From: joe_f@verizon.net   
      
   "jmm1951"  writes:   
      
   > On Mar 9, 10:57 pm, Joe Fineman  wrote:   
   >> Martha Bridegam  writes:   
   >> > Joe Fineman wrote:   
   >> >> Martha Bridegam  writes:   
   >>   
   >> >>> I've seen people act like this in divorces -- magnifying the   
   >> >>> ex's faults to reassure themselves that separating was the   
   >> >>> right thing to do. It's a sign of secret ambivalence about   
   >> >>> whether they really should try to make up again.   
   >> >> Psychologists investigate this phenomenon under the   
   >> >> silly-sounding rubric of "cognitive dissonance".   
   >>   
   >> > Not "reaction formation"? Or is it both?   
   >>   
   >> I don't know.  "Reaction formation" sounds vaguely Freudian to me,   
   >> but I doubt if I ever knew what it meant.  Perhaps they are merely   
   >> in the languages of different tribes.   
      
   > Reaction formation would be typified by the evangelical preacher who   
   > maintains a large personal library of well-thumbed pornography while   
   > publicly campaigning vigorously against pornography.   
      
   What we used to call hypocrisy?   
      
   > An example of cognitive dissonance would be that those Millerites   
   > who believed that the end of the world was coming in 1844 and sold   
   > their farms etc., in preparation and were then, well, disappointed   
   > by the Great Disappointment. As a result of the need to resolve the   
   > dissonance between their religious beliefs and the fact that the   
   > world remained without end, "they adopted the belief that Christ   
   > went into the second compartment of the heavenly sanctuary in 1844   
   > to begin the investigative judgment of both righteous and wicked to   
   > see who is worthy of going to heaven". and came to the conclusion   
   > that the end of the world is now imminently pending, a situation   
   > that has endured now for several generations.   
      
   Is magnifying the ex's faults also an example?  If so, it seems like a   
   simpler one.   
   --   
   ---  Joe Fineman    joe_f@verizon.net   
      
   ||:  The Balkan peninsula is the Europe of Europe.  :||   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)