied to being able to perform ‘’appropriate actions’’
Efficacy expectations - may be inflated for a person with a beneffectance bias than for one whose expectations may be more objectively accurate
Self, scientific theory and totalitarian society -
the totalitarian-ego biases succeed intrapsychically (within the mind, psyche) because they preserve the cognitive organization in which they exist, that they succeed behaviorally because they facilitate goal attainment via perseverance in goal seeking (aka they are self-affirming ‘i worked out and now i have a six pack! I am the best!’ bodys are temporary - having a six pack doesn't make anyone a ‘good’ human - it is self serving and that is ok but also recognize the inflation of ego which often comes along with this new ‘sense of self’)
Labels that often cross-reference beneffectance - ego-defensive attribution, self-serving attribution, egocentric attribution, and attributional egotism)
The intrapsychic evolution analysis offers an alternative to existing motivational and informational interpretations of cognitive biases
Reasons developed in characterizing the functions of the conservatism bias is capable of explaining a variety of resistances to cognitive change - such as unwillingness to learn new languages, reluctance to upgrade to a new generation of technology, resistances interfere with rapid diffusion of improvements in knowledge - the storage and retrieval of ‘known’ information is easier to retrieve within the ‘library’ of the mind (rather than the continual revision of its indexing or coding scheme)
It may be more efficient to maintain consistency than to allocate librarian effort to revisit it (recataloging and reshelving the existing collection) every time an improved indexing or retrieval system becomes available
Cognitive biases can be grouped into three categories
Much evidence suggests the operation of these biases in organization that is of special interest to psychologists -- the human self or ego as well as in two extrapersonal knowledge domains -- paradigmatic scientific theory and totalitarian propaganda
The knowledge system must sometimes operate with out-of-date or inaccurate information. Biases help to preserve the knowledge system’s organization and allow it to link effectively with behavior.
The Buddha said that what we perceive as an individual self is really just the
five skandhas or aggregates -> form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness.
Form - the physical form of our bodies as well as all material phenomena
Feeling - This feeling is different from emotions; rather,
feeling consists of the three ways we react to all thoughts or stimuli: positive, negative, and neutral.
Any type of experience we have, whether real or imagined, we have a positive reaction to it, a negative reaction, or are completely neutral toward it. These feelings reinforce habits, making us cling to the things and experiences we like while trying to avoid those we dislike.
The next aggregate is perception, or the mechanisms by which we recognize physical and mental objects. After perception comes volition, or the motivation to perform an action.
The last aggregate is consciousness, which interprets and applies concepts to both mental and physical stimuli. Consciousness then misinterprets the other aggregates as being one unified entity moving forward through time.
