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[Aug. 29th, 2008|04:35 pm] |
...people under a heightened need for closure may seize on information appearing early in a sequence and freeze on it, becoming impervious to subsequent data.
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Because of the tendency to seize on early information and immediately freeze, people under a heightened need for closure may process less information before committing to a judgment and generate fewer competing hypotheses to account for the available data. Paradoxically, they may feel more assured of those judgments, even though they are less grounded in thorough exploration. Specifically, the less competing hypotheses a person might entertain, the more confidence he or she may have in those hypotheses (Kelley, 1971) simply because fewer alternatives to a given judgment may appear plausible, enhancing the individual's confidence in those that are. Kruglanski A.W., Webster D.M. Motivated Closing of the Mind: "Seizing and Freezing." Psychological Review, 1996, Vol. 103, No. 2, 263-283.
A war, especially one that involves one's own country, brings a heightened need for closure. People, naturally, are very interested in finding out who's winning, how fair the war is, who the enemy is, its intensity, and etc. Due of social pressure, e.g. explicit or implicit demand to choose sides, they have to make up their minds. As soon as they have enough information for a specific [desired] closure, they "seize and freeze" on it. ("Услышал Ты, Господи, молитвы мои."). After that, people tend to seek information that confirms the closure, while rejecting everything that contradicts it. Remarkably, groups of people that receive information during different stages of the same conflict may end up with completely different closure states ( depending on when they started receiving the news). E.g. for many Russians, the war in Georgia is largely associated with its first stage, i.e. attack on Tshinvalli; while for many outside of Russia the same war is linked to the bombing of key Georgian towns and villages. In addition to that, Russians abroad who felt more detached toward the situation, got exposed to a greater variety of sources and conflicting opinions. ( noted here: дискуссии по поводу грцзино-российских событий куда интереснее и осмысленее в ЖЖ тех юзеров, что живут за пределами России.). |
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