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.