An old idea that still pulls our strings
H
ow much of your self is defined in your beliefs and attitudes, your biases and opinions? You're more than the sum of these cognitions? Of course you are, except that these do form a crucial part of a complex mental apparatus. One that craves stability, and abhors disruption. We bask in the comfort of our convictions when these are unchallenged. But what happens when they're put under threat – by circumstances, or (worse) by rational self-interest? Then our very sense of identity also comes under threat, and instead of mental equilibrium we have existential quandary.
So what's our protection when firm beliefs are mugged by social pressure or conflicting evidence?
We can't escape the fact that the things we believe and feel about the world are an integral part of who and what we are. So what's our protection when firm beliefs are mugged by social pressure or conflicting evidence? Can saving face to ourselves be more important than we thought? When the attacks come from others, views we want to believe are wrong but can't be sure, how do we respond? And what of living with the truth, and pain, of being unwittingly wrong ourselves?
Questions such as these are at the heart of much that is anxious, in our angst-ridden world. And over fifty years ago they occupied the attention of a psychologist whose genius led to one of the most significant revelations concerning human behavior of the last century.
Let's go back to 1954, a time when the UFO mania was well underway. A Chicago housewife named Marion Keech claimed to be receiving information in the form of automatic writing from alien beings. Their message was that the world would end before dawn on December 21 that year. Only the true believers were to be saved, by flying saucer no less. The rest of humankind would perish in a deluge of Noachian proportions. At that time a young social psychology professor at Stanford University, Leon Festinger, was working on a radical new theory of motivation he called Cognitive Dissonance. Mrs Keech's prediction offered him a superb opportunity — a real life laboratory in which to test the assumptions of his theory.
Festinger and some associates managed to infiltrate the sect and join the true believers gathered in Mrs Keech's house. From there they were able to report what happened in the lead up and aftermath. The 1956 book When Prophecy Fails provides a dramatic account of the tension in the group, as the clock approached 12.00 am on the appointed day. Bear in mind that these people had left their jobs and given away all worldly possessions in anticipation of an imminent departure from the world. Even now they were removing metal objects from their clothing — zippers, bra straps and the like. Festinger reasoned that an unsuccessful prophecy (which was, for more reasons than one, what he hoped for) would arouse significant psychological discomfort – or dissonance – in the group members. A result of the collision of two significant and contradictory cognitions: absolute belief in the prophecy, and the realization that somehow they were not now on their way to the planet Clarion.
How would these people live with themselves? How could they face the world? Would they be able to put both belief and disbelief behind them, and pick up the pieces of their lives? What else to do but to slink away and hide, from themselves as well as others? Logical enough questions; and logical enough responses – but not what Festinger predicted. Based on the tenets of his cognitive dissonance theory Festinger hypothesized instead that far from being shattered, far from renouncing their belief after failure, the group members would find a way to become more convinced of its truth. And rather than slinking away in abject embarrassment they would actually begin proselytizing, spreading the word to new converts. Needless to say the world didn't end on December 21 that year, but fortunately for that same world Festinger's hypotheses were confirmed. The predictions, counter-intuitive though they were, were all proven true – providing a fundamental breakthrough in our understanding of why humans think and act the way we do.
Then a curious thing happened. Interest lapsed almost as quickly as it began.
Festinger's book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance was published a few years later in 1957. And it caused a sensation in psychological circles, turning prevailing views of motivation on their head. Such was its influence that over the next twenty years well over a thousand individual studies were conducted to test and expand Festinger's original thesis. A cognitive dissonance industry had emerged and was thriving. Then a curious thing happened. Interest lapsed almost as quickly as it began. Fashions in psychology changed and motivation theory was now old hat. Even when it returned to vogue more than a decade later it did so in a different guise, and Festinger's concepts and findings were reinterpreted almost out of recognition. (The academic infighting surrounding his ideas makes for interesting reading, and a detailed exposition can be found in an article by one of Festinger's disciples and an outstanding social psychologist in his own right, Elliot Aronson – "The Return of the Repressed: Dissonance Theory makes a comeback.")
Like many powerful theories cognitive dissonance is at once elegantly simple and disarmingly complex. Our cognitions – those thoughts, attitudes, suspicions, beliefs that form a large part of our perception of the world – comprise pieces of information that for the most part are independent of each other. Indeed they may never be connected in our minds. This of course is a salve to our sanity. (As H.P.Lovecraft famously wrote in the opening line of his best known horror story The Call of Cthulhu, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents" – a greater mercy the more you think about it.)
Some cognitions however, will be connected. Your avid reading about cognitive dissonance and your belief that an election will be held in the Ukraine are unconnected, irrelevant to one another. However your interest in cognitive dissonance and your belief about the legitimacy of psychology are connected. And as such, can be consonant (if you feel that psychology is a useful science) or dissonant (if you feel it's a load of rubbish).
The more our significant beliefs or attitudes are out of sync, the greater the magnitude of the dissonance and the greater the motivation to reduce it.
Dissonant cognitions provoke psychological discomfort which, as with physical discomfort, we seek to escape or lessen. The more our significant beliefs or attitudes are out of sync, the greater the magnitude of the dissonance and the greater the motivation to reduce it. Relief can be accomplished in a number of ways: removing dissonant cognitions (I refuse to read anymore, this is a load of rubbish), adding new consonant cognitions (cognitive dissonance is common sense more than psychology), reducing the importance of dissonant cognitions (this is just the exception that proves the rule), or increasing the importance of consonant cognitions (this knowledge could change my life so earlier prejudices don't matter). Clear – or more confused? (Whoever said psychology couldn't be conceptually demanding?)
Try again. I am hugely enjoying a bottle of French wine, however I'm also on record as stating that French wines are hugely overrated. Dissonance! My defenses spring into action. I remove the dissonant cognition (oops – my belief about French wines was apparently wrong), add new consonant cognitions (the quality of French wines has clearly improved), or I could reduce the importance of dissonant cognitions (some French wines are obviously better than others), or increase the importance of consonant cognitions (taste trumps attitude when it comes to wines) – to grossly oversimplify the illustration this time.
All of us face such dilemmas, more serious ones than these, on a regular basis. We're constantly choosing between dissonance-reducing options in our lives. (Which solution will best enable me to deal with this unwanted mental conflict, and cause me the least distress?) But are these conscious choices – and if so against what criteria are they made? What if we get it wrong – choose an option that doesn't work? Can we go back and start again? Our mental responses appear so immediate it's hard to envisage that a conscious decision-making effort is occurring. Certainly we don't appear to juggle alternatives in our mind before settling on one.
Based on the findings of Aronson and his colleagues it seems that our self-concept may provide the key to how we'll react to dissonance – or more specifically, the extent to which we need to protect our self-concept. If this is of crucial importance to us then it's likely our prioritizing of options will occur at an unconscious level. So the selection of a mental response can well appear automatic.
Think of a belief you hold dear. Now imagine it under severe challenge, from social pressure. Perhaps it happens at a dinner party with new neighbors. These people, whom you'd like to develop as friends, express views on this issue that are diametrically opposed to your own. Whichever response you make is likely to result in serious dissonance – the pain of damage to your self-esteem if you agree, alternatively the pain of loss of potential friends. Even a face saving compromise has its negative effects – weakening your defenses for future attacks on the belief. The option you take will depend on the unconscious value placed on the various outcomes – with self esteem the wild card. And however it turns out you'll learn something about yourself, and others.
Now imagine the same belief under threat not from social pressure this time but conflicting information. Your defensive options here are more numerous – and more creative. Let's consider some of these:
- You can reject the information despite its apparent credibility – I simply don't believe it.
- You can see it as a one-off finding and therefore inconclusive – I see no back up evidence.
- You can seek out contrary information that discredits the alternative viewpoint – that's only one opinion.
- You can restrict the attack to one aspect of our belief, and quarantine the core elements – I'll concede that minor point, however...
- You can acknowledge the conflicting information but retain faith in your belief based on its greater intrinsic truth – some opinions are clearly more equal than others.
- You can question the very validity of what is 'truth' – we all know how dubious 'truth' claims are...
- You can assert the superiority of emotional responses over rational ones – you have to feel the way I do, to possibly understand.
(Yes, as you may have noticed, the old Freudian concept of rationalization figures largely when we defend our beliefs – and like all its kindred defense mechanisms it's quite comfortable playing a surreptitious role.)
Any of these responses may serve to keep the pressure off your belief, and the dissonance down – for a time at least.
But what if we simply ignore inconvenient contradictions, acknowledge the alternative conflicting views and allow them to co-exist? Could we in that way deny dissonance a foothold? (This was the approach taken by workers in the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four – the phenomenon he called "doublethink".) Sadly no, not if the issue is meaningful, and particularly not if it touches our self-concept. As Winston, Orwell's character discovered, even to understand the word 'doublethink' requires the use of doublethink – "the ultimate subtlety". And cognitive dissonance can twist us in contortions when we attempt to escape it via denial.
And isn't life that much more interesting when it offers us such tactical challenges?
All's not lost however. The discomforting effect of cognitive dissonance is in many ways a blessing. It helps to impose order on our cognitions, sounding a warning signal when valued beliefs and attitudes are being threatened. Moreover, when we understand how the dissonance concept works, we can turn it to our advantage. Use it to influence others (think how much of the success of advertising depends on the effects of cognitive dissonance), in addition to strengthening the barriers around our own beliefs. Or we may even choose to expose them to healthy counterargument – knowing that there are escape routes available. And isn't life that much more interesting when it offers us such tactical challenges? (Perhaps no more so than in the intoxicating company of those we know well, where the emotional enjoymentto be had from erecting and breaching mental defences brings with it some little extra frisson.)
As a concept cognitive dissonance may be well into its middle age; as frequently occurring as to be ubiquitous. It may be more recognized than understood, and just as often misunderstood. It may have spawned a myriad of imitators with claims and counter-claims and seen both the highs and lows of academic acclaim. But for all that, Festinger's insight has provided the world with a brilliant and invaluable discovery.
There's no denying it (just try, and you'll see why), cognitive dissonance remains alive and well. And it's playing right now in a mind near you.
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Sources
Leon Festinger et al, When prophecy fails, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956
Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson, 1957
Elliot Aronson, "The Return of the Repressed: Dissonance Theory Makes a Comeback", Psychological Enquiry, 3,4, 1992
H P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1999
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1989.
