Cognitive Gymnastics

Hey everyone!

This week is the fun and fascinating cognitive dissonance! First off is a video.

 

This video features some awesome old fashioned animation but also some reasons for behavior as explained by the Jackson 5. They explain that the reason for their behavior is the "boogie", and this reason for their behavior is consistent with their attitudes, those being, as far as I can tell, that they really want to and like to boogie (mostly I just wanted to share this video).

Their reasoning is good as it is in line with the idea that is held by many social scientists who believe that people are motivated to have cognitive consistency, or a state where all of one's beliefs, attitudes, and actions are in conjunction with each other (Abelson et al., 1968). Unfortunately, people often do not act in ways that are consistent with what they think, which will cause cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Cognitive dissonance theory, proposed by Festinger, (1957) states that individuals are motivated to reduce dissonance that results from their actions if those actions are not consistent with their attitudes/beliefs. People can reduce dissonance in a number of ways, such as changing their behavior or attitude (Festinger, 1957).

The original study where cognitive dissonance was induced experimentally was conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959). In short, Festinger and Carlsmith's (1959) study resulted in participants changing their attitude about a boring task by saying that they enjoyed it when they didn't have a good reason for saying it. Other participants also said that they enjoyed a clearly boring task, but their attitude did not change because they attributed their behavior to the fact that they were being paid a good amount of money to say that they enjoyed the boring task.

Examples of this theory are everywhere because they are often involved in small things though out the day where you justify not doing certain activities or behaviors even though not doing them is inconsistent with your beliefs. A good example is health. Many people think that they are pretty healthy and I am one of those. However, exercising really is not fun but it is good for you and I often plan to run in the morning but then when it comes time to go running I say to myself, “Oh! Sleep is more important so I'll do that.” or “I got a lot of exercise at work yesterday so I don't need to run today.” In any case, because I desire and think of myself as a healthy person (and therefore as someone who regularly does and engages in healthy activities), I have to justify my unwillingness to go running with reasons that are in many cases made up and determined after I have decided to not go running (because I need a reason!). If I did not make up this reason then I would be experiencing cognitive dissonance which I would not like.

Furthermore, examples of dissonance are not only present in my health goal inadequacies which have little consequence but also in more significant daily decisions (as well as big one time decisions). When I was in high school I frequently disliked attending church services. However, my parents expressed their displeasure at me not regularly wanting to go to church and making it clear that it was important to them that I go. Now, I really did not like catholic church but I still went; this is due to insufficient justification. According to Festinger (1957) insufficient justification is one condition that will result in cognitive dissonance because it is where individuals choose to preform an action that does not have a large reward (which was the case for me in high school regarding my church attendance). Because I was experiencing cognitive dissonance I made up reasons for attending church often such as, I can learn something from the sermons, or I get to hear songs that I like, or there are always really good breakfast tacos afterward. Whatever excuse I was making that week, it served as a reason for attending church even though I did not like the institution and participating in mass was inconsistent with this behavior. My parents and I eventually came to an agreement/understanding about my religious choices but before that I sure had to do some cognitive work to convince myself to keep going.

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Festinger, L. (1957) A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210.

Janis, I. L. (1968). Attitude change via role playing. In R. Abelson, E. Aronson, W. McGuire, T. Newcomb, M. Rosenberg, & P. Tennen-baum (Eds.), Theories of cognitive consistency: A sourcebook (pp. 810–818). Chicago: Rand McNally.