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From: mim@ihnp3.UUCP (M. K. Fenlon)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: cognitive dissonance on the net
Message-ID: <129@ihnp3.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 17:33:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnp3.129
Posted: Thu May 16 17:33:20 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 17-May-85 05:07:58 EDT
References: <6775@ucbvax.ARPA> <731@gloria.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 33

> ["Who invited those Daleks?"]
> 
> Has anybody been following the ARPA ai.digests lately?  I just tuned in,
> and some contributors have apparently been upsetting people by applying
> a faddish theory of emotions to rapes.
> 
> I missed the dawn of that discussion and should like to know what is
> going on.  Somebody has made the remarkable assertion that anxiety
> (in general?) is caused by "cognitive dissonance," which I presume
> is A.I.ese (Minskyese?) for learning that one of your beliefs is false.
> 
> This may indeed be the only thing that causes some scientists anxiety :-)
> but it hardly applies to people in general, either the rule or the
> exception.  I'm being to suspect that A.I. researchers are getting
> nowhere studying emotions because they don't have any. ...
> -- 
> Col. G. L. Sicherman
> ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel

The term cognitive dissonance refers to the behavior of making
reasons for something when it does not fit into ones prior 
cognitive field. The term was first used by Festinger and can
be found in social psychology research. The application of the
term to individual cases is likely poor. But why is rape
being discussed under ai? I have little time to keep up
with topics on the net, but it would be nice to see more
correlation between subject and content of news groups. If
someone has a well designed and implemented research study
from the field of psychology that has implications for ai,
then it fits in the topic group otherwise put it elsewhere.

				MK Fenlon