Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site linus.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!sidney From: sidney@linus.UUCP (Sidney Markowitz) Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Re: Re: cognitive dissonance on the net Message-ID: <383@linus.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-May-85 14:47:04 EDT Article-I.D.: linus.383 Posted: Fri May 17 14:47:04 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 04:21:36 EDT References: <6775@ucbvax.ARPA> <731@gloria.UUCP> <602@mnetor.UUCP> Reply-To: sidney@linus.UUCP (Sidney Markowitz) Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA Lines: 71 Summary: In article <602@mnetor.UUCP> sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) writes: > >Then somebody went on to propose that the reason women are upset after rape >is that during the rape, they get attached to their rapists who abandon them >afterwards, and are thus upset over the loss of this attachment rather than >over the actual violation. The idea is so offensive of course that its author >had to use pseudo-scientific language to make it sound more authoritative and >palatable. Fortunately, people noticed and reacted to it. So an alternate >theory, that of "cognitive dissonance" was proposed (I believe by Minsky, >although it is apparently a popular theory of victim psychology in psychology That's not quite the way I read it. (The originals are in the AIList Digest.) Minsky presented his theory (expressed in terms of underlying mechanisms) as to why the experience of rape is so powerful, devestating, long-lasting, emotionally charged, etc. One thing he didn't mention is that his theory is within the context of his "Society of Mind" model of intelligence, wherein the mind is considered as being made up of a network of independent interacting agents, each of which is to a greater or lesser degree less "intelligent" then the whole. The piece he posted is extracted from a discussion of emotion, in which he conjectures that the mental agents concerned with emotion are associated with long term goals. Those goals and plans that have to exist over long time periods are protected from being changed arbitrarily by being handled by agents that are slow to change and are less accessible to "conscious" introspection. Those are characteristics of aspects of psychology we call "personality" and "emotion". Minsky certainly wasn't arguing for anything that would minimize or trivialize the trauma of rape. He simply addressed the question of what is the underlying mechanism that leads to the trauma being so powerful and long-lasting, and what is the normal function of this mechanism. He speculated that there exist mental mechanisms to promote long-term bonding to mate and children. Some of the agents involved in these mechanisms would have characteristics related to deep emotional involvement and slowness to change. Some of the agents would be linked to agents involved in sexual activity. He suggested that this "attachment mechanism" might be *affected* by the experience of rape. Note that he did not say that a woman becomes attached to the rapist -- He said that a powerful mechanism designed to trigger long-term emotional bonding to family may be *affected* by the experience of rape in such a way that the trauma is experienced in a deep emotional fashion that is slow to change. Of course rape is horrible, evil, inexcusable and all those other things -- Even more so then other forms of violence, if the psychological effects are so profound. The phrase "cognitive dissonance" appeared a bit later -- I think it was used by someone attempting to explain Minsky's theory. "Cognitive dissonance" refers to a phenomena that occurs when one's perceptions contradict one's beliefs. Under some circumstances it can be quite disturbing, and the result can often be distortion of the perceptions to match the beliefs, along with an underlying emotional stress. To say that a woman who was raped experiences an attachment to the rapist along with cognitive dissonance about the attachment, is just plain silly -- And, yes, there are people who say that, just like there are people who try to put the rape victim on trial instead of the rapist. And those people deserve any and all invective that is thrown their way. However, reading the original postings I find that the term "cognitive dissonance" was used incorrectly in an otherwise correct explanation of Minsky's ideas. Some people then focused on this incorrect use of "cognitive dissonance" and the word "attachment" in "attachment mechanism" and interpreted what had been said as being the silly theory of woman-attached-to-the-rapist-and-feeling-guilty. Try reading the original AIList Digest postings with this interpretation and see if it fits the words any better. -- Sidney Markowitz ARPA: sidney@mitre-bedford UUCP: ...{allegra,decvax,genrad,ihnp4,philabs,security,utzoo}!linus!sidney