Why Are People Closed-Minded?

People choose to be close-minded because being open-minded has a lot of costs associated with it:

When one is open-minded, he faces cognitive dissonance and conflict within the context of his current life if he realizes that something he believed before, just is not right.

People's existing beliefs are integrated with their current lifestyle, social circle, even work environment. Collectively they create the life they know life to be. Any jolt, any disruption to that framework disrupts their life in various ways.

Let's take a conservative American as an example since polarization is quite significant nowadays in the US and it is a good case study to study this situation. Though liberal segments also tend to suffer from the same issue, it is easier to demonstrate this through a conservative example:

Let's say that you are a conservative American and you realized that if the rich paid a little more taxes, there wouldn't be so many problems and so many poor in the society. Everything could be just better.

And now what? You are now incompatible with the social segment you are living in:

Even if you don't live in a conservative district, you live in a conservative social circle. Your parents are conservatives to varying degrees, your uncle is a hardliner old-style conservative, your aunts are moderates, your friends are generally conservative, some even far-right. There is even a conspiracy theorist or two among them.

You work in a traditional company with conservative values where you 'work hard and do 'real work'. The company owner 'pulled himself by the bootstraps'. All your colleagues are conservative, there is one odd moderate or even liberal around, but they don't make much ruckus.

If you are running your own business, it's the same - majority of your clients, even employees are conservative. so no dice there either.

Even your doctor, your handyman, your postman are all conservatives to varying degrees.

You basically live in conservative land, and now you are incompatible with your own society.

While everyone around you is screaming for fewer taxes, and saying 'Leave the rich alone' as if they themselves are 'rich or will 'soon be rich, you believe that is wrong and you think that that is pretty harmful to society in general. It's not like the rich are paying the little taxes they have now anyway.

If you openly voice your opinion, you will enter open conflict with your social circle. You may even risk your job.

If you keep it to yourself, you will have to deal with the psychological pressure of repressing your beliefs and being 'out of place' within your own social circle.

The first is not something which can easily be risked - especially losing your job. Your family's livelihood depends on it.

Even if you could find another job, it's likely that your work contacts are also from the conservative segment, and you would still face problems. That is if the word did not get around fast.

If you go and try to find a job in a liberal or neutral organization, where are those jobs? You don't have many contacts among that crowd, even if you knew what companies were liberal/neutral.

Moreover, you are not compatible with the liberal viewpoint either - you think that the rich should pay taxes now, but you still keep many other conservative beliefs in other common issues.

You basically don't belong anywhere now.

The same goes for friends, relatives, and other social circles you have - you are now out of tune with them in a major way.

Your three choices are:

You enter into open conflict, spend great effort to find yourself a social segment in which you can fit in, most importantly do it without losing your job. Which means permanent or prolonged conflict with your family, friends, and relatives even if you have succeeded. Even if you succeed, your relationships with everyone will be altered and may stay that way.

You don't make any ruckus, keep it to yourself. Brave the cognitive dissonance and the resulting psychological pressure which this will bring to your psychology. Risk the chance that others may sometimes feel that you are 'out of place' because they notice that you don't share their convictions as strongly - for its not easy for people to act/pretend to believe in things that they actually don't believe, without letting anything slip every now and then.

You choose to forget everything by persuading yourself that what you just realized is actually wrong by repeating ideological, religious sound bites and making yourself believe in them. Everything in your life would keep going on as it did before. No need to rock the boat.

...

Only very strong people can go for option #1.

Even for such people, that option comes with a large cost associated, which people can rarely escape paying.

For those who have some presence and integration with other viewpoints (liberal, in this case), things are noticeably easier. Having some liberal friends, some liberal work contacts, being somewhat compatible, or being able to get along with that crowd makes everything much easier.

For the rest, the cost is great and only those who have high emotional intelligence and character strength can reasonably brave option #1 and succeed with it.

For a minority, option #2 is bearable. They can pretend and get along - they mostly fit with their social circle anyway. So it's just a 'minor' difference. They act along and pretend.

Many would choose the third option. It doesn't rock the boat, it does not create great conflict, you don't risk losing your job. You don't even risk the cognitive dissonance and feeling out of place even without other people knowing about it. It's business as usual. So you just yell louder, repeat the sound bites even louder than others to reinforce your belief, and keep the demons away.

So as you can see, being close-minded is a defensive measure.

It protects you and your immediate family from major consequences, or even less serious costs like cognitive dissonance and being out of place. It is an evolutionary measure, in a sense - you just have to fit in with your social group (tribe) to survive.

...

Those who choose the first option change the world. They are those who make the future.

The second would join them when and if they get the chance.

The third only let go when the society has changed enough and when they won't face considerable consequences.

The easier the transition from existing beliefs and behaviors to newer ones, the easier is the change in society.

This means that the only way to prevent close-mindedness and provide reasonable progress is to provide the financial and social means for people to allow them to be able to be open-minded.