Mental Gymnastics and Cognitive Dissonance: How Belief Formation Coping Mechanisms Resist Contradictory Evidence
The phrase “mental gymnastics” is often used colloquially to describe effortful reasoning that protects existing beliefs from disconfirming information. In clinical and cognitive science terms, this behavior frequently maps onto mechanisms such as cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and defensive attribution. Although belief in God is not, by itself, a psychiatric diagnosis, the psychological… Read More »