What makes them so unyielding; so absolutely certain about their beliefs?
Johnson: Your question gets at the nitty-gritty of dogmatism. What people believe is of much less significance than why and how they develop and hold their beliefs. There are many contributing psychological factors that influence why people become dogmatic – the trait is multidimensional. My book explores the why and how of dogmatism by summarizing various ideas, including contributions from many personality theorists, evolutionary psychology, social learning theory, biology, and neuroscience. Few of us understand how extremely difficult it is to stretch our thinking as far as humanly possible, especially about beliefs that touch us deeply. It’s easy to do a demolition act on that with which we disagree and then feel smugly superior or self-righteous about our views. It’s also easy to acknowledge the importance of being broad minded and act as if we’re open to new ideas and value collaboration. But when faced with difficult social problems, do we know how to listen – fully listen such
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