Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values and taboo cognitions

Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values and taboo cognitions.

Many people insist that their commitments to certain values (e.g. love, honor, justice) are absolute and inviolable - in effect, sacred. They treat the mere thought of trading off sacred values against secular ones (such as money) as transparently outrageous - in effect, taboo. Economists insist, however, that in a world of scarce resources, taboo trade-offs are unavoidable. Research shows that...

Thinking the unthinkable.

The mind of plants: Thinking the unthinkable

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 24 January 2017 Accepted 25 January 2017 ABSTRACT Across all species, individuals thrive in complex ecological systems, which they rarely have complete knowledge of. To cope with this uncertainty and still make good choices while avoiding costly errors, organisms have developed the ability to exploit key features associated with their environment. That through experienc...

Programming language theory: Thinking the unthinkable

1. Incommensurability Science is often distinguished from other human activities by its progressive nature. It has standards for identifying improvements and methods for accumulating them into an ever improving body of sound knowledge. Such traditional view has been challenged by many philosophers. The most significant blow to the idea of progressive science is incommensurability – the idea tha...

The psychology of the unthinkable: taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals.

Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egali...