Were the grapes really sour? — Understanding Cognitive Dissonance
Story 1
ONE hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”
Story 2
My colleague was proof-reading my article on Low-Balling, discussing with my readers the technique of Low-Balling, by relating my experience of buying a pair of Puma shoes on India’s fashion oriented, app only, E-commerce retailer. He told I could have availed a further discount of 20% (an impressive sum of 900Rs) had I made the purchase using an account created with my company email id and a specific employee discount code. I replied saying ‘It wouldn’t have been worth the headache of creating and maintaining another account.’ Later when I reflected back, I wondered if it was really true that a saving of 900Rs and possibilities of further savings on future purchases was not really worth the effort of additional 3 minutes work, as I claimed. What had made me really believe it was not worth?
I shall take these example to discuss one of the most profound concepts of psychology called Cognitive Dissonance which is attributed to Leon Festinger. For this let us go back to the story of Fox and the Grapes.
For a moment imagine after a lot of struggle Fox had managed to get the grapes which were indeed sour. Would he still have felt the grapes to be sour?
Understanding Cognitive Dissonance
The psychology finding says that people do not like to act in one way and think in another(Ref 1). Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we experience when we are caught between two contradictory/psychologically inconsistent thoughts or discrepancy between our beliefs and actions.
Further in the words of Sheena Iyengar from the book Art of Choosing:
“When we experience a conflict between our beliefs and actions, we can’t really rewind time and take back what we have already done, so we adjust our beliefs to being them in line with our actions.”
So in this new version of Fox’s story, he would have then told himself that grapes weren’t that sour or that he liked sour grapes in order to avoid the feeling that his effort had been a waste. In my episode of missing out on a good discount, I had convinced myself, without my awareness, that an additional discount of 20% was not worth the effort of creating a new account.
Cognitive Dissonance in everyday life
Most of us believe that our attitudes influence our behaviour. However equally often our behaviour influences our attitudes in order to reduce this cognitive dissonance (This is called post-decisional cognitive dissonance, to which I will confine this article. The other category is pre-decisional cognitive dissonance which tries to alter/influence our decision if we have not yet acted.). If we reflect calmly we will be able to explain many of our daily behaviours using cognitive dissonance. Let us consider two not-so-fictional examples.
- Ms. Supriya, a girl born and brought up in a city, who had to move to a small town after marriage, tells that she has begun to feel that small town life is better than city life. Could it be dissonance that convinced her so?
- Mr. Suhas always wanted to move to USA but could not. Now he thinks he is contributing to the growth of his country by working here. Could it be dissonance that convinced him so?
Inducing Cognitive Dissonance
It is possible to get people to buy into your thoughts or to influence their action by inducing cognitive dissonance in them. Let me tell example one such behavioural engineering I scripted. A friend wanted a good Letter of Recommendation(LOR), towards higher studies, from her not-so-congenial manager. In such situations managers usually give a good LOR but do not support the individual’s growth in the company then on. So I scripted her request like this:
Step1 : Make a statement like this : “…. You have always SUPPORTed my career growth always. Thank You … “. Emphasise support.
Step2: Make him acknowledge it. Wait for him to make statement like ‘You deserve it… ‘
Step 3: Make statement like ‘I hope you will SUPPORT me in future too ….. Now again I am in need of your support‘
Step 4: Ask for LOR.
She got a good LOR and her manager since then has been at-least as supportive to her as he was before. Not doing so would have been dissonance arousing in him after acknowledging to supported her. While it is impossible to measure exact contribution of dissonance in overall turn of events, I am fairly sure it has played its part.
Understanding cognitive dissonance theory at least will help us explain many of our decisions and self reconciliations if not engineer others’ actions as described humorously in the Dilbert’s comic below.
All the best with understanding yourselves and behavioural engineering if you wish to attempt.
Comments and feedbacks are welcome.
Cognitive dissonance from Evolutionary perspective
It is important to realise that this internal reconciliation happens mostly without our awareness. Could it be the design of the Evolution? If yes, what could be the best explanation for it? Let me share my thoughts quickly.
If it is true that ’the brain’s adaptive mechanisms were shaped by natural and sexual selection’[Ref 2] it is very important that an individual has an high regard/opinion of himself only which can let him go about trying to create better image of himself on others.
So it is a must that an individual reconciles discrepancy between his belief and action quickly and has a perfect answer to his action. Only that can enable him to have high regard of himself and his self can continue it’s possible role of a PR agent[Ref 3].
Notes:
Ref1 : Book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
