E305A2@TAMVM1.BITNET (Karl G. Hursey) (02/06/90)
Cognitive dissonance is not anywhere close to the "simultaneous belief
that something is both true and false." Cognitive dissonance refers to an
aversive internal state experienced by an individual who perceives an
inconsistency between (or among) various aspects of knowledge, feelings,
and behavior. Note several keywords here. One is "perceives." Cog Diss
is a subjective phenomenon produced by the perceptions of an individual.
One could conceivably hold beliefs that others find "dissonant" with no
distress. Leon Festinger, who developed the theory of cog diss, said that
one of the most important sources of cog diss is one's own actions.
Perceiving oneself as behaving inconsistently may lead to cog diss. This
aversive state was (according to Festinger) reduced thru one of several
mechanisms, the one of most interest to psychologists has been changes in
beliefs to fit actions. A common example is the high rating of new cars
routinely made by recent purchasers. Festinger would say that a person
who just spent big bucks on a car would find negative attitudes about the
car dissonant so he or she perceives the car more positively than she did
before the purchase. The recent Consumer Reports evaluation of Mazda
MPV minivans in which the bumpers were rated as "the worst we've ever seen"
might produce some cog diss in me since I purchased an MPV this summer.
To resolve this dissonance between my act of purchasing the car and the
information that the bumpers are made of tinfoil I might denigrate the
quality of CR testing or tell myself that I drive so carefully that a
collision would never occur making the bumpers irrelevant.
Another example is the finding that individuals rate an organization as
more important, interesting, etc, etc if they were hazed or hassled to
get in. Some argue that this principle also explains the phenomenon of
bootcamp or combat buddies.
Note that cognitive dissonance theory is not universally accepted among
theorists of cognitive behavior. Among other things, it is severely
criticized for being a whiz at explaining events post hoc but a very poor
predictor of things in advance (e.g., given a state of cog diss, how will
individual X resolve it?). This is, of course, pretty much par for the
course for theories of human behavior.
Now, having apparently missed some of the recent flame wars, what has
cog diss got to do with disarmament and if it seems relevant is it merely
being used as a post hoc explanatory label (sometimes difficult to
distinguish from name calling) or does it offer truely innovative
prediction, understanding, or control of a phenomenon?
-Karl HurseyPH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET (Tim Johnson) (02/06/90)
>Now, having apparently missed some of the recent flame wars, what has >cog diss got to do with disarmament and if it seems relevant is it merely >being used as a post hoc explanatory label (sometimes difficult to >distinguish from name calling) or does it offer truely innovative >prediction, understanding, or control of a phenomenon? > -Karl Hursey Thanks for the explanation. It was used as an Ad Hominem attack on an argument earlier. And, in case you were wondering, was brought up again in a sarcastic manner....which apparently escaped Dave. -Tim