I’ve been thinking lately about why, in debates (usually) about highly emotional topics, so many people seem unable to acknowledge even minor wrongdoings or mistakes from “their” side, even when doing so wouldn’t necessarily undermine their broader position.
I’m not here to rehash any particular political event or take sides - I’m more interested in the psychological mechanisms behind this behavior.
For example, it feels like many people bind their identity to a cause so tightly that admitting any fault feels like a betrayal of the whole. I’ve also noticed that criticism toward one side is often immediately interpreted as support for the “other” side, leading to tribal reactions rather than nuanced thinking.
I’d love to hear thoughts on the psychological underpinnings of this. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to “give an inch” even when it wouldn’t really cost them anything in principle?
For sure. From my experience of having kid on spectrum, dealing with it and learning about how to help him (ok, the wife did most of the work there), we came to conclusion that almost all people have either ADHD or autistic traits, some even both. People we know that have ADHD traits are almost all a mess, add some shitty parenting or being prone to addiction and you have a recipe for disaster.