Consistency can be seen as a personality trait, a position on a particular subject, or a property of reasoning, and it has also been proven that aligning our vital thoughts and experiences is a positive reserve for our psychological health.
Today, we frequently hear statements from public figures on how to preach by example. Social media has encouraged the realization or outsourcing of essentially invisible values.
- However.
- The materialization of morally accepted behavior can be camouflaged under a repertoire of values or other unethical behavior.
For example, giving money to classes that need it most can be a good deed, however, this gift may be questioned by some if the money was earned unethically (e. g. by drug trafficking).
At this stage, we need to reformulate: what is the example?Is it something that depends on a concrete materialization, an external evaluation or a preset action?Because you have more resources to lead by example, is it more consistent than teaching through this?The answer is no.
Preaching by example means “doing what you want others to do. “Words have the power to convince, but example has the power of truth seen and lived. Words are really powerful when based on personal examples.
For its part, the word coherence has its etymological origin in Latin, coaherentia, which means internal connection and refers to the quality of what presents an internal and global connection or relationship of its different parts.
This definition highlights the inner nuance as indispensable in its conceptualization. Preaching by example, seems to give greater importance to the external component, which is behavior, as if it were a necessary or sufficient condition.
So, does an exemplary behavior or a repertoire of behaviors not determine consistency, since the cognitive component?like the one that refers to a hypothesis of ethical values?it’s an essential condition.
Consistency can be evaluated through the relationship between our own experiences or stories with our thoughts and decisions. By its total or global nature, it relates to the phrase of Aristotle, later collected by the psychology of the Gestalt: “The whole is more than the sum of the parts”.
This difference in nuances in the concept of coherence is often overlooked in everyday language, using both senses indiscriminately.
This also happened in the philosophy studies of “The Theory of Consistency”. According to Rescher, this theory was not historically a monolithic doctrine, but it took very different forms.
Truth theory as coherence was studied in the famous “Vienna Circle”, proving to be a conventional approach. This theory has received much criticism for its circular thinking, questioning what it really means to be consistent.
Critics of this theory were clarified by the German philosopher Schlick, when Otto Neurath and Carnap seized a neopositivist theory of truth, warned that it was a circular approach and emphasized the presence of ethics in truth.
The psychology of thought studies valid forms of reasoning, as well as the most frequent thought errors. What we do when we think inductively is believe that the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion.
On the other hand, an error also occurs when we come to a conclusion without knowing the premises, or even knowing them.
These biases of thought can be observed in recent social phenomena, such as post-truth or populism, among others, the latter may be an example of categorical syllogistic reasoning.
In this type of reasoning, the conclusion is drawn from an inadequation of the major premise with the minor, resulting in false thinking.
Post-truth can be seen as a type of formal and unconditional error, called the statement of the consequential, this error occurs because a second element is affirmed and its history is wrongly inferred to be true.
When making a judgment, evaluation, or measurement, Einstein’s contribution to the existence of hidden variables should be remembered.
For him, in reality, the results of the measures must be predictable, and if we can’t predict them it’s because there’s information we don’t know. This information was called “hidden variables,” reality.
In 1987, Antonovsky proposed the concept of sense of coherence (SOC) as a salutogen variable, a health mediator in stressful situations.
This concept has been studied as a measure of resilience and is linked to self-esteem and improved stress resistance.
The positive value of coherence has been studied in a type of constructivist therapy, called coherence therapy, that interestingly integrates what has been effective in the clinical practice of psychology, confirmed by neuroscience.
Consistency therapy achieves effective results, successfully intervening in the blocked emotional experience and integrating it into memory to become a conscious sense, that is, restores the individual or restores their personal and global coherence.
This global character, which forms the truth of the individual’s experience, is the main characteristic of coherence. Truth serves as a guide or light to follow a path; sometimes dark, sometimes light.
Each person has different experiences and yet to some extent knows reality, so instead of trying to follow a specific example, it is necessary to know our cornerstone, which is coherence.
The value of consistency, being an invisible value, appears to have recently gone unnoticed, or is less valued than exemplary behavior, which produces more visibility, so even silently, you can be more consistent than those who preach by example.
Knowing that there are more realities than we can infer from a simple external connection allows us to approach the truth, develop greater mental openness, and understand the ethical sense of coherence.