712. Online Discussion Forums: Observing The Peculiarities Of Behavior And The Group Dynamics

712.  Online Discussion Forums: Observing The Peculiarities Of Behavior And The Group Dynamics

The following is a fictive scenario as an illustration.

Imagine someone vacationing on a hot tropical island.   While traveling his shoe lace breaks and he needs to replace it as he needs his shoes when going back to his cold home.   Or maybe shoe laces are especially suitable to fix some item of his luggage.  In short, he has good reasons, why he wants to buy shoe laces.   But this does not imply, that he needs to discuss these reasons with any stranger.

So he asks people, where he can buy the shoe laces.   It is a simple question, and most probably people on the street, at the hotel reception or in the tourist office would give him an equally simple answer.  Either they are sorry not to know.  Or those who do know, give simply the directions how to find the shop.   Nobody in direct contact would start a discussion about his reasons to need shoe laces. 

But in the case of his asking the question on a local web forum concerning the life on this island, people probably would react very differently.   Rational behavior would be the same as that of the people when personally asked.   It would be either a suggestion about where shoe laces are sold or else no reply at all.   Instead he is prone to receive reactions like the following.

• He may get more or less serious suggestions like those to wear sandals or to walk barefoot.  
• He may get advice based upon some hearsay or subjective experience, like the one to better wear boots, because of someone having been bitten by a snake.
• He may be asked to publish a picture of the shoes and the broken shoe laces.  
• He may be criticized for being too stupid to carry spare shoe laces when traveling.
• He may be attacked by some locals as being one of those stinking rich foreign tourists, because some other tourists have done mischief. 
• Some people may divert to discuss their preferred color of shoe laces or the high prices on this island.  
• Some people may start a game about the most creative ideas of what to use instead of shoe laces.

Reading forum discussions and also being the recipient of reactions to having myself asked questions, the following are my generalized observations.  

The online behavior on forums is determined by the combined effect of the specifics of written and at least impersonal, if not also anonymous communication, and of some behavioral tendencies, which can be partly explained by evolutionary psychology.   

There is also a discrepancy when important but different uses of the web are confounded:  In my example, this is finding information and needing publicity for pursuing a goal vs. social dynamics.   
My example above illustrates this discrepancy, when someone joins any forum for no other reason except getting answers to one or more specific questions, but he is involuntarily exposed to weird and unwarranted reactions of many kinds.

1.  Specifics of written communication

Suitable written postings in any forum are not too long, so they are read, but they nevertheless contain sufficient information for the intended purpose.  Therefore when someone asks any simple question like in my example concerning the purchase of shoe laces, then it suffices to express the question in an unequivocal and precise way.   He could specify, where on the island he stays to be directed to the nearest shop.   But his reason to buy shoe laces are irrelevant.   

Indirect communication without being exposed to the other's direct reaction, and the anonymity of never going to meet in person disinhibits people from being rational, civilized, polite and considerate. 

2.  Distorted reactions for ego benefits

Being able to help and to give advice makes some people feel good about themselves.   Not knowing something, even if this just means a shop selling shoe laces does not trigger this reaction.  Some people even feel bad, when they have to admit to not know something, even a trifle.  

Some people do not listen long and carefully enough to what others are really telling them, before they blur out what they belief to know.  Pouring out their alleged superior knowledge over others makes them more to feel good than just listening. 
Giving advice without being asked for in written communication is a similar behavior.   It is a form of disregard for the abilities of the other and the unknown preceding efforts.   Giving unwanted advice insinuates, that the person is unable to have himself thought of and considered these options already.    

In a posting asking a simple question it suffices, when the question itself is well expressed.   Information inviting and enabling qualified but unwanted advice is not and needs not to be provided.  Any advice, asked for or unwanted, can never be any better than the information, upon which it is based. 

Some people do not so much feel good about the absolute amount of their own knowledge and skills, instead they get the most personal benefit when they subjectively experience an apparent superiority.  They need not so much to know, but to know better and to be right compared with another person.   In the case of any lack of real superiority, they derive this benefit by instead putting others down towards an apparent inferiority.

3.  Dealing with lacking information

Lacking information and being aware thereof makes wise and rational people cautious.   If possible, they acquire more information.   Else they are aware of not being able to know, which of several possible interpretations should be chosen.   They allow themselves and give to others the benefit of the doubt. 

But there are others.   They misunderstand things, they overlook important information, they jump to conclusions, they interpret statements based upon subjective experience.  They do not doubt their own interpretation of what they hear or read.   They project their own needs, attitudes and behavioral tendencies upon others.   They have no clue, that their projections are as incorrect as the others differ from them.

They are usually biased towards an unfavorable devaluation of and an underestimation of the poster of the question.    

This can mainly be explained by:

3.1.  The Dunning-Kruger effect

When people perceive and believe their own knowledge as the general baseline, they often are unable to comprehend, what others write, say or think.   Instead of doubting themselves, and of acknowledging a lack of information, they consider anything incomprehensible automatically as the others' flaws, ignorance and deficiencies. 

They feel entitled to patronize those asking the question.  They often believe to do a favor to those, to whom they proffer unwanted and uninvited advice.  
Without explanations and background information, uninvited advice is often ridiculous and completely irrelevant.   Such advice usually includes options or apparent options, which had already been considered and discarded.   The Dunning-Kruger effect impedes the comprehension, why advice is not needed, unless it is asked for.

3.2.  Attribution of a place and role

For some people, the web is a source for information.   For some questions, the best place to ask a question is a forum, which also has become a social structure formed by the most active members of the forum group.   The person simply asking a question does not automatically intend or wish to be given a place therein.   But the wish to simply get an answer is often not accepted.   Instead any posting on a forum triggers behavior towards attributing a place to the person, who is perceived as a prospective new member to be dealt with. 

Depending on the circumstances, this attribution process can either elicit competition based upon the hierarchy instinct.  In this case, the person gets forced into status struggles, even when the person does not fight, but is passively beaten towards the role of the underdog without any attempt of self-defence.   Luckily enough, those doing this beating can attribute a low place on the hierarchy, but they cannot know, if the target really feels the beating or is protected by a shell of indifference to competition.  

Else people are so different, that the question asked suffices to perceive and to drive away the person as being outgroup, who is not considered as suitable to be allowed into the ingroup. 

The methods for driving someone towards the role of the underdog or towards exclusion are the same.   Anything real or apparent, that can be interpreted as unfavorable is used as a tool for criticism and bashing.  
Alternatively, neither the question nor further clarifications are taken for serious, instead the poster of the question is the target of jokes.  

4.  Herd behavior

The general reactions to a question depend to a certain extent upon the hazard of who reacts first and how.  When the first reply happens to be useful, then all is well.   But if the first reply starts as one of the distorted reactions mentioned above, the herd often follows this tendency.

5.  How to react

When there is no answer to the question, but instead false interpretations are believed, the question is criticized, unwanted and absurd advice is proffered, then further participation in this forum is unwise and futile.  

When people are attempting to push a person into the role of the fool, the incompetent or the underdog, when misunderstandings and omissions are purposefully used to put someone down and to make him appear stupid or wrong, then all elaborate explanations are a waste of time. 
Writing explanatory postings would be like cutting off any of Hydra's heads.   It only instigates nine more heads to grow.  Any careful attempt to explain something only leads to more willful search for using new misunderstandings and more biased misinterpretations for more attacks. 

Sometimes group members like humble newcomers.   When somebody puts himself down and asks for help, calling himself a loser, then he is usually well received.   Somebody admitting weaknesses and placing himself at the bottom does not elicit any attempts to push him there.   As long as he stays at the bottom of the hierarchy, he is treated with pity and kindness.    

Asking rational questions is not an expression of being humble.  Self confidence is perceived as a provocation.    Merely asking questions after already having figured out what to do shows self confidence.   No wish to fight a way up in the hierarchy is also perceived as a provocation.  
Provoking people can be an unavoidable side effect of the pursuit of an important goal.   But when provocation only means reacting to a power struggle, this brings no benefits.

As soon as the search for information is turned into some other people's struggle to gain secondary benefits, the wisest reaction is to withdraw.   There will be no answer and it is better to move on. 

611. More About The Fallacy Of Teleological Thinking

611.   More About The Fallacy Of Teleological Thinking 

Yesterday I got a strange email in reference to entry 610 about teleology.   The sender, according to the name probably a guy, omits to introduce himself in any way and to tell me, why he contacts me and what he expects from me.    He merely informs me of his disagreement with my considering teleology as a fallacy in entry 610.    I am puzzled, what made him assume, that the difference between knowing or not knowing, that a person with a given email address disagrees, were of any significance to me.    

There are billions of persons on this globe, who disagree with my way of thinking.  Any of them only wastes his own and my time by informing me of the disagreement.  

This blog is not written for them.   I am elaborating my thoughts for the purpose of finding my mindmate being someone, who agrees as the result of his own independent thinking prior to reading this blog.     

The following are two quotes from his email:
"I can see no good scientific application for teleology." 
"A teleological universe remains quite possible on logical grounds."
 

These quotes show clearly, that he has not clue, what teleology really means and that he is himself someone caught too much himself in this fallacy to be able to gain mental distance from irrational beliefs of any kind.

When someone asks questions, then this indicates a reason to explain.   But someone declaring his disagreement implicitly states his own point of view as valid as mine.    A guy, who claims his teleological fallacy as equally valid as rational and scientific thinking is a clear example of the Dunning-Kruger-effect.    While such a haphazard disagreeing guy certainly as a person is of no interest to me, his email nevertheless inspires me to write some more about teleology.      

Teleology is a logical fallacy of thinking.    No scientist, who deserves to be called one, would use it consciously and deliberately as an appropriate method to explore and explain anything.  It just is not a scientific method.  The effect described in the research presented in http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121017102451.htm is the tendency of the human brain to spontaneously tend to succumb to this fallacy.   This does not make teleology any less a fallacy, it is only an indication of how careful scientists need to be to avoid it. 


The fallacy can be shown by comparing the following two statements:  

1. "Trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe"   (From the research presented in
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121017102451.htm)
2. "Oxygen masks supply environmentally lacking oxygen so that people can breathe."

Superficially, both statements seem to be quite similar.    In both statements, oxygen is needed and it is supplied.   But there is a fundamental distinction between the teleological fallacy of statement one and the genuine intention in statement two.  

Oxygen masks are invented and produced by persons having knowledge and intention concerning what the masks are to be used for.   Without a known need for oxygen, such masks would not be invented and produced.   

All oxygen masks are made by humans or by human made machines.   The purpose of oxygen masks to supply oxygen when not otherwise available is the intended or expected beneficial outcome of the activity of producing it.   This is logically only possible, when there is someone performing the purposeful activity.  

There cannot be any intentional production without a producer, but things can exist and offer collateral benefits without having been produced by anybody.   

The teleological fallacy is thinking as if there were a causality, where there is none at all.   To believe that the trees have been produced by an acting entity the same way as the oxygen masks is the fallacy of simpleminded and gullible persons.   They invent a creator deity, which serves for them not only but also as an explanation for the existence of trees and more generally of anything, of which they derive benefits and which exists without having been produced intentionally by any human.      
 

Scientific research to look for evidence of oxygen masks which are not produced by humans is an option.   As long as such evidence has not been found, it can be considered as established, that oxygen masks are produced by persons, who can be traced.    

Any scientific attempt to find the producer of the trees is equally futile as the attempts to find evidence of the existence of any deity.    

Also the person selling oxygen masks knows, that they are produced by humans and what for.   The person planting trees to enhance the oxygen in the air knows, that trees produce oxygen.   But as a rational person he also knows, that the trees have not been produced by any person or entity for the purpose of breathing.   The rational person knows, that the existence of trees and of beings needing oxygen can either be coincidence or co-evolution, in which the evolution of beings in need of oxygen has been enabled by the evolution of the emittance of oxygen by the trees.

The teleological fallacy and the deity delusion are therefore related and reinforcing each other.   But it is difficult to know, which was first.
I doubt Pararajasingham's suggestion (http://www.reasonism.org/main-content/articles-by-other-authors/item/285-the-telos-drive-a-neurobiological-basis-for-religious-belief), that the telos drive having been there first suffices to explains religious beliefs.    

It is at least as probable, that the gullibility to the delusion of deities has been an evolutionary advantage to the species for very different reasons.   

Those women, who accept the self-harming by accepting the biological abuse of their bodies for procreation due to expecting a reward in the afterlife, have more offspring than those, who refuse to accept self-harming.  

Those men, who harm women by making them pregnant due to displacing the responsibility for doing this to a deity, also have more offspring than the more considerate men.   

Thus the gullibility to believe in the existence of deities has been incorporated into the gene pool.   Once someone believes in the existence of a creator deity, then the conclusion of attributing the existence of any not human made phenomena and entities to be allegedly produced by such a creator is apparently and subjectively logical to such a believer.   

But neither the deity delusion nor teleological thinking is logical to rational, skeptical and apistic persons like me.   

580. Pseudoscience, Lacking Abstract Thinking And The Dunning-Kruger Effect

580.   Pseudoscience, Lacking Abstract Thinking And The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Before the internet, I took it for granted, that having a university degree were an indication of a person's ability for abstract, scientific and skeptical thinking.    The internet has opened my eyes for the fact, that people can get degrees by having a good memory even in the absence of sufficient rationality.    Therefore for such people, a university degree is no protection against falling for pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience is a blend of scientific methods and gullibility to irrational beliefs.   The fallacy of pseudoscience can be on both ends of research, either by using the claimed belief as if it were a proven fact to be further investigated, or by interpreting results as if they were a proof of an unproven claim, and of course there can be both.   Sometimes even the methods are only pseudo-scientific.

This is a list of examples of pseudoscience:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

Those people, whose belief in a non-existent deity is blatantly absurd, often are at least aware, that their specific belief is not of general validity, but only shared by a limited number of people.   They can be aware of the impossibility of convincing others of a mere claim, which they cannot proof.  

Some believers in pseudoscience are even worse, because due to their impaired abstract thinking, they are not aware, that they confound pseudoscience with valid serious science.  They are duped by the superficial resemblance.  They are even more prone to be duped, when the pseudoscience appears to fulfill some of their dire needs.  

They expect to be rationally able to find general agreement based upon the validity of the results, the same way as if they were evaluating serious science.    

When a seriously ill person is religious, he may do both, praying and getting scientifically based standard medical treatment   Someone believing in pseudoscience as if it were science, gets duped to prefer quackery over standard medicine, believing it to be the most advanced science. 

The belief in pseudoscience leads to a variety of the Dunning-Kruger effect.   Someone believing in some variety of pseudoscience has often the delusion to be the one knowing better than the skeptical and rational person, who rejects and disbelieves it.   The rejection is misinterpreted as ignorance. The believer does not reconsider his belief, instead he feels a mission to instruct the allegedly ignorant.

People believing in pseudoscience are as annoying as are religious people.    It is better to avoid them, when the contact is not superficial enough to be able to avoid such topics.    I once attempted to explain to someone, why NLP is pseudoscience.   It was as futile as talking to a wall.    It is much more pleasant to interact with fellow apistics, who feel themselves annoyed by religion and pseudoscience.   

558. Harming, Commodification And Abstract Thinking

558.   Harming, Commodification And Abstract Thinking

In entry 399 I quoted

"Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the smarter a man is, the less likely he is to cheat on his partner."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254420/Men-cheat-wives-intelligent-faithful-husbands.html

The following research puts Kanazawa's quote into a wider context. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120809151351.htm

"Research from psychological science suggests that categorizing things abstractly into broad categories (called high-level construal) allows us to psychologically distance ourselves from the pushes and pulls of the immediate moment. This, in turn, makes us more sensitive to the broad implications of our behavior and leads us to show greater consistency between our values and our behavior."

"The researchers draw together many strands of research to provide evidence for the role of these different kinds of construal in decisions involving self-control."

Abstract thinking is one facet of intelligence.  
Cheating is one variety of harming by commodification and objectification.

Therefore I rephrase the quotes above for the generalized application to my search of a partner:

There is a negative correlation between a man's ability for abstract thinking and his proneness to harm and hurt a woman.    

These are some effects:

1. A man's ability for abstract thinking leads to his interest in abstract thinking, the appreciation of a woman's abstract thinking and the wish to share it with her.    While physical needs are asymmetrical, the needs for and the joy of intellectual intimacy are symmetrical and enhance an egalitarian attitude. 
   Less abstractly intelligent men are more prone to confound women with being only bodies to be used.   Not only do they hurt women by objectification and commodification, some are unable to understand, why being used hurts women.
   
2. Some man's ability for abstract thinking creates strong cognitive needs, which are stronger than his instinctive urges.  This man's behavior is determined predominantly by his cognitive needs and not by his instinctive urges.   The total of his needs causes him to be most attracted to monogamous bonded commitment.
   A less abstractly intelligent man with instinctive urges of identical strength, but who lacks the cognitive needs, is determined by his not outweighed instincts.   He copulates like a dog from the gutter, no matter the harm experienced by the betrayed women getting attached without reciprocation.     
3. Abstract thinking allows to see the benefits of a relationship by a long term calculation.   Momentary dissatisfaction and conflicts are experienced as temporary and the investment to improve the relationship is based upon long term thinking. 
   Less abstractly intelligent men are prone to value a relationship by the requirement of it always being subjectively beneficial to their needs.   They are prone to consider dumping and replacing women as the best method to deal with a momentary dissatisfaction, lacking any consideration for the women's sufferings.  
   
4. Abstract thinking allows a deeper and more complex understanding of the dynamics of a relationship.    This facilitates constructive communication to solve conflicts. 
   Less abstractly intelligent men, who do not understand, why a woman feels hurt, are unable to do their share to improve the relationship.   They are more prone to run away when experiencing their own incompetence.  They hurt the woman by dumping her without giving her a chance. 

The above research is one more reinforcement of the importance of my mindmate to be found being able to think rationally and abstractly.    Whenever a men feels deterred by the abstraction and complexity of this blog, this is intended.    A man, who does not comprehend, what I write, is not compatible.  He is welcome to refrain from contacting me.  

Some reactions to this blog, both as comments and in emails, indicate that there are men lacking the ability to comprehend my abstract thinking.  These men are trapped in the double fallacy of overestimating their own importance and to misunderstand the purpose of this blog.

Every time a man spends his time on such reactions, no matter how much, he wastes his time.  No matter what he says, it just translates into one simple statement.   He considers me as not suitable for him as long as I remain as I am.   This thinking makes him unsuitable for me.  
Informing me by the proactive writing of an email of reciprocal unsuitability serves nothing.  (This of course has nothing to do with the politeness of someone replying to my initiative of having contacted him first).  

Some reactions are hostile diatribes. Others proffer patronizing advice what to do differently and how to change. Some are projections by suggesting I should get fixed by seeing a therapist. 
Some reactions are completely off, not replies to what I have written, but to what they have misunderstood and misinterpreted.   Some are not bothered to read entire posts, instead one sentence taken out of its context suffices as a trigger to contradict me for the purpose of making themselves feel good by reinforcing their belief to be right.   
All such reactions are varieties of men's belief to know better than I do, their belief that they are right and I am flawed, sometimes it is as bad as a grandiosity delusion.  

But I am not impressed.  I see these reactions as what they are: indicators of the Dunning-Kruger effect as already mentioned in entry 360 :  

 "The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when incompetent people not only fail to realize their incompetence, but consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. Basically - they're too stupid to know that they're stupid. "

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect    

This blog is meant to be a positive filter.   I want to encourage a man to contact me, if he experiences my writings as if written by a (near)clone of his own brain.   I welcome neutral and not hostile comments asking questions or pointing out, what could be elaborated.  
But there are billions of unsuitable men out there, and the best they can do is not bother me.   To be informed of his existence by any unsuitable Joe Doe is of no interest to me.   They are most welcome to not contact me.

507. The Cassandra Dynamics

507.  The Cassandra Dynamics

When a catastrophe comes out of the blue, it is a challenge allowing oneself to use the own resources and abilities to deal with it.   When one faces a problem and does not know, what to do, it is also a challenge to find a solution by using one's own resources.  

But the situation of the Cassandra dynamics, when knowing exactly, what needs to be done, while being prevented from doing it, is a situation of the extreme emotional stress of being made helpless and powerless.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_%28metaphor%29

"The Cassandra metaphor is applied by some psychologists to individuals who experience physical and emotional suffering as a result of distressing personal perceptions, and who are disbelieved when they attempt to share the cause of their suffering with others."


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cassandra%20Syndrome

"Cassandra Syndrome
   
1) The condition of speaking the truth and having no one believe you.

2) The condition of being able to predict the future, be it the outcome of a particular event, or the reactions of others to the same event, and having no one believe your prophecy until it transpires.

3) Being able to see or understand things long before others, often resulting in them coming to the same conclusions long after your own initial analysis. "

The expression 'syndrome' is misleading, because it focuses too much on Cassandra herself as being the person having some psychological troubles.   I prefer to call it Cassandra dynamics, because it concerns the disrupted interaction of two or more persons.   Cassandra herself has not the problem, she is implicated by the problems of others. 

Cassandra is usually a woman, but sensitive men can also be trapped in the situation of being aware of some development leading towards a breaking-point, the pending catastrophe. 

1. Cassandra dynamics are defined by:

• The catastrophe is pending either for Cassandra herself or for someone else or for both.  
• Cassandra alone is aware of the pending catastrophe.
• Cassandra needs the other person's cooperation to avoid the catastrophe.  
• The involved person's cooperation is not obtainable.   
• Cassandra suffers feeling powerless.

2. Cassandra's circumstances

2.1.  Cassandra dynamics as a partner in a relationship.   Cassandra suffers emotionally beyond her resilience:

• Her emotional needs are not met by the partner.
• She is blamed for not meeting the partner's needs.
• She is blamed for her reactions to how she is treated.

2.2.  Cassandra dynamics by altruism and caring.  Cassandra feels empathy and wants to support others with insights, which only she has.    

3.  The partner's unobtainable cooperation to avoid the catastrophe.

• Cassandra cannot convey to him, that there is something wrong.
• Cassandra cannot convey to him her suggestions, what to do.  
• He is unable to recognize Cassandra's competence.
• He perceives Cassandra not as an equal partner. 

Examples of men's fallacies, flaws and mistakes causing the unobtainability of their cooperation:

3.1.  Asymmetrical relationship. 

The man gets all his relationship needs met, because he experiences and considers a woman merely as a body chosen for physical homeostasis while not expecting anything more from the relationship.   He fulfills his social and intellectual needs elsewhere.   He projects his own contentment onto the woman.    In this situation, nothing is wrong for him subjectively.  

3.2.  Imposing gender roles.

The social roles of male superiority causes the man's false belief, that he is the one to define the rules, structure, framework and conditions of the relationship.  What he considers as correct treatment of a woman according to gender roles has to be automatically sufficient and suitable for any woman.   If she suffers, the man considers it as her flaw, for which he does not need to take any responsibility.

3.3.  The Dunning-Kruger effect. 

The man overestimates himself and underestimates the woman.  The man considers only himself as being competent to decide, how to manage a relationship.   Even if he recognizes, that something needs to be improved, his attempts to do so are only decided upon in accordance with his own judgment.   If he changes his behavior, he does so by trial and error.   This aggravates the situation, speeding up the arriving of the catastrophe.   He only throws the woman from the frying-pan into the fire.  

3.4.  Immaturity

Immaturity, lacking empathy, a low EQ or NLD (Non-Verbal Learning Disability) can cause men to be unable to understand other persons' including a partner's needs or to communicate successfully.   Sometimes such men rely on simplified recipes from self-help books, how to handle or even manipulate women.   The man's belief of behaving correctly according to his faulty concept of how to treat a woman makes him mindblind to perceive and understand any verbal or non-verbal information indicating her suffering.   Such a man is prone to believe the recipes written by male relationship gurus more than a real woman's feedback.   

3.5.  Selfishness

Psychological problems cause some men to have a selfish attitude and entitlement delusion.   They experience and consider others including the partner as utilities existing to serve their needs.   They handle, use and maintain them at their convenience, instead of caring for others' individual needs, of which they are oblivious.    As long as a person functions according to the purpose for the selfish man, there is nothing wrong and no reason to bother.

3.6.  Need for power

Psychological problems cause some men to feel a need for power and control, which causes them to struggle for domination.   Narcissists or men with a strong need to reduce anxiety and insecurity, are examples.   When they want to believe in their own morality, then they can avoid cognitive dissonance only by the full denial, how much domination causes suffering to the repressed woman.

My mindmate to be found is someone, with whom I will not experience the Cassandra dynamics. 

360. Domination and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Domination and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In entry 354 I mentioned, how sometimes an intelligent woman deliberately dumbs down for the purpose of having a relationship to thus make an intellectually inferior man believe in being her equal.  She appears less intelligent than she is, while he can be realistic about himself.

Domination is a defect and fallacy of men, who are or feel too incompetent to solve conflicts rationally or to gain a woman's benevolence otherwise.  They use either situational power or the fact of their superior physical strength to compensate for their incompetence.   Their purpose is obtaining the benefits from being with a woman, while they are oblivious of any other method except gaining control.     

Narcissists dominate women, because their grandiosity delusion has completely deactivated any perception of the real intellectual ability of a woman, even in contradiction to blatantly obvious evidence.  

But there are also many men, who feel entitled to dominate women by the error of feeling sincerely justified to do so, because of really believing to know better and of doing something good to the dominated women.   This can be explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect, which explains how men overestimate themselves.  Their research was done on subjects in the scope of average mental health, but I assume that it would be especially harmful to women, when the men are emotional morons or sufferer from NLD (entry 356) or something similar.   

"The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when incompetent people not only fail to realise their incompetence, but consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. Basically - they're too stupid to know that they're stupid. "

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect