Cushman usefully highlights the ubiquity and utility of rationalization processes. His account also reinforces an important and often-missed point: Rationalization provides a clear case of processing that is often unconscious but is nonetheless rationalistic, that is, involves a complex sense-making structure rather than mere association. The concept of representational exchange has many possible applications, offering to illuminate a wide array of phenomena beyond Cushman's key example of rationalization. This key example, however, does not in fact seem suited to illustrate the function of representational exchange.
Cognitive dissonance, in particular, does not have the function of increasing or repackaging knowledge about the world, ourselves, or our actions. Unconscious changes of attitudes to reduce dissonance are fundamentally self-serving. Aronson (Reference Aronson1969; Reference Aronson1992) argued that dissonance reduction minimizes damage to the self-concept, which comprises the beliefs that we are good, that we are competent, and that we are stable. The negatively valenced feeling of dissonance arises when evidence contradicts these core beliefs, and rationalization occurs when we shift our attitudes to eliminate the contradiction in a way that preserves self-esteem.
The dissonance literature is full of such effects. Classic effects like effort justification (Aronson & Mills Reference Aronson and Mills1959) and the spreading of alternatives (Brehm Reference Brehm1956) arise out of a felt need to defang evidence of our own incompetence in decision making. Crucially, rationalistic dissonance reduction is modulated by self-esteem: For example, subjects who choose to shock a person who answers questions incorrectly assuage dissonance by reducing liking for that person, but not if their self-esteem has just been lowered (Glass Reference Glass1964). More recently, the consumer research literature shows that meat eaters experience dissonance due to liking animals. If you're asked whether cows have emotions, having eaten beef jerky a moment before will lower your belief compared to subjects who ate cashews (Loughnan et al. Reference Loughnan, Haslam and Bastian2010). The fact that I eat beef is not a good reason to think cows can't experience happiness, and the mechanism that underwrites this belief change does not seem to be a rationally good one.
Cushman pointedly asks what the “ultimate, adaptive” function of cognitive dissonance is. One answer that captures the irrational nature of dissonance reduction is: the preservation of stable motivation and avoidance of depression. Gilbert (Reference Gilbert2006) posits a complex psychological immune system to allow humans to stay happy and motivated in the face of adversity. Mandelbaum (Reference Mandelbaum2019) places dissonance, qua mechanism to avoid damage to the self-concept, at the center of this immune system. Why have a psychological immune system rather than pure rational updating? A perfectly rational updater saddled with human foibles and drives may not end up liking itself very much. The threat of depression and loss of motivation under such circumstances is stark. Cognitive dissonance is a drive state that pushes us to reorient our beliefs in ways that keep our self-esteem up, even when we are irrational, unstable, or immoral, and thereby keep ourselves motivated by avoiding the awful truth.
Viewing rationalization from the standpoint of the psychological immune system helps us make sense of evidence that is puzzling from the standpoint of Cushman's rationalism. For Cushman, rationalization helps us extract and repackage information about the mental causes of our actions. But dissonance effects can be quite distant from present actions and are filtered through our self-images in ways that pull us away from the truth. Merely being reminded of vegetarianism causes meat eaters to decrease belief in animal minds (Rothgerber Reference Rothgerber2014). Moreover, meat eaters are often driven to endorse a range of beliefs known as the “four Ns”: meat-eating is necessary, normal, natural, and nice (Piazza et al. Reference Piazza, Ruby, Loughnan, Luong, Kulik, Watkins and Seigerman2015). Meat-eating is tied to masculinity (Rozin et al. Reference Rozin, Hormes, Faith and Wansink2012), and men are correspondingly more likely to endorse the four Ns (Piazza et al. Reference Piazza, Ruby, Loughnan, Luong, Kulik, Watkins and Seigerman2015). Watching a video detailing the animal suffering involved in meat production causes men not only to increase belief in the four Ns, but also to increase their commitment to eating meat (Dowsett et al. Reference Dowsett, Semmler, Bray, Ankeny and Chur-Hansen2018). The fact that a practice is incorporated into a person's identity makes them more motivated to adjust their attitudes to let themselves off the hook when confronted with the immorality of that practice.
These cases of dissonance reduction seem geared more toward preserving our belief in our own moral goodness despite evidence to the contrary than toward the extraction of roughly accurate information about the world or ourselves. Without self-flattering rationalization, those of us who eat meat but dislike animal suffering would have to do the hard work of changing our diet or else come to the depressing realization that we are morally compromised. This problem applies quite generally. Apportioning beliefs about our actions and their psychological origins to the evidence may cause us to downgrade beliefs in our own competence and morality, threatening emotional and motivational stability. And indeed, the “illusion of control” is more common among healthy patients than depressive patients, who are less likely to overestimate their own control (Alloy & Abramson Reference Alloy and Abramson1979; Moore & Fresco Reference Moore and Fresco2012). These results tentatively suggest that rationalization can be undercut by depression, facilitating truth – and representational exchange – but endangering motivation (modulo the negative biases that also accompany depression; Beck Reference Beck2008). Other unconscious processes of attitude change that aim at minimizing negative affect and preserving motivation through irrational means can also be found in the terror management literature (Pyszczynski et al. Reference Pyszczynski, Solomon and Greenberg2015). These various effects suggest a common immunodefensive function of avoiding negative affect and maintaining motivation in the face of one's flaws and inevitable demise, carried out through a variety of processes including dissonance-based rationalization.
Cushman's important target article helpfully refocuses attention on rationalization but neglects its self-serving nature. The unconscious rationalization processes underlying dissonance reduction function not to exchange information across systems, but to preserve motivation and avoid depression through protecting our image of ourselves by any irrational means necessary.
Cushman usefully highlights the ubiquity and utility of rationalization processes. His account also reinforces an important and often-missed point: Rationalization provides a clear case of processing that is often unconscious but is nonetheless rationalistic, that is, involves a complex sense-making structure rather than mere association. The concept of representational exchange has many possible applications, offering to illuminate a wide array of phenomena beyond Cushman's key example of rationalization. This key example, however, does not in fact seem suited to illustrate the function of representational exchange.
Cognitive dissonance, in particular, does not have the function of increasing or repackaging knowledge about the world, ourselves, or our actions. Unconscious changes of attitudes to reduce dissonance are fundamentally self-serving. Aronson (Reference Aronson1969; Reference Aronson1992) argued that dissonance reduction minimizes damage to the self-concept, which comprises the beliefs that we are good, that we are competent, and that we are stable. The negatively valenced feeling of dissonance arises when evidence contradicts these core beliefs, and rationalization occurs when we shift our attitudes to eliminate the contradiction in a way that preserves self-esteem.
The dissonance literature is full of such effects. Classic effects like effort justification (Aronson & Mills Reference Aronson and Mills1959) and the spreading of alternatives (Brehm Reference Brehm1956) arise out of a felt need to defang evidence of our own incompetence in decision making. Crucially, rationalistic dissonance reduction is modulated by self-esteem: For example, subjects who choose to shock a person who answers questions incorrectly assuage dissonance by reducing liking for that person, but not if their self-esteem has just been lowered (Glass Reference Glass1964). More recently, the consumer research literature shows that meat eaters experience dissonance due to liking animals. If you're asked whether cows have emotions, having eaten beef jerky a moment before will lower your belief compared to subjects who ate cashews (Loughnan et al. Reference Loughnan, Haslam and Bastian2010). The fact that I eat beef is not a good reason to think cows can't experience happiness, and the mechanism that underwrites this belief change does not seem to be a rationally good one.
Cushman pointedly asks what the “ultimate, adaptive” function of cognitive dissonance is. One answer that captures the irrational nature of dissonance reduction is: the preservation of stable motivation and avoidance of depression. Gilbert (Reference Gilbert2006) posits a complex psychological immune system to allow humans to stay happy and motivated in the face of adversity. Mandelbaum (Reference Mandelbaum2019) places dissonance, qua mechanism to avoid damage to the self-concept, at the center of this immune system. Why have a psychological immune system rather than pure rational updating? A perfectly rational updater saddled with human foibles and drives may not end up liking itself very much. The threat of depression and loss of motivation under such circumstances is stark. Cognitive dissonance is a drive state that pushes us to reorient our beliefs in ways that keep our self-esteem up, even when we are irrational, unstable, or immoral, and thereby keep ourselves motivated by avoiding the awful truth.
Viewing rationalization from the standpoint of the psychological immune system helps us make sense of evidence that is puzzling from the standpoint of Cushman's rationalism. For Cushman, rationalization helps us extract and repackage information about the mental causes of our actions. But dissonance effects can be quite distant from present actions and are filtered through our self-images in ways that pull us away from the truth. Merely being reminded of vegetarianism causes meat eaters to decrease belief in animal minds (Rothgerber Reference Rothgerber2014). Moreover, meat eaters are often driven to endorse a range of beliefs known as the “four Ns”: meat-eating is necessary, normal, natural, and nice (Piazza et al. Reference Piazza, Ruby, Loughnan, Luong, Kulik, Watkins and Seigerman2015). Meat-eating is tied to masculinity (Rozin et al. Reference Rozin, Hormes, Faith and Wansink2012), and men are correspondingly more likely to endorse the four Ns (Piazza et al. Reference Piazza, Ruby, Loughnan, Luong, Kulik, Watkins and Seigerman2015). Watching a video detailing the animal suffering involved in meat production causes men not only to increase belief in the four Ns, but also to increase their commitment to eating meat (Dowsett et al. Reference Dowsett, Semmler, Bray, Ankeny and Chur-Hansen2018). The fact that a practice is incorporated into a person's identity makes them more motivated to adjust their attitudes to let themselves off the hook when confronted with the immorality of that practice.
These cases of dissonance reduction seem geared more toward preserving our belief in our own moral goodness despite evidence to the contrary than toward the extraction of roughly accurate information about the world or ourselves. Without self-flattering rationalization, those of us who eat meat but dislike animal suffering would have to do the hard work of changing our diet or else come to the depressing realization that we are morally compromised. This problem applies quite generally. Apportioning beliefs about our actions and their psychological origins to the evidence may cause us to downgrade beliefs in our own competence and morality, threatening emotional and motivational stability. And indeed, the “illusion of control” is more common among healthy patients than depressive patients, who are less likely to overestimate their own control (Alloy & Abramson Reference Alloy and Abramson1979; Moore & Fresco Reference Moore and Fresco2012). These results tentatively suggest that rationalization can be undercut by depression, facilitating truth – and representational exchange – but endangering motivation (modulo the negative biases that also accompany depression; Beck Reference Beck2008). Other unconscious processes of attitude change that aim at minimizing negative affect and preserving motivation through irrational means can also be found in the terror management literature (Pyszczynski et al. Reference Pyszczynski, Solomon and Greenberg2015). These various effects suggest a common immunodefensive function of avoiding negative affect and maintaining motivation in the face of one's flaws and inevitable demise, carried out through a variety of processes including dissonance-based rationalization.
Cushman's important target article helpfully refocuses attention on rationalization but neglects its self-serving nature. The unconscious rationalization processes underlying dissonance reduction function not to exchange information across systems, but to preserve motivation and avoid depression through protecting our image of ourselves by any irrational means necessary.