This is an article that I wrote for a Behavioral Science class that links three different authors together.  Each article had nothing to do with one another, but ironically, I found three connections in each of these psychiatrist's writings.  They all have to do with what we choose to
see and hear and think.
We see what we want to see.  We hear what we want to hear.  We choose not to think.  We don't have empathy for anyone else's plight, but our own.  We just don't want to hear it.  And we can't seem to overcome the obvious consequences of such blindness.  I don't see any improvement in the way we all think.  William C. Wresch (Psychiatry Today) talked  in his artical, about the Rodney King incident and spoke of the interpretation the world had from a "base of experience," whites saw one thing on the video tape and blacks saw another.  That different people and different cultures have widely different experiences means that the same information will have different meanings.  It will be taken, and twisted, as usual, because that is the way we humans operate.
Wresch sited this "blindness" in other examples in his {very interesting} work, when he wrote about the Challenger, and how so many people knew and were warned about the significant problems and issues that arose that morning on January 28, 1986.  Actually, his article was even a surprise to me, because I had no idea that the bigwigs were warned several times that the conditions weren't right; that the engineers at Morton-Thiokol had known for years, since 1977, and that the O-rings had problems, especially in cold weather.  How could the managers make such a mistake, even after being warned?  They had evidence from past launches.  They had their own research data available to them.  They had engineers in the room with them saying do not launch.  As Wrech says, these things were "ignored because people are willfuly ignorant."  Their hyponotized states were a significant barrier to information flow, and as we shall see, the Challenger wasn't the first disaster it has caused.  These are situations in which the best and brightest "have all the information they need to make the right decision but they ignore the crucial data."   "The information we do take in, we twist." "We happily turn a blind eye to information that doesn't match our values."
(Wresch, W. (1996) Chapter 10, Psychology)
Kimberly Young (a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburg), wrote an essay which informs us of Internet addiction, that clearly dismisses the stereo-type addicted and shines the light on an unusual case of addiction.  Listen to how closely related the Wresch artical is, and Young's
artical.  She says in her writings, ". . . . .recreational activities, and disregard for the physical or psychological consequences caused by the use of a substance."  In Wresch's artical, he talks about turning a blind eye, taking information and twisting it, having all the information we need to make a crucial decision, and ignoring it....Young writes about a case study of a 43-year -old homemaker, who by all accounts was this normal contented woman with a home life and no prior addiction or psychiatric history.  She abused the internet which resulted in significant impairment (key word:
impairment) to her family life.  "She did not see (or believe) her compulsive use of the Internet was a problem, however, significant family problems developed subsequent to her overuse of the Internet."  What do the two articals have in common?  Both  are parrellel articals on what happens if
something is ignored long enough.  And both articals highlight what happens when one has a false sense of control, through "belief."
There are other dimensions  also.  Deane Shapiro, Jr. (Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine) wrote about "control for individual mental and physical health."  He talked about control and its effects on our competence, he talked about perceived (key word:
perceived) control, which ties in with Wresch's and Young's articals.  He states that researchers often mix different aspects of the control construct.  He cites Peterson and Stunkard (1989) defined personal control as an "individual's 'belief' about the degree that he or she can bring about good events and avoid bad events" but then cited research where control was operationalized as actual ability to change environmental contingencies.  This reminds me of the Challenger, when indeed "control was operationalized as actual ability to change environmental contingencies."    Was it not?
Certainly, Morton-Thiokol's management used their control to change the environment of the rhetoric that was going on with respect to the launch of the Challenger. They were in control, (to the demise and destruction of the Challenger crew).  Remember what Stunkard said about "belief" bringing about good events and having control over bad events.  The Morton-Thiokol group decided to "believe" that launching would be okay.  And the Challenger crew "gained a positive sense of control, by believing that someone else was in control:  control by a benevolent other." (Shapiro)  This is a type of "willful ignorance." (Wresch)  The crew was "...disregarding the physical and psychological consequences." (Young)  As Shapiro says, there are those who do not use self-control strategies, that can gain a positive sense of control by believing that "someone else is in control: control by a benevolent other (e.g., a doctor or a higher power, or the Morton-Thiokol group, or the
Pentagon, etc...)"  And that gain, that positive sense of control that they've given to a benevolent other, may be false.
In any case, the three authors explore the subtle differences in the realm of "...willful ignorance"  (Wresch),  "....disregarding the physical or psychological consequences" (Young) and "someone else is in control: control by a benevolent other..." (Shapiro).  It's all about who we want to give control to, and the power of "belief."