Hi RAZD,
I not studied cognitive dissonance since I was an undergrad but I've always had a soft spot for it!
When I saw you response to BMG saying that cognitive dissonance was two words and you replied with
hence the cognitive dissonance
I imagined BMG having cognitive dissonance for a second as his or her mind wrestled with seeing two words and being told it was one word.
I thought this was hilarious.
It seems (to me) that the people rationalized a need for their decisions\position afterwards, or invested more emotional conviction in it.
I agree totally. I've noticed this in myself when I either buy or borrow a computer game (bear with me): if I own it and spent money on it I seem to be more positively disposed towards it.
If I'm simply having a lend of it I have no tolerance for any faults at all (because I've invested nothing in it) and in fact seem to be irrationally negatively biased against games I borrow. Perhaps because I want to believe my generous lender is an idiot with poor taste.
I was never too impressed with Festinger and Carlsmith's conclusions but I don't think I'm really qualified to challenge them but, here is a naughty little quote mine I liked the sound of
article says writes:
Put simply, the experimenters concluded that many human beings, when persuaded to lie without being given sufficient justification, will carry out the task by convincing themselves of the falsehood, rather than telling a bald lie.
Festinger & Carlsmith Cognitive dissonance consequences of forced compliance
I've encountered some people in my professional life who have grown up believing some concept is a truth only to discover that the world does not work the way they believed.
This kind of dissonance has led to so pretty bazaar cognitive distortions to remove cognitive dissonance. In several cases this has led to ideas of conspiracy against the individual who is so sure that the world works 'just so' and so confused that their experience contradicts their beliefs that they construct a 'personal reality' where they can square the circle.
So we could have a young adult told by his or her parent that they are 'special' and destined for great things feeling terribly confused when they don't seem to be doing exceptionally.
At a very basic level we can see those poor souls on X Factor who are appalling singers and yet there parents fuel their perceptions that they can in fact sing.
Then they explode when they have to deal with the reality of the situation.
One could argue that literalists are constantly squaring the circle in their own heads because reality does not match with belief.
Just like when the X factor wannabes rant and rave that the experts are wrong and they really are great singers.
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