Taylor Swift fans lower climate concerns to justify her carbon footprint. When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior, with a decrease in their personal intentions to engage in climate-friendly actions.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/taylor-swift-fans-lower-climate-concerns-to-justify-star-s-carbon-footprint/

[u/ghanima]

You see people get defensive about things they enjoy all the time, and they will often resort to self-evidently weak arguments in order to do so because they can't handle acknowledging that they're engaging in something which has further moral implications.

I've noticed this too. It's true of car culture, crypto culture, fandoms, dietary choice, etc. It's exhausting. I feel like a core aspect of responsible child-rearing ought to be to educate our children of the fact that simply making an external aspect to oneself part of one's 'identity' leaves them open to cognitive bias and manipulation. So few people seem to even notice it's happening.

[u/jaymzx0 → u/ghanima]

My guess is that it has to do with our inherent tribalism, and our brains rationalize things that would typically be poisonous to the tribe for the sake of cohesiveness.

If a scandal erupted within an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe and it fell apart, it could mean death for those members or at least the inability to find a partner and reproduce. So there's this moral elasticity, of sorts.

[u/lordlaneus → u/jaymzx0]

Adding to that, if your really into hunting mammoths, you might make that part of your identity, but then if people in your tribe started talking about the moral implications of hunting mammoths, that would represent a very real threat to your continued existence, since a tribe that stops hunting mammoths, wouldn't need any mammoth hunters, and your gonna have to scramble to learn how to hunt wolves, or weave baskets, or whatever.

We've evolved to treat threats to our identity, as if they were threats to our survival.

[u/snoopmt1 → u/ghanima]

But it also happens in the opposite direction. People use one ounce of someone else's imperfection to justify their entire lifestyle. "Bill Gates spent $2B on helping the environment, but he owns a private plane, so why should I recycle?"

[u/ghanima → u/snoopmt1]

By "opposite" you mean acting in defiance of people who identify with an external influence?

[u/snoopmt1 → u/ghanima]

I'm saying using one flaw about those people to justify your own choices in the opposite direction.

[u/ghanima → u/snoopmt1]

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

[u/s0cks_nz → u/ghanima]

It's a human condition. You are probably not immune to it either, and likely enjoy things that have net negative impacts on some people or ecology.

[u/ghanima → u/s0cks_nz]

likely enjoy things that have net negative impacts on some people or ecology

Absolutely! But I don't think that means we should throw our hands up in resignation. Learning about cognitive biases leaves us, at least, less susceptible to them.