“What’s One Hill That Others May Not Agree With But That You Will Die On?” (37 Answers)

First of all, we asked Wojciech to explain why people tend to stick to their beliefs, even if it means being judged or left out by others.

He wrote: “We call it the psychology of attitudes. Once the attitude is created, it is very hard to

change it, even when faced with the contrary and strong arguments that ‘should’ change our perspective. 

For example, we may perceive our marriage as a good and strong one, but the observer could deliver strong arguments to change our perception (the partner is toxic, is cheating, is abusive). 

Strangely, it is better for our self-perception to disregard that new and valid information, rather than to admit that our attitude and decisions based on that were wrong. In some special circumstances, we call it cognitive dissonance: whilst to change one’s opinion, we change the arguments to support the wrong and previously formed attitude.”

We were wondering how people balance the need to fit in with others and the need to stay true to their own opinions, to which Wojciech responded: “Sometimes it is hard to speak of ‘true opinions.’ As described above, they are so easily and often irrationally formed. As much (also ours) research shows, we often cheat ourselves to perceive our decisions and opinions as better in comparison with others. These effects are coined ‘better than average’ and ‘unrealistic optimism.’

For example, even though one could die from not vaccinating oneself against COVID-19, while others are doing so by taking the shots, s/he can find many (often unrealistic) reasons to support a very dangerous decision (I am young and strong) while disregarding very well grounded other reasons (even young people die). We do so because we like to perceive ourselves as reasonable and intelligent.

Strangely, changing opinion is often perceived as weak and being under an influence. That is why we tend to stand strong supporting our previous claims.”

While starting to grasp why we hold on to our beliefs even if they might be hurting us, we were curious if certain personality traits make someone more likely to defend their views no matter what.

Wojciech commented: “To be honest: not really. As a social psychologist, I locate this tendency to ‘defend their views no matter what’ rather in a specific situation than in a specific person. 

For example, reactance/the boomerang effect shows that the more people put pressure on the other person, the more likely s/he will push back such an argument. It is a situation of being a target of the advertisement: we know that the facts provided are to create/change our perception/decision, and simply because someone wants us to change it, we put more pressure on ‘defending our view no matter what.’”

When it comes to love and relationships, Wojciech shared how strong personal beliefs affect how people connect or disagree.

“Very strongly. For many decades, it was shown that on the one hand, similar opinions are those who connect us. On the other hand, it is often stressed that contraries/oppositions are magnetic to each other.

This contrast was solved once it was discovered, that similarities on crucial aspects/opinions/goals are crucial, whilst dissimilarities are interesting and binding in areas which are not crucial/important.

This simple rule reveals the complexity and explains why it is so hard to find someone special! 

1. A person has to agree that a specific issue/opinion is crucial

(e.g., faith is an important issue in a relationship). 

2. Both people have to share the same polarity of magnet/attraction (I am agnostic); create an attractor by the similarity and polarization. Any other combination in the area of important similarities of attitudes creates less strong, more fragile relationships.”

As for someone who is afraid to share what they really believe because they worry others might laugh or reject them, Wojciech advised: “Stay strong. Once you are right (extremely important), keep your opinion hidden but active as a target of your actions. Attitudes are important, not the public side of it.”