Cognitive Dissonance And Self-Perception Theory
To start I’ll summarize what each of the theories state. In Social Psychology cognitive dissonance is defined as “tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions”. Simply put it’s the uneasy feeling of conflict we feel when we have 2 or more conflicting thoughts. I feel like hypocrisy is a good way to describe this theory, where we say one thing but do another. Controversial topics are usually good examples of where someone might have cognitive dissonance; like abortion, death penalty, marijuana legalization, just to name a few.
Another great point Social Psychology points out is that dissonance states that when we don’t have an extrinsic reward that our actions are to be accounted for, it can cause us to doubt why it is we are doing said action at all. For example, generally we work to receive a paycheck (the reward), if we were to suddenly stop receiving a paycheck we would quickly question why it is that we are working. We live in a world where we need to know what the “end goal” is for our actions, and if it’s not always clear we are going to experience cognitive dissonance. The self-perception theory is defined as “when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as we would someone observing us- by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs”.
There is a tendency to view someone’s behavior and decision being made based on environment. With the self-perception theory we infer situations by looking at circumstances in which they occur under and whether our attitude about the situation is strong enough that we have an internal conflict. This theory actually helps a person understand what types of values they might have based on how they find themselves responding to scenarios. I am known amongst my family and friends for remaining neutral on many topics that cause tension. Many times touchy topics are brought up as part of “party talk” and I realize I have never really given it much thought, but as I find myself engaging in conversation I have a tendency to lean more into one direction than the other… I am finding myself experiencing the self-perception theory.
To better understand and explain both theories I will reflect on a recent interaction I partook in that a really close friend of mine and a dilemma she had with her daughter. I’m choosing this situation because I can clearly see where cognitive dissonance AND self-perception theories played a role in my response to her and also my internal thought process. I should start my stating that we both have daughters around the same age. Her daughter is one year older than mine, so they are 9 and 10. The situation goes as follows: My friend found a social media page her daughter had without parental permission. She was making posts that her mother (and I) found very inappropriate and promiscuous posts. As one can imagine, this became a huge conflict in their household and caused enough stress on my friend that she confided in the situation to me. Now for the sake of understanding where my thought process went during this conversation with my friend it should be noted that I do not allow my daughter to have internet access. Because of modern times and technology advances she does have a tablet she is allowed to have on weekends and it is stripped down of internet usage and it does not have text messaging access. So I’ll start with the cognitive dissonance I had as I was having during this conversation with my friend.
My thoughts were VERY inconsistent in that I wanted to tell her it was normal to have girls this age start to become curious and explore what’s “out there”, but at the same time I was panicking for the sake of my daughter thinking I would never allow her to have as much freedom as her daughter has been given. Now did I say that out loud to her? Absolutely not! I wanted to be a good friend and give her a shoulder to cry on and reassure her that everything would be okay. My thoughts were inconsistent in that I was telling her it was okay, but I was thinking that it’s not okay. There was obvious tension and conflicting feelings; as a friend I wanted to reassure that she was a great mother yet as a parent I couldn’t help but feel like she made a parenting error. Now when I recollect the scenario apply the self-perception theory I find myself being able to remember points where my values and opinions were strengthened about certain topics. As my friend was sharing her conflict with me I knew that my attitude towards technology and kids have free access to it was strong enough to think that a situation like hers was bound to happen. I have worked enough with adolescents and internet usage to know that nothing good ever really comes from adolescents being allowed to have free unsupervised access to the internet. I had always had a strong belief of “technology is no good for kids”. I love the world of research and information readily available to kids, but technology has become a greater tool for social media and virtual interactions rather than research and knowledge.
Overall, I feel we can apply both theories to countless scenarios. We can dissect scenarios, however we have to try and to do while avoiding hind-sight bias (which can be very hard). I do believe it’s important for adults to try and engage in these types of reflection exercises as it helps us better understand theories and see how they make sense. When we look at a scenario with a specific theory in mind it’s almost like a mental connect the dots game.
