Actor Based Thinking
As a psychologist I'm surprised that I believe I've identified a kind of mental processing I haven't read or heard about in my training. This mental process bases an evaluation of an action or a statement not on the action or statement itself but rather upon the actor or speaker. I call this Actor Based Thinking or just Actor Thinking.
Beliefs which appear to rational observers as contradictory suddenly become comprehensible when viewed this way.
An example is federal spying on Citizen email. When Bush did it it was wrong. When Obama does it is right. It is not the action which is important rather it is the actor that is important.
This kind of thinking also applies across time. Obama being in favor of the sequester is good. Obama being opposed to the sequester is good.
These later two statements appear to the rational thinker as contradictory. But to the Actor Thinker they are not contradictory because the same (favored) person said them.
A statement like "I was in favor of " "before I was opposed" seems to rational thinkers to be "flip-flopping" or inconsistent but to the Actor Thinking speaker it is consistent because he made both statements. Note the repeated "I". "I" am always the favored speaker so "I" am always right. "I" is consistent with "I".
The focus for an "Actor Thinker" is the actor not the statement or the behavior. An Actor Thinker can not do anything wrong because they did it. If they did it it can not be wrong. If they said it it is correct when they say it. What they said yesterday was correct yesterday but this is today and what they said today is correct.
This kind of thinking is entirely self consistent. Seemingly inconsistent statements are completely consistent as long as one focuses on the Actor rather than on the Actions. Such thinking is not self rationalization.
Self rationalization, while it may describe a real syndrome, is not the same as Actor Thinking. Self Rationalization may be used by psychologists to explain Actor Based Thinking but this is an error. Actor based Thinking is not rationalization, it is not derived from ego protection, rather it is a fundamentally unique mental process.
Using this understanding of human mental processes provides novel insight into the inner workings of some human minds.
Beliefs which appear to rational observers as contradictory suddenly become comprehensible when viewed this way.
An example is federal spying on Citizen email. When Bush did it it was wrong. When Obama does it is right. It is not the action which is important rather it is the actor that is important.
This kind of thinking also applies across time. Obama being in favor of the sequester is good. Obama being opposed to the sequester is good.
These later two statements appear to the rational thinker as contradictory. But to the Actor Thinker they are not contradictory because the same (favored) person said them.
A statement like "I was in favor of " "before I was opposed" seems to rational thinkers to be "flip-flopping" or inconsistent but to the Actor Thinking speaker it is consistent because he made both statements. Note the repeated "I". "I" am always the favored speaker so "I" am always right. "I" is consistent with "I".
The focus for an "Actor Thinker" is the actor not the statement or the behavior. An Actor Thinker can not do anything wrong because they did it. If they did it it can not be wrong. If they said it it is correct when they say it. What they said yesterday was correct yesterday but this is today and what they said today is correct.
This kind of thinking is entirely self consistent. Seemingly inconsistent statements are completely consistent as long as one focuses on the Actor rather than on the Actions. Such thinking is not self rationalization.
Self rationalization, while it may describe a real syndrome, is not the same as Actor Thinking. Self Rationalization may be used by psychologists to explain Actor Based Thinking but this is an error. Actor based Thinking is not rationalization, it is not derived from ego protection, rather it is a fundamentally unique mental process.
Using this understanding of human mental processes provides novel insight into the inner workings of some human minds.
posted by PsySciGuy at 12:00 PM
3 comments
