Today I’m going to break from precedent and discuss
something that’s currently happening in my life rather than an event that
happened in my not-so-distant past. But first, we’re going to need to talk a
little bit about cognitive dissonance
theory. According to cognitive
dissonance theory, when our attitudes are not consistent with our behavior, it
induces a state of physiological arousal that we are motivated to reduce
(Festinger, 1957). Generally speaking, the easiest way to reduce this
physiological tension is to change your attitudes so that they are once again
consistent with your behavior.
One situation in which cognitive dissonance regularly occurs
is when an individual is faced with a choice between two equally attractive
alternatives. This situation is commonly referred to as the free choice paradigm. In the free
choice paradigm, the negative aspects of the option you choose and the positive
aspects of the unchosen alternative create a state of cognitive dissonance in
the individual faced with the difficult choice (Brehm, 1956). In order to reduce
this state of tension, the individual accentuates the positive aspects of the
chosen option and devalues the unchosen alternative. Essentially, as soon as
you make a difficult choice you begin the process of convincing yourself that
it was the right choice.
Recently, I have been faced with my own difficult choice and
have experienced the effects of the free choice paradigm. As a result of a
variety of factors (otherwise known as massive health issues) I have been
forced to reevaluate my plans for after graduation. My choice consisted of either trying to find
a full-time office job or trying to get into a graduate school program
unrelated to my hard-won psychology major. Although each option is equally
valid in that they are equally unrealistic relative to my physical abilities,
when I made the decision to pursue a new academic field I immediately began
downplaying the merits of working full-time. I told myself “There was no way I
could handle the stress involved in a full-time job anyway, and even if I could
the job market is so terrible that no one would hire me.” I also began inflating
the desirability of pursuing philosophy by saying things like “Philosophy is a
disability-friendly endeavor” and “My abstract reasoning is one of the few
things unaffected by my neurological problems, therefore I should pursue an
area like philosophy that focuses on abstract thought.” My behavior (choosing
to enter a graduate-level philosophy program) was inconsistent with my attitude
that both options were equally desirable. Therefore, to reduce the state of
discomfort related to dissonance, I changed my attitude to be consistent with
my behavior. In this case, I changed my attitude so that I believed the
philosophy program was the superior option.
(n = 458)
References
Brehm, J. W. (1956). Post-decision changes in desirability
of alternatives. Journal of
Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 52, 384–389.
Festinger, L. (1957). A
theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
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