Editing Thought-terminating cliché (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}{{short description|Commonly used phrase used to quell cognitive dissonance}}
A '''thought-terminating cliché''' (also known as a '''semantic stop-sign''', a '''thought-stopper''', '''bumper sticker logic''', or '''cliché thinking''') is a form of [[loaded language]]—often passing as [[folk wisdom]]—intended to end an argument and quell [[cognitive dissonance]] with a [[cliché]] rather than a point.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Medical error and harm: understanding, prevention, and control |last=Jenicek |first=Milos |date=2011 |publisher=Productivity Press/CRC Press|isbn=9781439836958|location=New York |oclc=680038936}}</ref><ref name="Chiras2">{{citation|title=Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Biology & Environmental Science Classrooms |first=Daniel D.|last=Chiras|journal=The American Biology Teacher|volume=54|issue=8|year=1992|pages=464–468|doi=10.2307/4449551|jstor=4449551}}</ref> Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only becomes so when used to intentionally dismiss, dissent, or justify [[fallacies]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WFvhN9lSm5gC&q=thought-terminating|title=Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies|last=Bennett|first=Bo|publisher=eBookIt.com|year=2017|isbn=978-1456607371|via=Google Books}}</ref>

The term was popularized by [[Robert Jay Lifton]] in his 1961 book ''[[Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism]],'' who referred to the use of the cliché, along with "loading the language", as "the language of non-thought".<ref name="cliche" />