Cognitive Dissonance and Mask Refusal

[MineralMan]

We're seeing angry people who are not wearing masks and who are doing so in very ugly ways. Some are even confronting mask-wearers with insults and worse.

Why is that?

The reason behind that vehemence and insulting behavior is actually fear-based. When a person who refuses to wear a mask for political reasons sees people around him or her who are wearing masks, he or she might react by recognizing that not wearing a mask puts him or her at risk of contracting COVID-19.

So, on one hand, such people refuse to wear a mask because Donald Trump refuses to do so, but at the same time they see people who are protecting themselves and others by wearing masks and practicing social distancing. It's pretty much impossible not to recognize the threat that the virus represents. But, political positions demand that they not wear them themselves. Denial is difficult out there, it seems.

Cognitive dissonance. Seeing people wearing protective masks creates fear in people who are not wearing them for political reasons. That fear and the recognition that they are literally risking their lives by not wearing masks creates an internal conflict. The anger, yelling, and actual attacks that occur happen because of that cognitive dissonance.

They can't put on a mask, so they get angry at those who do wear them.

It's fascinating to see, while being frightening at the same time.

Me? I have a mask on in public places. Since I'm a 6' tall, 200 lb., bearded white man, though, nobody has gotten up in my face about my mask. Why? Because people are cautious about confronting me with such things. It's easier to yell at some 16-year-old girl behind an ice cream counter. That's another cognitive dissonance situation for non-maskers.

[bluedye33139]

1. I think they also backed themselves into a paranoid corner

"I refuse to wear a mask because I'm a Republican. Therefore, everyone wearing a mask must be a Democrat." And then they feel isolated, threatened, oppressed.

Trump supporters run psyops on themselves.

[tanyev]

6. Yep, completely reflexive. "If the libs are for it, then I'm agin it"

[Wounded Bear]

2. Anger is a secondary emotion, not a primary one...

usually triggered by fear in some form.

[MineralMan]

3. That's true, of course.

It is the internal dissonance, though, that makes anger the reaction, I think.

[Wounded Bear]

4. People who lack sublety will tend to anger quicker...

because they don't know other ways to express their real feelings.

It's very childish.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The anger is the weird thing. If I'm wearing a mask and you're not,

why should you be angry at me? My wearing a mask doesn't hurt you; if I've got the bug it actually helps you, so what's your beef with me? I should be mad at you! Why not just shrug, figure if I want to be hot and uncomfortable in that thing that's my business, and walk away?

You might have identified a cause of these weirdly angry reactions - the conflict between emulating Dear Leader (which means accepting the hoax/only-the-flu notion for ideological reasons), and the lurking dread that it could actually be a thing and the reports of thousands of deaths might be true - but it might also be anger at the mere presence of someone who does not follow Dear Leader. To some, wearing a mask is the equivalent of wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. It's evidence that you are not one of them and that you do not believe the utterances of Dear Leader - in other words, you're a liberal and therefore a heretic.

[central scrutinizer]

7. Spot on

I think you nailed it with your last two sentences.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Not wearing a mask is a political statment for them, so they assume

that you are also making a political statement by wearing one, when all you're really doing is being a responsible citizen while trying to save your own ass.