Cognitive dissonance is the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings even when those findings can save our lives. The cognitive dissonance ...

In 1934, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake hit eastern India, killing thousands and devastating several cities. Curiously, in areas that were spared the worst destruction, stories soon spread that an even ...

Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several ...

Cognitive dissonance, or having conflicting attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, is affecting how people respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent article for The Atlantic, social scientists Elliot ...

This is the 14th article in the Behavioral Finance and Macroeconomics series exploring the effect behavior has on markets and the economy as a whole and how advisors who understand this relationship ...

Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions, thoughts or beliefs that are psychologically inconsistent with a person’s behavior. Cognitive ...

Conversation among us is peppered with observations of the division within the American population. The division is revealed in a number of forms. It may be the acknowledgement of the political gap ...

Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions, thoughts or beliefs that are psychologically inconsistent with a person’s behavior. Cognitive ...

Perhaps you remember the story of William Miller, the Baptist preacher who predicted that Jesus Christ’s second coming would occur on Oct. 22, 1844. When the advent failed to occur as Miller foretold, ...

Do you keep second-guessing your decisions after you’ve made them? Immobilizing yourself? Berating yourself when you finally decide on something? This can be a normal albeit painful way to make ...