Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance and Cognitive Consistency
The classic experiment of Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith (1959) involved asking a group of people to perform an excruciatingly boring task for an hour. Afterwards, they were asked to pitch the experiment to the next group as some sort of fun diversion. You can imagine they had mixed feelings about blatantly lying about such an unpleasant experience, so the organizers offered them money. Some were given $1, some were given $20. This was the real focus of the experiment: those given $1 lied more enthusiastically, and afterwards rated the experiment better, than those given $20. Why? Because it was such a waste of time. The low compensation created a dissonance. “I only got one dollar out of this, but it was fun,” feels better than “I just spent over an hour of my precious time on this planet being bored to death, and got paid practically nothing.” The $20 group were more honest.
The list of human cognitive errors and biases is very long. It is best explored with wry, self-aware irony, because despite the fact that we should be learning about ourselves, the easiest examples to spot are those appearing in other people. This is a constant tendency. At the core of our overly-positive (or overly-negative) beliefs about ourselves is a phenomenon called “cognitive dissonance” and its counterpart, the principle of “cognitive consistency.”
Cognitive dissonance is when our beliefs and/or behaviors combine in a distorted, off-center fashion. What I mean by this is that it is quite a simple matter for us to believe one thing and do another. Think about the feeling of knowing that a bit less weight on your frame would leave you feeling better, but still eating a couple of cookies when offered. The paradox this creates is not a comfortable feeling. There is a conflict inherent in the interaction of knowing that less sugar is better (and fully intending to consume less sugar), and the behavior of eating the sugar anyway.
The lack of consistency produces dissonance. Dissonance is listening to a band play with an impaired drummer. Or watching some kind of march, except one of them is shuffle-stepping because they aren’t paying attention. Enduring dissonance in those situations creates anxiety, and in my case an intense desire to leave. Enduring it in our thoughts creates a need to change one of the inconsistencies, which will bring relief. In the case of the cookies, my particular favorites include: “I’m doing fine right now, I just got a compliment on how slim I’m looking,” “It is just plain rude to turn down food when it’s offered by a friend,” and “I know I shouldn’t, but they’re just so good.”
When my behavior and my convictions clash, I can’t carry on with my day as though nothing is wrong. There must be some form of rationalization taking place in my head. That, or the predictable denial. “I just won’t think about it.”
These are not simply excuses. They are aides to reducing anxiety. When we are uncomfortable and a possible solution presents itself, not taking advantage of that solution is nearly impossible. This becomes a habit, reinforced and practised throughout our lifetimes.
Why choose the discomfort?
Choosing the discomfort of enduring cognitive dissonance is the only path to higher-level thinking. If we want to up our reasoning game (and we do), we have to see our own inconsistencies clearly. We cannot afford to dodge or ignore the point in question. Compounding the problem is the fact that cognitive dissonance is mostly nipped in the bud. Our subconscious plays a trick on our conscious thinking centers by filtering dissonance anxiety before it even arises in awareness. It doesn’t give us the chance to choose. This works in exactly the same way as an optical illusion. Unless we concentrate, or are shown the trick, we honestly will not see the whole picture.
A common example is the way most people feel about their cars. If Abernathy owns and drives a Honda every day, it isn’t likely he’ll be in love with Ford cars. He will probably be disdainful of other brands. Reasons to praise Honda come easily to Abernathy’s mind, and reasons to scorn other major car brands are the same. His subconscious will do the filtering for him, and if he ever gets into a situation that demands an objective comparison, it will be a struggle to for him to be truly open-minded, because this is the car he drives; it’s personal.
We are habitually decided on many important issues before a discussion ever comes up. Think politics: if a member of an opposing party started a discussion with you on the particular merits of one of their candidates’ platforms, are you going to listen with an unbiased focus on ‘just the facts?’ Of course not. You can’t: the uneasiness would creep up on you, the anxiety compelling you to counter-argue before they’ve even finished.
Being with our anxiety elevates us to expert-level thinkers. Anyone who can genuinely consider entrenched ideological differences with real impartiality has reached that point.
Wouldn’t it blow your mind to engage in a heated discussion, and have the other person suddenly say, “You know what, that’s good reasoning! You’ve changed my mind, I’m persuaded.” Wouldn’t you have trouble accepting their sincerity?
Can you and I make the choice to be that way?
