2fer #7 - Mindy Saw

It’s a Myth and a Legend  

Should we believe in myths and legends? -- Many people believe in myths because of a constant reminder of them from their environments. When an individual believes in a myth, they are actually psychologically affected. Myths come from a variety of cultures throughout the world. The belief in myths occurs through stories told to others whether it be true or not. The truth relies on how much an individual believes in the myths. People believe in myths and legends through their own cognition because each individual’s cognition is grown through their own process.

Something to consider when certain people are telling you certain stories (myths), is that in their mind they are held to have a cognitive dissonance. What that does is that it allows the mind of a person to remove a conflictingconlficting matter and instead continues to replace it with cognitive corporationcoorperation. For example, if someone is constantly telling you a story about how the boogie man monster does really exist, in their childhood, they may have heard the story of the boogie man so many times that it stuck to them and holds a place in their cognitive mind. With that in their cognitive mind, when someone else tries to replace their thought and tell them that the boogie man does not exist, they would remove that idea and instead keep their idea of yes it does exist. An article from How Stuff Works by Julia Layton states, “We all want to feel comfortable with our thoughts and actions, and it's a whole lot harder to change than it is to stay the same. We can see cognitive-dissonance theory at work in everyday life.” It’s true that when an individual  learns something totally new that they have never heard of in their entire lifetime, it’s hard for them to process it. BecauseBecasue they are human and that issue falls in place with every human, they are more or so likely to believe in the myths that have been told to them rather than myths that are totally new to their existence.

Myths are something that many people believe in. However there are different myths that people believe in. For that reason, when people believe in myths, they are believing in things that are always being told to them. An individual’s memory is basically a constant renovative story-telling device that exists within them. No one would actually be able to tell what is true and what is not, it depends on the person themselves if they believe in certain things or not. There is something called neuromyth, this is a type of myth in neroscience. Neuromyth results in overthinking the things that people learn to end up misunderstanding these things that they learn. When they are constantly told to believe in certain things, they make up these “connections” and misunderstands the whole point of the truth. Memory is what builds the person’s cognitive mind. With the cognitive mind, a person would automatically acknowledge things that they have faced or been through. Whereas they would not process something they have been told for the first time because they have no cognitive memory of it. Psychology Today states in their article, “Research indicates that remembering a bunch of new, unrelated elements is difficult. But if the elements are part of a structured story, they are more easily remembered.” What this article is saying is that the fact that parts of new things that we experience are the same parts we have already built into our cognitive minds makes us remember this new experience more. With that, different people believe in different myths because their cognitive minds are built different from the moment they came out of the womb.

Only certain people believe in myths because only certain people grow up from the moment they have been born to whatever age they are now, their cognitive schemas have been building within their own minds. ZSR Library exposes a case study performed by Mary Diane Cantrell, which where she states, “For others, believing in a particular legend is an emotional response. Legends can feed into the fears, anxieties , and biases a person may feel toward the subject matter or society in general thus providing them with emotional gratification.” With that said, an individual’s personal state of mind using their cognitive schema is what continues society’s beliefs in myths and legends. “-- believing in a particular legend is an emotional response” what this means is the fact that an individual’s own cognitive mind compels them into believing in the legend. Since everyone’s cognitive minds are not the same at all, only certain people with certain cognitive schemas can compel themselves into continuing to believe in the legend or myth. Looking at beliefs for myths and legends though a psychological lens, people with common disorders are more likely to feed into things like myths and legends. Cantrell states in her case study that “Legends can feed into the fears, anxieties, and biases a person may feel toward the subject matter…” By coming to that conclusion, it is clear that when an individual is affected by some sort of disorder, like anxiety, they are emotionally unstable which generates their cognitive mind to feed into things like legends and myths that are told by anyone and everyone.

If people stopped to think about it, they would realize that they only believe in the stories that they are told because of how common it is told to them. Whether these stories have the same concepts or are exactly the same stories. For the majority of the people in the world, myths are a big factor of their lives because it’s what build their cognitive minds which is what they use to think about anything they experience in life. People can experience that growing up in a certain neighborhood and then moving to the complete opposite side of where they were, they would face different problems and would try to stick to their original cognitive minds no matter how different they seem to the rest of the community. Depending on how long they make their stay, they would eventually grow into a different cognitive mindset to eventually feel comfortable with their new home.

Work Cited  

Layton, Julia. “Why Do People Believe Things That Science Has Proved Untrue?” HowStuffWorks Science, HowStuffWorks, 8 Mar. 2018, science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/why-people-believe-things-science-proved-untrue.htm.

Cantrell, and Mary. “ZSR Library.” Urban Legends: Why Do People Believe Them?, Wake Forest University, 5 May 2010, wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/handle/10339/14790.  

Lindemann, Katherine. “Many People Believe Myths about How the Brain Works.” ResearchGate, 9 Mar. 2018, www.researchgate.net/blog/post/many-people-believe-myths-about-how-the-brain-works.

“What Mythology Reveals about the Mind.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cui-bono/201704/what-mythology-reveals-about-the-mind.