THINKER'S ALMANAC - May 8

How did Leon Festinger’s experiment, where he paid people to lie, help us to better understand how we lie to ourselves?

Subject:  Cognitive Dissonance - Boring Task

Event:  Birthday of Psychologist Leon Festinger, 1919

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief. -Frantz Fanon

Today is the birthday of American psychologist Leon Festinger, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1919.  In 1959, Festinger and his colleague James Carlsmith completed a groundbreaking study that helps us understand how we sometimes lie to ourselves rather than face uncomfortable truths.  When our conflicting beliefs or actions come into conflict, we experience what Festinger called cognitive dissonance.  This internal conflict results in discomfort that moves us to resolve the tension, which sometimes results in justifying or rationalizing our behavior.  For example, imagine a man who is late for his doctor's appointment.  Running from his car to the doctor’s office, he drops a candy wrapper and does not stop to pick it up.  Because he sees himself as someone who is environmentally responsible, he experiences cognitive dissonance.  His act of littering is not consistent with the image he has of himself as a non-litterer.  To resolve this internal conflict, he rationalizes his actions, saying to himself, “It’s just a small piece of garbage, and I’m sure that the doctor’s office has someone who routinely picks up the trash in the parking lot.”

 

In Festinger’s classic study he attempted to make the abstract concept of cognitive dissonance more concrete by demonstrating its effects empirically.  He began by engaging 71 subjects in a task that was intentionally designed to be monotonous:   turning pegs on a wooden pegboard for one hour. After all subjects completed their hour of the boring task, they were each paid either $1 or $20 to persuade a waiting participant that the boring task was actually fun.  Finally, the subjects were asked by a researcher to give a truthful evaluation of the task.  Results revealed that those subjects who were paid $1 rated the task as fun, while those who were paid $20 more accurately described the task as dull.

                                                            Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay 

The study was designed to create cognitive dissonance in all 71 participants:  each one participated in what was clearly a boring task.  Their belief in the boring task, however, conflicted with their action of telling someone else that the task was fun.  Participants who were paid $20 had little trouble honestly evaluating the task.  They had been fairly compensated for telling a white lie and as a result, experienced less motivation to rationalize.  The participants who had been paid only $1, however, were in a different situation.  Rather than truthfully evaluate the task as boring, they found it easier to alter their original belief and to say that the task was fun (1).

Long before Festinger’s experiment, Benjamin Franklin recorded a personal anecdote in his Autobiography (1793), recounting how he was able to justify eating fish despite the fact that he had previously resolved not to.  He never uses the term cognitive dissonance; nevertheless, he has the metacognitive insight to recognize and laugh at his own rationalization:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I considered, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs. Then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. (2)

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is “Cognitive Dissonance”? How did Benjamin Franklin’s Cognitive Dissonance lead him to rationalize his decision to eat fish?

Challenge - Being Honest With Yourself:  Just as Ben Franklin described the internal conflict he experienced when his beliefs conflicted with his actions, try to remember a time when you experienced cognitive dissonance.  What happened, and how did you resolve the conflict?  

Sources:

1-McLeod, Saul.  “Cognitive Dissonance.”  Simply Psycholology.com 5 Feb. 2018.

2-The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin