--Original published at Alex's Thoughts

Cognitive dissonance appears to be when one rationalizes a form of suffering they are going through in an attempt to come up with an idea why they are going through such an experience. In my personal experience, it would have to be when I worked an extremely boring job in high school for minimum wage.

I used to worker as a stock boy in a grocery store, and the work was mind-numbing to a ridiculous extent. The pay wasn’t good, and I certainly wasn’t enjoying putting time and energy into something that I had absolutely no interest in. However, I took a small measure of enjoyment from organizing the stock in the warehouse into neat and orderly piles, as it was one of the few tasks where I could engage my natural aptitudes. I am a very organized person by nature, and even though organizing grocery stock is still extremely boring and certainly not worth the pay I was getting in retrospect, I convinced myself that I enjoyed that task in an attempt to rationalize that my job was worth something even though I disliked basically every other aspect of it. I would have sought out another job, but the only other business in my hometown within a decent distance that was hiring high school students was another grocery store that still paid minimum wage, and was not as good at scheduling. As such, cognitive dissonance compelled me to take a small amount of pleasure from the least boring part of my job, as I gained very little from any other aspect of it.

I think that cognitive dissonance is not really a thing that should be promoted, as it is merely an attempt to rationalize suffering. Instead, people should be more focused on alleviating their suffering through alternative means. In my case, I should have focused more on attempting to find a different job or an alternative means of earning money. The amount of time and energy I wasted at that job was relatively disproportionate to the payout I was getting. If I could do it over again, I’d look for a different job at other businesses in the area. Instead of rationalizing the boredom and lack of opportunity I had, I should sought an alternative path that would have provided me with more opportunity and happiness.

--Original published at WilliamsCollegeBlog

The Implicit Association Test is meant as a way for someone to test how they think about certain subjects where there are two sides. The two tests I decided to take were the Race and Sexuality tests. The Race test was meant to test someone’s ability to distinguish between the black and white communities. The sexuality test was meant to test someone’s ability to distinguish between words and symbols representing gay and straight people. Each test assigned the two views to the ‘E’ or ‘I’ button as well as if either view was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For the Sexuality test, they assigned ‘Gay’ and ‘good’ to the same key and ‘Straight’ and ‘bad’ to the same key. You would click the key that associated with either of the categories. The next time, the keys were switched. When they switched, there was a little confusion because I would get so used to using the one key for a certain category. It was like I was conditioned to press each key for the specific group. Most of my errors came when the keys got switched for the second round and I had to get use to the new keys.

In the end, I was not surprised by the answers I got. Based on the errors I made and how I was answering the rest of the test, I had a good idea of how my results would turn out.

These tests would be beneficial for college students because they can help students gain more knowledge about how their certain viewpoints. In college, we are on our own for the first time for a long period of time and our views are more widely spread at this time. By identifying where a person puts his/her views, people can focus on what they could change or stay the same. In future careers, they would be good as we are put into jobs with a wide variety of people and different viewpoints. By taking tests like the IAT, we can work on aspects of our lives and be able to relate more to others where we might not have been able to focus on before.

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I feel there are multiple times in our lives where we have faced cognitive dissonance. There have been big times where someone has told us we could get money for something we did so we believed it wasn’t bad, or even small times where we believed someone who told us that a certain situation went one way and they told us so many times where we start to believe its true.

I was faced with this; as many other people have as well when it comes to events that have happened in your life. Someone has told us so many times something that was wrong about a situation or something that would have made the situation better, that you start to question or believe that what they said actually happened. I don’t believe that this should be a method we use as it will make things harder to decieve whether things are actually enjoyable or if someone did classical conditioning on you to make you have to choose the right answer.

I was surprised when the woman said she would lie to get the dollar reward. I also was shocked at the fact that she was able to sell her part so well when she was getting paid the lesser amount. You would think the boy who was getting paid the most would sell it more since he is getting the bigger reward, unlike the woman is only gettting a dollar, which is not as big of a deal.

--Original published at Victoria's Psych Blog

At first after watching the video, I was very confused by what cognitive dissonance was. I could not think of how it applied to my life. But when I googled real life examples, I realized that I have a very big examples in the past year. To be completely honest, when I first applied to Etown I only applied because it was free to apply. Once I found out I did not get into any other colleges I applied for, I was crushed. The weeks leading up to my first semester at college, I was considering dropping out of school completely. I was very unhappy, and my depression did not help me coming to college. At the same time, I starting having severe joint pain and almost unable to walk anymore. The other colleges I applied at where located on a hill so I would have had to drop out of those schools due to my condition. Since Etown is relatively flat, I started telling myself and my family members that I love Etown because it is flat and not on a mountain. Months later, I am actually enjoying myself here. This is a huge example of cognitive dissonance because I did a 180 turn on my feelings at Etown. I went from I hate it so much I give up on the idea of college education to I actually enjoy myself here and I plan to take summer classes. It had a positive impact on me. If I did not have it, I would have left months before now. I think overall it is a positive thing that should be used. Life is not always fair and fun. There are unpleasant parts of life like paying bills, student loans and loss of loved ones. Cognitive dissonance is positive because it helps people be able to move past the negatives in life. Though there are negative parts of cognitive dissonance for example, people convincing themselves that smoking is okay. However, I think the positives out way the negatives. Experiences through life are very challenging to get though sometimes and some people need cognitive dissonance to stay alive. And in my opinion, if someone who is suicidal picks up a cigarette in a desperate time and convinces themselves this is what they need to stay alive, I think it is positive. Only in that moment and once that person is out of that more vulnerable state, I can help them find a better coping mechanism that smoking.

--Original published at Maddy Vingom's PSY105 Blog

Implicit association tests are used to find any biases that we have and are unaware of. The two tests I chose to take were, do you implicitly associate yourself with being happy or sad and do implicitly think people with mental illness are dangerous. The first test found that I am more associated with happy then sad. The second one said that I do not associate people with mental illness as being dangerous. I expected these results because I am generally a very happy person and I try my best not to judge others based on things they cannot control, such as their mental health. 

 I understand that they are purposely placing the words, in the section with the E and I test to see which ones a person messes up in order to determine if they associate those two things together. For example, when they switched the words from being “others” and “sad” to “others” and “happy” I frequently mixed up which answer goes where. I learned to associate one word with one side and when they changed them that caused me to get them incorrect. As a result of this, I don’t think this is an accurate representation of how people actually feel when it comes to these topics.   

Looking at the tests I think it could potentially help college students to gain a better understanding of how they view themselves or others. They can then use this information to work on not stereotyping others or cause them to reach out and get help if they are experiencing frequent sadness.

--Original published at Grace's College Blog

The people in the video that were only paid one dollar seemed to have convinced themselves that the activity was actually fun even though it was terribly boring and the people who were paid 20 dollars seemed less inclined to actually believe what they were saying because they didn’t have to. We justify negative things in our lives when we feel they were necessary using this cognitive dissonance. This can be helpful and hurtful in our lives. It can be helpful when we are stuck in a job we don’t enjoy but still have to do.

After watching the video, I believe that cognitive dissonance can sometimes be a good thing that we should promote. At times in college I believe that I have used cognitive dissonance. Whenever I am in a class that I do not enjoy or if I am trying to work on an assignment for a class. I tell myself that I need in order to succeed I need to finish it. I have convinced myself that I enjoy doing mathematics sometimes because I know it will help me be successful in lie with computer science or that people will believe that I am smarter or succeeding in mathematics.

At times this can be a helpful thing like justifying why some things are necessary like dessert when we are on a diet, but other times it can be very negative like when you continue to be friends with someone or some people after they have expressed negative opinions about you. You have convinced yourself that they are still your friends.

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

For the IAT tests, I took the one that talked about if you were happy or sad, and if you thought high fat foods are shameful. When taking the test, there were many things that came to my mind. I was really confused on how clicking the letters “E” or “I” would determine how someone was feeling. Another thing I was confused about was that taking the tests did not necessarily mean that was how you were acting or feeling. For example, when taking the test about high fat foods and if you thought they were shameful, I thought this test was not really helpful in determining someones eating habits. When categorizing foods into low-fat and high-fat, it is obvious that cake goes in high-fat and cucumbers go into low-fat. The person could easily, categorize these correctly but still eat unhealthy foods. Personally, you will rarely see me eat salads, and I choose to eat high-fat foods such as fries and burgers. The test says that I do not find fat foods shameful because it looked like I picked answers that were the healthier decisions. The results I got were all positive but anyone could have gotten that. These types of test you can manipulate to get the answer you wanted, so this also made me think of these tests as not really trustworthy either.

After looking at these tests, I think that they might not be useful to every college student, but it may help some. It could potentially change how some people view others and themselves if they get bad rates. For example, if I got bad rates that say I showed to be more sad than happy, I may try to think about what might be causing me to be sad that I am unaware about. These tests could also inspire people to reach out to someone and get guidance too.

--Original published at Kaity Takes on Psychology

Cognitive dissonance – the difference between what we say and what we feel – and how we justify our actions. Plenty of people experience this form of denial, often when trying to convince themselves everything is consistent. The woman in the video seems to realize she should have been paid more than a dollar for lying, especially because she was supposed to say the boring task was exciting. I noticed she was far more committed to the task of convincing others the experiment was fun, and even said she would do something like the experiment again.

However, the man who received twenty dollars easily lied about how exciting the experiment was. When the researchers conducting the experiment asked him about the task he admitted the task was boring. Cognitive dissonance seems to be our brain’s way of justifying why we did something we feel was not worth our time or is bad for us. For example, I vape despite knowing nicotine is an addictive chemical. Though I feel bad because it is harmful to the immune system and lungs, I still do it because I believe the occasional nicotine buzz is worthwhile. I crave the nicotine constantly, but only feel a buzz from it if I wait a few hours between using it.

Another example of cognitive dissonance occurred in season 21 of the hit animated TV series South Park. Heidi Turner, a fourth grader at South Park Elementary, began dating Eric Cartman in the previous season when both students are left without any social media. Though Heidi and Cartman’s relationship was mentally exhausting, she refused to give up on him. Her friends constantly belittled her for staying in the relationship, which only made Heidi more determined to prove her relationship was great.

Like Heidi, the girl in the video knew she was being underpaid for lying, but still felt the need to lie about how interesting the task was to justify her actions. I feel cognitive dissonance can be a good thing for minor things, like rationalizing why we partake in cheat days from diets. However, anything long term like staying in a toxic relationship because your partner has a few decent qualities is a terrible idea. I believe cognitive dissonance is okay in small amounts, but rationalizing every single action you make that you do not necessarily agree with or know consciously is a bad decision is a bad thing we should try to avoid.