When incoherence wants to be consistent
We all believe in being consistent people and following a line, especially when it comes to morality. No one goes around claiming to be an inconsistent person. On the contrary, we are more likely to complain about the inconsistencies of others. However, as much as we may believe that we conform to our ideas and principles, we often have to face several times, more or less, serious contradictions. Often they concern only ourselves, other times others. Sometimes they are trifles, other times things much more serious. And the harder the contradiction is for our mind to digest, the more it tries to find a way to make the contradiction meaningful: it justifies itself, but often we are not even aware of this explanation because we strongly believe in the excuse we have created. This is when cognitive dissonance occurs.
The classic example is the case of a smoker. At least once, all of us have heard a smoker say “my grandmother died at age 100 and was a heavy smoker” when confronted with the statement “smoking is bad”.
Or someone who has wronged someone say, “he’s an asshole anyway”.
Up to more extreme examples, as in the case of murders, in which the murderer manages to justify the crime by dehumanizing the victim through terms such as animal, beast, etc…
Every time we do something that goes against a condition of coherence (consonance), regarding our beliefs, actions, principles, etc.; we experience different feelings of discomfort, often unconscious: guilt, shame, embarrassment that we want to suppress. Our need to maintain a high opinion of ourselves, against the feeling of discomfort caused by conflicting information with the conception we have of ourselves, gives rise to cognitive dissonance: namely the need to fix our contradictions with a justification.
This concept was developed by the psychologist and sociologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s and was defined as an inconsistency between two cognitions: thoughts and opinions that occur whenever we perform an action that gives us a feeling of absurdity, stupidity, or immorality about ourselves.
Therefore, how can people get rid of such contradictions with themselves?
Essentially in 4 ways if we exclude the discontinuation of the dissonant behavior, in our example: quitting smoking.
- Through distortion: E.g. Studies on smoking are not entirely clear.
- Through justification: E.g. Smoking relaxes me.
- By denying or ignoring some elements: E.g. Smoking is not bad for me because my grandmother lived to age 100.
- By adding elements: E.g. New filters can greatly reduce the harmfulness of cigarettes.
In contrast to what you might think, the response to dissonance is also related to the degree of self-esteem. A person with high self-esteem tends to experience greater dissonance than someone with low self-esteem. If, for example, people with high self-esteem would do something immoral, they would experience greater dissonance and consequently would have to make a lot of effort to reduce it, because the action would be very distant from the opinion they have of themselves. On the contrary, individuals with low self-esteem would perceive less dissonance, because their low self-esteem would match more with their perception of themselves, i.e. to be a horrible person who has done something bad.
In addition, the more important and/or irrevocable a behavior is, the more we need to reduce dissonance because the price to pay is high. It often happens with purchases: the more we spend on a product, the more subsequently we tend to appreciate it better and minimize its flaws, just because of the excessive cognitive effort made. The more the stakes are high and irreversible, the more the weight is great to bear, as with promises, oaths, bonds, etc…
Different behaviors towards cognitive dissonance can also be seen across cultures. Collectivist societies (in which the needs of the group are more important than the needs of the individual) tend to have less dissonance-reducing behavior, or an outside observer may align with the observed person’s dissonance as a way of conforming to the group. For example, if a person makes excuses for saying or doing something unpleasant, the observer will also tend to align him or herself with the behavior of the one who is observing. A totally different reaction than in more individualistic societies.
Another point to consider is definitely the difference between an external and internal justification. Lying about our girlfriend’s bad haircut is an external justification for not hurting someone we care about. Where it is not possible to apply an external justification, we try to find an internal one: for example, by emphasizing second-order positive aspects. In this scenario, we might appreciate the fact that she has changed her look as quality of trying something new.
So it is important for us to be consistent, even when we are not, at the cost of convincing ourselves that the things that undermine that consistency are not doing so.
Consistency is still a key factor in social relationships. It allows us both to know who we are, and also to feel protected from outside attacks when we are accused of contradictory behavior. However, it’s even more important consistency with others because if they know what to expect from us, and we from them, we know whether or not we can trust. In fact, it is precisely when someone behaves too inconsistently that we no longer know who he/she is, what he/she wants, what he/she expects, and therefore we cannot trust him/her. Like when a dear friend of ours makes us so many beautiful promises and then ends up keeping none of them because his selfishness takes over, but despite this, he still wants to be right. Our friend uses cognitive dissonance to defend his inconsistency, but we can’t help but see him as unreliable because we no longer know what kind of person is who promised us so much to break it as if nothing happened.
Consistency, however, does not mean stubbornly sticking to a position that we know is wrong. How many times do we discover that our opinion was not so right, and we rightly change our minds? The important thing is to do it with full awareness of the facts and to point it out, without pretending that the new opinion is the one we have always had because others will see it as inconsistency. Just as when you change your mind constantly only to follow others or a trend: that is pure inconsistency.
Cognitive dissonance can be a detriment when we defend a deeply wrong action without having the courage to admit our mistakes. However, we can also exploit this behavior for positive ends: maybe to convince ourselves that behavior we dislike a little, but which is good for us, will improve our lives.
