Cognitive rigidity

The thinking style that makes people vulnerable to extremism

In the 1950s, as the world reeled from the terrible atrocities inflicted by authoritarian regimes, social psychologists became infatuated with a new explanation for human beings’ totalitarian instincts. It was all about the situation in which a person found themselves. Social psychologists concluded that under the right – or wrong – conditions, we are all potential tyrants. Many of us have heard about the psychologists in the United States who placed innocent participants in situations of torture, conformity or imprisonment as part of ridiculous (and recklessly unethical) experiments. ….[READ]