A person who cannot understand that there may be other perspectives

Question

I'm searching for a word to describe a person who cannot understand that there may be different perspectives. I initially thought of single-minded, but that pertains to determination.

One example of several perspectives could be the difference between a process and an action. Please assume that a process is composed of several actions. A process may be composed of other processes, but these processes would be actions in this greater process.

If you accept my definitions, then depending on the holistic or granularity level, we may consider something a process or an action, depending on whether we are considering its parts or how it's part of a greater thing.

A person may have trouble understanding that it's not true or false that something is a process or an action, it depends on how it relates with everything else from the perspective that we take. From one perspective it's a process, from another it's an action. For some people, things seem to be in one and only one absolute way, which is wrong, IMHO.

Is there a word to describe this kind of problem that some people seem to have?

PD: It's like definition 1b for monism in dictionary.com. But I don't think most people know the word monist.

Here are some other, superficially similar terms that actually mean something quite different. A racist is (approximately) someone who considers other races inferior. A narrow-minded person considers other perspectives wrong or irrelevant, or may not consider them, but is aware that they exist. A monist would not even understand that there is more than one race or multiple perspectives; there is simply one reality, and that's it.

Answer 1

I think narrow-minded could come close to what you are looking for.

Lacking tolerance, breadth of view, or sympathy; petty.

Answer 2

You could say that they're blinkered:

Having or showing a limited outlook

You could also say that such people exhibit tunnel vision.

Answer 3

Close-minded or closed-minded. Various equivalents in various situations might include bigoted or self-righteous. Likewise, fanatical.

Answer 4

Also see terms mentioned in response to the question Single word for people who are like "a frog in the well"; eg:

Synonyms of parochial, "characterized by an unsophisticated focus on local concerns to the exclusion of wider contexts", may serve. Such synonyms include confined, insular, limited, local, narrow, narrow-minded, petty, provincial, regional, small-minded, isolated.

Insular, for example, has a sense that means "separate or isolated from the surroundings; having little interaction with external parties; provincial." Narrow-minded and small-minded are of course easily understood, and so would be close-minded.

Blinkered, fitted with blinkers, or "eye shields attached to a hood for horses, to prevent them from seeing backwards and partially sideways", is another possibility, as are formations from synonyms blinders and winkers.

... monomania, "excessive interest or concentration on a singular object or subject" or "a pathological obsession with one person, thing or idea"; obsession, "compulsive or irrational preoccupation; an unhealthy fixation"; idée fixe; tunnel vision, "an extremely narrow point of view; narrow-mindedness"; and locked-in.

in one answer, and the following terms in other answers:

• myopic, “2. shortsighted; improvident; 3. narrow minded”
• solipsist, “One who adheres to self-absorption and an ignorance of the views or needs of others”
• short-sighted, “(figuratively) Unable to see long-term objectives; lacking foresight.”

Answer 5

hidebound

hidebound: not willing to accept new or different ideas

unreconstructed

unreconstructed: used to describe someone who has strongly held opinions and beliefs that have not changed even though they have been criticized or have become unpopular

sectarian

sectarian: limited in character or scope; parochial

doctrinaire

doctrinaire: used to describe a person that has strong beliefs about what should be done and will not change them or accept other people's opinions

opinionated

opinionated: unduly adhering to one's own opinion or to preconceived notions

Answer 6

I believe the term myopic, which relates to optics in that only objects at a very specific distance are seen in focus, is commonly used metaphorically in this manner.

Answer 7

I don't believe there is such a word but that the closest may be egocentric.

Centered in or arising from a person’s own existence or perspective

In psychology, children in the preoperational stage are considered egocentric as they cannot consider perspectives outside of their own.

Answer 8

My choice is the word miopic which literally refers to narrow vision, but figuratively conveys a limitation in perpective.

Answer 9

Anosognosic is kind of up the same alley:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia

"Anosognosia (/æˌnɒsɒɡˈnoʊziə/, /æˌnɒsɒɡˈnoʊʒə/; from Ancient Greek ἀ- a-, "without", νόσος nosos, "disease" and γνῶσις gnōsis, "knowledge") is viewed as a deficit of self-awareness, a condition in which a person who suffers certain disability seems unaware of the existence of his or her disability. It was first named by the neurologist Joseph Babinski in 1914.[1] Anosognosia results from physiological damage on brain structures, typically to the parietal lobe or a diffuse lesion on the fronto-temporal-parietal area in the right hemisphere.[2][3][4] Whilst this distinguishes the condition from denial, which is a psychological defense mechanism, attempts have been made at a unified explanation.[5] Both anosognosia and denial are almost always connected with damage in the right hemisphere. Split-brain research suggests that this asymmetry points to a neurological answer.[6] Anosognosia is sometimes accompanied by asomatognosia, a form of neglect in which patients deny ownership of their limbs."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The "Dunning-Kruger" effect is a slightly different deficit of self-awareness. In the classic example a would-be bank robber believed that rubbing himself with lemon juice would make himself invisible. He tested this by taking a picture of himself with a Polaroid, but somehow bungled the attempt and got blank film, so he felt it was "proven" that lemon juice makes you invisible to cameras.

Dunning observed that if this guy "was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity."

Dunning: "We’re not very good at knowing what we don’t know." And, alas, the less you know, the less you know that you don't know, making idiots sure of themselves and highly intelligent people often tentative about their knowledge.

Answer 10

'I'm searching for a word to describe a person who cannot understand that there may be different perspectives'

I think you are looking for 'systematizer', a person who is on the far side of the range between empathy and sympathy

The person who cannot imagine being a different person who has a unique way of understanding the world is someone who is immune to emotional contagion. That is, they dont have the ability to observe someone else who is greatly embarrassed and feel embarassesment in their own body to the point where they can't even look at the other person because the emotion is too painful to bear.

see wikipedia on emotional contaion-- 'Vittorio Gallese posits that mirror neurons are responsible for intentional attunement in relation to others. Research in humans shows an activation of the premotor cortex and parietal area of the brain for action perception and execution. Gallese continues his dialogue to say humans understand emotions through a simulated shared body state. The observers' neural activation enables a direct experiential understanding.'

http://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient/

Answer 11

One-eyed is another possibility. It tends to mean unable to consider things from another point of view.

Answer 12

In some contexts, troglodyte is very much for describing such folks.

According to Google it is usually for those stuck on particularly old-fashioned ideology. Based on context and life experience, I've heard some people use it a handful of times just for extreme stubbornness.

Subjectively, I'd call such a person: a liar. Surely they must actually see more than they'd like to admit - or perhaps an ignoramus would be more fitting if not. =]

Answer 13

I suppose someone could be aphased to certain concepts.