
Sometimes being a psychologist means that people quiz you randomly. Psychologists love to study, label, define, explore, and theorize. This means that there is a hundred years of theory that is linked to the thinker behind it. This is true for things like Skinner’s study of operant conditioning (and the Skinner Box), Pavlov’s dog, Freud’s concept of the ego (among others), Piaget’s role in defining children’s cognitive development, Roger’s theories on human potential, and Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory. This last one is the theory that I got pop quizzed with this week. My husband turned to me randomly while reading an article on his phone and asked, “What do you remember about Festinger’s theory?” Uhhh, well. This rings a quiet bell in the back of my brain. I sometimes pride myself in telling my children that I finished the 22nd grade (this is all school including graduate studies). However, the downfall is that a lot of the basic nuts and bolts of psychological theory sit dusty in my mind (because I don’t use them every day) and are hard for me to find on the spot. So, reading some of the article over his shoulder allowed the connection between Festinger and his theory cognitive dissonance to creep back to the front of my mind. “Oh yeah, I know that one!” This conversation came up as part of a discussion we were having regarding mask wearing, not wearing, protest, and dogma.
Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflict in your beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes. When you do something, think something, or have to justify a decision that is against your core beliefs about who you are, this produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an associated alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. There are several circumstances that result in cognitive dissonance. One applicable element that related to the mask debate has to do with situations involving forced compliance. When someone is forced to do (publicly) something they (privately) really don’t want to do (like wearing a mask if you are against), dissonance is created between their thoughts(I didn’t want to do this) and their behavior (I did it). When the forced behavior is yet to happen, like a new mandate that masks be worn by law or local ordinance, those with very strong opinions against wearing a mask may experience extreme distress, proclaiming it is a muzzle or some sort of government oppression. This reaction is meant to polarize the decision so you no longer have to be conflicted.
Cognitive dissonance theory also applies to decision making. At its core, a decision means that you have to take two possibilities and prioritize one over the other. When a true choice is to be make, both options have their good points and bad points. The process of making a decision blocks you from the possibility that you can enjoy the advantages of the unchosen alternative, but at the same time it assures you that you must accept the disadvantages of the chosen alternative. You will inherently miss out on a hypothetical benefit and be guaranteed to have to face the real down side of your choice. Festinger noted that people have several ways to reduce dissonance that is aroused by making a decision, one of which is to change the behavior. Unfortunately, people also strive to maintain as much “cognitive consistency” as possible. This essential means that humans by nature are notoriously UNLIKEY to change behaviors. As a result of the difficulty of true behavioral change, people frequently utilize a variety of mental acrobatics to avoid change.
A common way to reduce cognitive dissonance is to increase the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and to decrease the attractiveness of the rejected alternative. This is called “spreading apart the alternatives.” In essence, by making your beliefs and values even more polarized, you have the ability to eliminate choice. Clearly, there was no choice, as the route that you choose was the obvious right decision. This means that the brain often gravitates toward and focuses on evidence that confirms that your belief is correct. The flip side is that your brain also almost rabidly ignores, dispels, or downplays any factoid or detail that may increase your level of cognitive dissonance again. This psychological theory lends itself to those vehemently masking up and also applies to those who flat refuse to do so. Both sides may point to news outlets, research articles, political statements, and anecdotes that offer their brand of “proof.” This is particularly true in a nation split between politics and science. For those who are conflicted regarding whether or not to go back to work may zone in on illness transmission numbers being high in tightly knit neighborhood, prisons, and assisted living centers to downplay the risk at their office job.
We are in trying times. Stress and hard choices abound. The most difficult part about cognitive dissonance is attempting to recognize it when it happens. One of the strongest weapons we can use against our brain’s attempts to make things OK again is to be mindful of our thinking and reducing the knee-jerk cognitive attempts to polarize our choices, to downgrade the importance of the decision, or to shut out the thoughts we have that we chose poorly. The willingness to sustain and suffer that cognitive dissonance by keeping our beliefs and behaviors separate when they are in conflict may save you. In a high stakes situation like the one we face when putting on that mask, we can’t afford a cognitive error that puts ourselves, loved one, and community at risk because we have doubled down on a our strong political beliefs. We can fight that one out later. Well, not with me, since I avoid political debate like the plague.