Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Social Influence

From the wikipedia link:

Postdecision dissonance

In a different type of experiment conducted by Jack Brehm, 225 female students rated a series of common appliances and were then allowed to choose one of two appliances to take home as a gift. A second round of ratings showed that the participants increased their ratings of the item they chose, and lowered their ratings of the rejected item.[8] This can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance. When making a difficult decision, there are always aspects of the rejected choice that one finds appealing and these features are dissonant with choosing something else. In other words, the cognition, "I chose X" is dissonant with the cognition, "There are some things I like about Y." More recent research has found similar results in four-year-old children and capuchin monkeys.[

ELIAS: “As I have stated, your beliefs are incorporated into everything that you do. Before you can shift your focus in any matter you must deal with your beliefs. Each time you create a shift or – better terminology – allow a shift of your focus you affect an existing belief. In many of you – correction – in all of you, you have incorporated beliefs over many developmental focuses.

“You did not only acquire all of your beliefs in this particular present focus. When you feel you have a blockage in some area you look to your influences as a child. This is only very partially correct. As I have told you, your lifetime spans many developmental focuses. You develop an affinity with certain belief systems throughout many developments. You reinforce them through these many developments.

“An example, which should be easy for you to assimilate into your present focus would be that in the area of religious beliefs. You repeat Christian beliefs over several developmental focuses. Even when you attempt to move away from these concepts and beliefs they are incorporated into your physical focus so deeply that they do not just remove themselves from you. It takes much work. It takes much noticing of these beliefs. This is sometimes difficult when you are not even aware of how deeply you have incorporated these beliefs.

“Religious beliefs, while being easy to identify with, are not your only belief systems. Your beliefs in how you interact with each other in relationships is another obvious belief system. There are many beliefs that you incorporate into your physical focus. These are only a few.

“The first element is to recognize when a belief is creating conflict between thought and feeling. You will understand when this conflict occurs. The way you will understand is that you will have to choose between a thought or a feeling. When you are in harmony and your beliefs are not creating conflict you will not have to choose between thoughts and feelings. This occurs every day of your focus.

“You may consider an exercise this week, in your terms. Each time you experience an impulse or an emotion, no matter how small, notice your thought patterns. Notice if they are in harmony. If they are not you will experience a pull. This pull will show itself in a manner of excusing, or invalidating, or rationalization. Sometimes you will not experience what you feel to be an emotion. You will only experience an impulse. Do not discount these impulses any more than you would an actual feeling. Is this clearer?”

VICKI: “Yes, I think it is clearer. A question: then these impulses are basically the same as the emotional feeling?”

ELIAS: “No. I am apologizing for misunderstanding. They are not always the same. You may experience impulses without a feeling. When you have an impulse to do something you do not necessarily feel something about it. Nonetheless an impulse is an urging of your essence. Sometimes you will experience a physical impulse. This would not be equated with an emotion. This does not mean it should not be recognized.

“When your body experiences natural impulses of natural physical functions you automatically listen. (Smiling) If you are thirsty you will drink. You will have no conflict with this because you will recognize then you will act automatically without thought on this impulse. This is the division – when you allow conflict between thought and natural impulse or emotion. This is when you experience confusion and discomfort. Is this clear?”

ELIAS: “Be listening to your impressions and be recognizing of your impulses, and DO NOT be denying of your impulses! This is your language to yourself from essence, and it is not harmful to you. It naturally moves you into the most efficient directions, but you are taught within your belief systems to be discounting of your impulses and to be suspect of your impulses, for they are bad. They are not! They are your natural language to yourself. Therefore, be listening to this language.” [session 294, July 01, 1998]

JOYCE: “... How do I recognize an impulse?”

ELIAS: “Ah! Impulses are expressed differently from impressions. Impressions may be translated by thought. Impulses are generally not translated by thought. They are a type of communication that you offer to yourself which generates an action automatically. You immediately respond to impulses.”

JOYCE: “Can you give me an example of something that I’ve responded to as an impulse so that I understand you?”

ELIAS: “I shall offer you a hypothetical example. You may be riding within your vehicle and you may in a moment turn and deviate from your original direction and perhaps choose to stop and enter a particular building. Perhaps we may incorporate a bookstore.

“Now; this may not have been initially within your plan, so to speak, and you may not actually incorporate much thinking concerning what you are actually doing. In that action, you may be incorporating a time framework in which you have distracted yourself.

“Now; recognize that you may be merely allowing yourself to be following this impulse to stop, to move into this bookstore and distract yourself momentarily, and not think about why you have incorporated that action. Subsequently, you may re-enter your vehicle and continue in the direction that you had originally planned, and perhaps you shall pass a collision upon your street, which were you to have not distracted yourself momentarily you may have been involving yourself in that collision.

“Now; impulses do not always divert you from some action that may be uncomfortable. At times you may incorporate the action of responding to an impulse and perhaps present yourself with information or interactions unexpectedly which may be quite valuable – not that the other action is not valuable also, but in what you may recognize within your beliefs to be a positive expression. Impulses are recognized in action, action that is not translated or necessarily questioned by thought.” [session 1300, March 23, 2003]

Elias “gems”

ELIAS: “Your goal, so to speak, is to incorporate no conflict. Therefore, listening to your impulses, to your impressions, to your self, and heeding what your self expresses to you, will allow you no conflict; but as you do not listen, you incorporate much conflict!

CHRIS: It’s hard when you have so much fear, you know, you have one side of you saying ‘Don’t fear, go ahead, you can do this, you can do anything you want,’ and the other side you have, ‘You have to pay the rent, you have to do this.’ You have all of those other belief systems banging and creating conflict, and then you just kind of ...

ELIAS: This is correct, and this is where your conflict lies now; this being what may distract your motivation. If you are allowing your fear to be influencing you, your motivation will diminish, and once again, you will deviate from your intent; and in this, be remembering, you will incorporate conflict; but if you are chancing trusting, you will be moving effortlessly and incorporating no conflict! You are so blinded to your probabilities that you believe that the pay-off that you receive presently is the most pay-off that you may receive! What you do not realize is that as you move effortlessly in trusting of yourself, and listening to yourself, and letting go of fear, your pay-off increases!” [session 66, January 14, 1996]

ELIAS: “And what shall you gain if Elias instructs, ‘Go to this child,’ and you hastily run to this child? What belief systems have you engaged and widened? You have blindly followed words; just as I do not express to Rudy [Jene] what he asks of many, ‘In which direction shall I proceed?’ Within the direction that you choose for you! Do not be concerned, as I speak also with Sari [Cecelia], of what others express, or how they may view your action. Trust yourself. Listen to your impulses and intuition. You shall not betray yourself! Another may view that you shall betray them, within their perception; but you shall not betray yourself!

RON: How do you know if you’re listening to and trusting an impulse, or if you’re just following a belief system?

ELIAS: All of your focus is influenced by belief systems. You may not separate belief systems from your focus. Therefore, you may not express one or another. They are intertwined; although within your expression to yourself, you shall hear that small voice within you.

Each individual holds some element that they identify; their inner self, their small voice, their red flags, their urgings, their feelings, their leanings. Each individual holds these undefinable elements, within themselves, that they choose consistently to be distrustful of, for they are taught to not be trusting of these elements; but as you widen, you are learning to be trustful of these elements, and to be knowing that this small voice, this leaning, this feeling, a sensing, as Michael [Mary] now terms, is, in actuality, you speaking to you, which you may trust.

Therefore, where your confusion lies is that your inner voice, your sensing or urging or leaning, may choose one direction; and all about you may express another. Therefore, you distrust the one and favor the many. Therein lies the expression of the impulse, and the expression of the belief systems.

You are gaining strength in your trustfulness within yourselves, but you still pull back. If your ‘odds seem quite stacked,’ within your perception, against your very small little voice, you automatically change and lean to the many. ‘I must certainly be incorrect; for how may so many hold one idea, and I alone hold another?’ The many hold the accepted belief systems.

The individual, ALWAYS THE INDIVIDUAL – if you are transcribing this, capitalize these words completely – ALWAYS THE INDIVIDUAL holds the inner voice, the communication, the opposition to the belief system, the inner knowing. Whether you choose to be listening and engaging the lion’s den or not is your option, but you may trust that leaning or sensing within yourself.

I shall express to you also that when you offer yourselves continuous repeated information, you are expressing an element to yourself that you are refusing to be viewing. If you are choosing a direction, and you are holding a sensing or a knowing or a communication inside, you hold an awareness; and if you are discounting of this, your self will communicate to you, continued; and also, in degree, to what you view within your belief systems to be of its valued importance. If you view belief systems and the moving through of them to be important, you shall engage them. If, within these belief systems, you view elements to be of great importance, and you hold an inner awareness of direction with regard to these belief systems, but you are continuing to be denying of this direction, you shall also continue to confront yourself with this issue; for you have chosen this.

If you are continuing to be viewing without, and attempting to mold yourself to the accepted belief systems that you yourself have held and now challenge, you have engaged yourself; and within agreement to yourself, you will continue to present this issue to yourself. When you hear, audibly, yourself expressing, ‘I experience or I feel within me this element, but I choose another element, for this is more acceptable,’ your red flags shall be waving! You will be offering to yourself your clues that you are responding contrary to your agreement with self, to be connecting with essence and following.” [session 101, June 24, 1996]

ELIAS: “The question has been posed, ‘What is our world coming to?’ (Humorously, grinning) The statements have been made in the direction that you are surely headed for annihilation! Your societies seem to be traveling swiftly downward! You view catastrophic events occurring throughout your world, all around you; which, within your perception, seems to be escalating as your ‘time’ passes.

We have spoken of pools of consciousness previously, to which you collectively tap into’ within certain centuries, manifesting your alignment with Source Events that correlate within those centuries. Within this century, you all engage this action also; connecting within consciousness, forming pools of consciousness, manifesting your intent for this present. Within this particular century, and continuing with our mass events, you have chosen to be escalating certain elements of your expressions.

You also are perceiving differently. Just as we have spoken of mass events and individual events, and how individual events reflect mass events, now you may view, within your perception, the reverse; looking to yourselves, examining your expressions and creations within your physical focus, and correlate these with mass expressions appearing within your time frame. As you widen, you allow your perception to change. You notice more of the unofficial expressions; this being part of your periphery. (To Vicki, grinning) Yes, we shall enter this subject once again, Lawrence [Vicki]!

Within your perception, you view mass events to be more violent within your present times; more chaotic, more leaning towards your destruction. In actuality, the events are only altered by your development of your technology and your focus; therefore allowing you a greater range of expression. Whereas within your past history, individuals needed to travel physically to accomplish what you perceive to be violent acts, now within your present time frame, actual individuals need not be present; for you have developed technology to replace individual action with technological action, which may facilitate acts for you. In this, you have also developed more efficient methods of gaining your attention.

Let me express to you that also within mass consciousness, just as within individual consciousness and expressions, countries and cultures express repressed desires and emotions, as do you individually. As we have spoken previously of repressed impulses, ignored impulses, blocked energy, these elements must be expressed within one direction or another; for energy is continuously within motion, and within your physical focus and your element of time thickness, this is what you have created; for your expressions to be manifest physically. Therefore, within mass consciousness, there are elements ignored and also repressed, which express themselves in what you view to be undesirable areas. Just as you may be creating your geysers by not allowing your attention to your impulses, within mass consciousness you also create geysers. These are not always expressed within your natural elements of weather conditions, atmospheric conditions, or Earth conditions. Many times, actions are expressed as pressure valves, which you view to be negative. This, throughout your history, has been expressed. It is perceived differently now.” [session 107, July 28, 1996]

ELIAS: “When you are dealing with base belief systems, irregardless of other individuals! I have expressed to you previously, these are difficult areas. I have expressed to you, within our most recent session, our understanding of the difficulty of engagement of these base belief systems, and offered reasoning for allowance within these areas; for it is understood the difficulty experienced.

VICKI: And then we would get back down to the original questions a year ago about impulses, and how to identify them and whether or not they’re impulses or they’re attached to belief systems, or all of that stuff. Even within one singular physically focused event, one can bring up a lot of things to one’s self.

ELIAS: We have engaged our game for much of your time element. Within this present moment, not one individual within our small group truly identifies true impressions or impulses. You allow yourselves the opportunity to practice, but you do not truly understand what you are practicing with! You have still not identified what you are connecting with; this being why we continue with our game!

more here..
[link to www.eliasforum.org]
VICKI: “Yes, that helps a lot.”

for importance

Yeah good info OP.

Thanks !

for continious relevance

[link to matrixofconspiracy.blogspot.com]

Not sure what you are saying here but I have nothing to do with the site or staff.

Never said you did. Cognitive dissonance is staring you in the face. Your not recognizing that and your response are interesting.

Excellent!

My vote for post of the day.

It might get pinned if you added something about how it caused the swine flu epidemic.

yeh.. I did note that there was something up with the place..
That's why I posted the topic.. lots and lots of examples of conflicting beliefs in just about every thread.

That's what I was hoping for. Haha. Am I not banned yet?

Soly Hhit! I'll get banned for this. I get banned every time I post anyway.

Any and everyone on this board should read this:

[link to www.tena-sda.org (secure)]

It appears that Trinity is jack_frost

The Test and Training Enabling Architecture, TENA, Offers Range Interoperability and Resource Reuse Solutions

By

Gene Hudgins (Primary)
TENA Software Development Activity (SDA) 557 Mary Esther Cut-Off
Ft Walton Beach FL 32548
850.244.7765 (Voice) 850.244.7590 (FAX)

jack_frost
TENA SDA Deputy Director
201 West Eglin Blvd, Suite 258
Eglin AFB FL 32542
850-882-8169

Introduction

Today, our warfighters test and train mostly on the geographically dispersed Department of Defense (DoD) land, sea, and air test and training ranges that are scattered across the United States from border to border and ocean to ocean. Today’s military test and training events range from individual systems under test, to small-unit maneuvering, to large-scale Joint Services exercises, such as the United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) events conducted in 2005 where simulated and constructive and live-fire events were blended to enact representative scenarios spread across several states. Data collected during these events, whether from a maneuvering tank platoon, or the employment of armor and infantry divisions and hundreds of aircraft sorties, provides weapon systems evaluation and validation, and perhaps more importantly, can quickly and definitively illuminate any necessary improvements to ensure effective and safe weapon system operation and training. This data also invariably affects almost every aspect of range operation and management, including budget definition and approval.

While the early evolution of range data collection and analysis systems resulted in a vertical “stovepipe” growth of the instrumentation and instrumentation suites, there has been recent movement toward the advantages brought to range systems by the concepts of range interoperability and range resource reuse, concepts that allow for taking easy advantage of the growth in modeling and simulation and its revolutionary application to training, concepts that were being forwarded in the late 1990s by the Foundation Initiative 2010 (FI 2010) project, which was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program (CTEIP).

Interoperability is the characteristic of an independently developed software element that enables it to work together with other elements toward a common goal. Interoperability focuses on what is common among software elements. Reuse is the ability to use a software element in a context for which it was not originally designed, so reuse focuses on the multiple uses of a single element and requires well-documented interfaces. To achieve interoperability, a common architecture, an ability to meaningfully communicate (including a common language and a common communication mechanism), and a common context (including the environment and time) must be present. To bring the efficiency and economic advantages of interoperability and reuse to the DoD test and training ranges, FI 2010 developed the Test and Training Enabling Architecture, TENA. The FI 2010 program completed the initial interoperability and reuse efforts in early Fiscal Year 2005, and the continuing interoperability and reuse refinement of TENA is now managed by the TENA Software Development Activity (TENA SDA).

[link to www.tena-sda.org (secure)]

Anybody going to give him a call?

for time to read this

this goes off the front page?

The impulses to blame others or an outside agency for any shit that happens in your reality that are almost involuntary or that you are powerless against, are a good sign there is some conflicting beliefs hiding away.

Most everybody's got conflicting beliefs, myself included. Well if you have any humanity left. But that doesn't negate the truth of a conspiracy. Conspiracies are everywhere! In at least 1 out of 3 small towns, planning boards, police officers, on and on it goes. I'm interested in this one. I don't blame anybody for anything.

I'm not looking to get offed so ok, Im good and done. I think I got my answers. This place gives them to you if you listen. I can see the conflicts and reason how it probably is. anybody wants to get out and want to do the interview, I'm here. Haha. A contribution to Ron Paul is some cognitive diso? See it might not be all bad. But it is to big for me. Im good because Im out and big and loudly loved. later on this thing. Who knows whats true and whats not? My evil is im done.

The ones that are there that sort of jump out at you can be dealt with rather easily, the ones you have been carrying around since childhood that have allowed the whole mish-mash of conflicting beliefs to form solidly around them, they are the main ones we all need to uncover.

The visible ones if ignored though can lead to emotional baggage ,psychosis.. depression..etc

Reading time here too!

Good info. I did a report on this in the sixties. Next time you might want to break it up a little smaller for general consumption.

Say one thing ~ do another.

Feel one way and yet act to please another.

Honesty begins at home. First step. Be honest with yourSELF.

Ask yourself WHY you feel or think one way and yet act contrary to your own feelings and thoughts. Is it expected of you? WHO expects it? Why cater to an "outsider" instead of the voice "within"? Have you been programmed to think your own voice is incorrect, or even worse, evil?

GOOD THREAD!

Thanks..

There is no real short easy way to explain it really..like so many things the words only really scrape the surface of what is happening.

I can try and summarise...

Fix that limiting Cognitive Dissonance ,find your conflicting beliefs via an inner journey that you can make and then change those beliefs by harmonising the dichotomised interpretations we have embedded from childhood that are based on fear to an integrated version making the dualism of the two beliefs become one with beliefs based on unconditional love.

Good point, Mu1ti!

Most fairytales and works of fiction have ^this^ as their themes. Taking journeys to discover SELF. The road always has bad guys on it to which the the Main Character must confront and overcome in order to "win". The funny thing is that all the Antagonists are merely splintered aspects of the Main Character (Protagonist) that need to be integrated into the SELF rather than be slain. Me and my Shadow Syndrome, if you will.

We really ARE our own worst enemy. AND our own HERO, too! :-)

Hey mate!
Last time I saw 'wizard of oz' that very thing whacked me about the head like a wet fish.

The wizard behind the curtain and all the characters.. and even what he ends up granting them !

Nice point.

Namste

It's so easy to love your neighbor when you never talk to them.

Regarding which part?

unconditional love?

The teaching is all about it..

but the part about only being able to love the neighbour as much as you are able to love yourself unconditionally, was left out.