User:Dhaluza/Dismissiveness

Dismissiveness is a form of denial, characterized by either passively showing indifference or disregard, or actively dismissing or rejecting ideas or evidence. In psychology, dismissiveness is a dimension or factor, and dismissive or dismissive-avoidant is a classification, of attachment theory of interpersonal relationships in children and adults. It is applied to subjects who tend to distance themselves from others to maintain a positive self-image. This is one of four patterns of attachment identified by Bartholomew and Horowitz, reflecting emotional and social behavoir: secure (positive self, positive other), fearful-avoidant (negative self, negative other), preoccupied (negative self, positive other), and dismissive-avoidant (positive self, negative other).

The dismissive person agrees with the statement "I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me." The conceptually similar dismissive avoidant style of attachment is characterized by low anxiety and high avoidance, where "the need for comfort and support from attachment figures [is] deactivated through repression of memories of vulnerability and of rejection by attachment figures in childhood and through denial of the importance of attachment relationships." A study of couples in the United States showed that women who displayed dismissive attachment patterns toward insecure men were more likely to be victims of domestic violence.

Research shows that subjects who exhibeted a high degree of dismissiveness were less likely to disclose information about themselves, especially when they were primed with defensiveness-related words. Dismissiveness is also associated with antisocial behavior like tax evasion. In this case, dismissiveness empowers the individual to feel confident and untouchable, and this may represent a significant threat to governmental administration. Dismissiveness, or ignoring what cannot be understood, is also a typical reaction of the general population to encounters with disordered people such as schizophrenics.

Higher dismissiveness
In postmodernist philosophy, proponents of a concept known as "higher dismissiveness" hold that since what is accepted as truth is not necessarily so, truth, rationality, evidence, and fact are ideological fallacies, therefore science does not produce valuable knowledge and should not be trusted in making moral and political decisions; pragmatists critical of this school of thought consider this a false conclusion based on confusing what is accepted as truth, what passes as truth, and what is actually true. Higher dismissiveness is the denial of universal standards of rational thought and the depreciation of pure science to ethno-science that cannot be separated from cultural context.

Cultural references

 * Jean-Marie Guehennon of France, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, addressing allegations of sexual abuse UN missions in 2006, cited dismissiveness as a root cause of the scandal: "how hard it is to change a culture of dismissiveness, long developed within ourselves, in our countries and in the mission areas."


 * New York Times columnest Anthony Gottlieb, in a critical review of Richard Rorty's Philosophical Papers, described the author's philosophy: "His general attitude is an instance of what might be called the higher dismissiveness. The trick is to lock up your opponents in some social, academic or historical context and then to dismiss their views as mere rattling against the bars."