Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Mass Media & Mental Health

I’m gradually drawing a hypothesis that mass media has normalized suspended cognitive development to such a degree that the media refers to sub- Concrete Operational cognitive development as a normal ideology in competition with Formal Operational cognitive development. Referring to these disparate levels of thinking as “conservative” and “progressive” and making “centrism” some kind of twisted version of common sense.

Various theories on Cognitive Development

While researching cognitive development, I began to notice that a vast number of adults seem to be operating at less than an adult cognitive capacity.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but as I read, more symptoms became clear.

  • Lack of empathy for anyone outside of one’s own family and circle of friends.
  • Unable to contemplate long-term or wider degree of effect their decisions have on people around them.
  • Susceptible to logical fallacies, cognitive biases, weasel words, distortions of the truth, lies and deception. Gullible.
  • Low situational and emotional awareness. Unwilling or incapable of at least trying to imagine the perspectives of other cultures or ideologies.
  • Susceptible to creeping normality. Incapable of recognizing subtle warning signs that there is a growing threat to one’s way of life.
  • Defers obsequiously to perceived authority without question. Extremely loyal and subservient, regardless of the consequences.
  • Lives a dogmatic lifestyle. Incapable of adapting to change or to change one’s mind when presented new information, or to admit to being wrong.
  • Selfish and opportunistic at the expense of other people and the environment.
  • Ego-Syntonic: Despite the negative consequences, believes that one’s behavior is normal.
  • Weak Self-Esteem: Narcissism, obsesses over one’s own social status compared to other people in order to feel better about one’s self. Bigotry, racism, sexism, and conspicuous consumption are factors.
  • While driving, loathes other drivers merging into one’s lane in front of them despite proper signaling and distance. Sees driving on the street as some sort of competition. Tends to tailgate other drivers.
Zones of Interpersonal Interaction are often
regulated by cult leaders but mostly
conditioned internal authority managed
by your religious beliefs or Xenophobia.
  • Xenophobic: Paranoid about strangers and active seekers of threats. Sees conspiracies in most situations involving people one does not know who are wealthier or more well-off or more powerful than one’s self, like the government.
  • There is probably more...

The normalization of this behavior by the media can only be exposed through learning Critical Thinking Skills. Understanding the effects of weasel words, logical fallacies and cognitive biases. Spending more time out of your comfort zone getting to know people.

Examples:

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Mass Media and the GI Joe Fallacy

I just added this to the list of cognitive biases at the Google site. Our empathy and Mirror Neurons are the Indirect Operant Conditioning pathways into our subconscious minds, and our biases and fallacies are the weakest points.

G.I.Joe Fallacy : “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle” is a falsehood when it comes to knowing that you have cognitive biases, because cognitive biases and logical fallacies are reinforced by mass media deploying Operant Conditioning.

Advertising, fictional literature and cinema, reinforce our cognitive biases every day by showing us behaviors in characters that respond to biases and fallacies with what seems like logical outcomes. We subconsciously infer these behaviors to be normal responses.

Therefore, despite knowing our biases and fallacies, we soon forget as we are continuously bombarded by mass media.





Tuesday, January 2, 2018

The Separation of Truth and Power

Morality is made up of empathy, fairness, and reason. If you have those skills you should feel guilty for not telling the truth. Part of the sociopathy diagnosis includes lacking empathy and fairness. Other conditions can then be applied, such as Narcissism and Megalomania.

People in power can develop contempt for journalism and refuse to be interviewed, but this contempt seems to have developed almost quantifiable stages of extremes to the point where someone such as the United States Ambassador to The Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, apparently has contempt for the media to such a degree that can only best be described by other sources here, as I myself have few words:
The news media, also known as the 4th Estate, serve to educate the public so they can make informed civic choices, but the public has grown cynical of the news media and cynical of congress, to such a degree that the majority of the public does not vote.