Volunteer apathy can be read as cognitive dissonance reduction, psychic numbing, or denial.

Evidence

This clue that focusses on emotional tone is partly harmonious with a psychological family of explanations that would say that when volunteers’ faith in democracy clashed with their intuitions of powerlessness, volunteers reduced the cognitive dissonance'' by rede¢ning democracy, narrowing its scope into ever smaller circles. This approach might say that volunteers tied up ambivalence, anxiety, and ambiguity into tidy packages, trying hard to forget what they knew in order to protect what they wanted to believe. Similarly, this clue could summon another psychological approach, that would say that volunteers were engaging in psychic numbing” ^ avoiding despair by avoiding feelings about the fate of the world altogether. Or, in a more pop-psychological vein, one might say that volunteers were “in denial.” — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 83

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Denial about moral panics occurs in multiple forms. — Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panics: the…, 125

Related

• Denial about moral panics occurs in multiple forms. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Denial about moral panics occurs in multiple forms. #exemplifies (0.70) — Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panics, 125