yster

I was wondering if anyone could explain to me, or offer their opinions on, in what cases cognitive dissonance causes a person to change their opinion about something..
In a class I'm taking they cite numerous cases wherein the Participants in studies, after undergoing painful or annoying situations, eventually come to appreciate the end result more than people who had to undergo less strenuous situations to come to the same result.
Examples might be Hazing rituals used by fraternities, for example. They go through a lot of painful things in order to more closely identify with the group in the end. Supposedly, the inner thoughts are along the lines of "I went through a lot for this; therefore it must have been worth it". Supposedly, similarly, a person might enjoy a concert more if they waited in line a long time for tickets.
It seems to me, however, that if I waited in line a long time for movie tickets and the movie was less than satisfactory, I would be even *more* annoyed than if I had just gotten the tickets on my way in. This seemed to play out when I saw Episode One (Star Wars), for example. Is it because I was less tied to the end result? I could more easily put the blame on the owner, rather than faulting my own judgement for wasting my time in the first place? Does it come down to if one can plausibly foresee the end result? If I had forced others to wait with me in line, would I have been more likely to enjoy it, due to my own culpability in causing others to participate?
Any thoughts are welcome, I can post more detailed case studies if anyone cares.

Phage

I suppose that most of the reason this works is that during the difficult time leading up to the event the person is convincing themselves that it is really worth the trouble they are going through. Even if it turns out not to live up to their expectations, they worked so hard on convincing themselves of that worth that it will always be considered a bit better than it really is.

william

IMO - it really depends on the perceived vs. actual outcome (feelings). If you wait in line for hours to see the movie you thought would be really great, and you thought it was, CGD says it was worth it. If, however, you stood in line for the same "great" movie, and it sucked, CGD is in the back of your mind, screaming "WTF!?"
However, say you think a movie will suck; you listen to your friend and watch it anyway. This movie that you thought would suck, is actually pretty good. WTF?!
That's CGD.

Halx

Basicly, the primary motivation for the human psyche is to be *right*

When one invests a substantial amount of time, money, energy or emotion into a cause, they are more likely to justify it to themselves irrationally if said cause falls through.

Take fraternity hazing for example. Under rational circumstances, you'd think someone would be pissed if a group of people humiliated them and physically hurt them repeatedly for a week. However, because of the fact that they subjected themselves to it voluntarily, all of the negative feelings one might have after going through such an ordeal are drawn back the other way into love and respect for the fraternity.

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Halx

I also wanna add that this is why you cant convince anyone of anything in the politics or philosophy forum.

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Willravel

This remins me of Stokholm Syndrome. It's facinating to see how people will react differently in situations of pressure, stress, or discomfort.
Cognitive Dissonance is basically: if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is not valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been tricked at personal expense.
I've seen this in clients over the years. People become more proud if their accomplishment has come at a greater cost. Not all similar situations will give you the same result, but overall the defensiveness and assurance is there more with the harder work.
Cults are a great example of disonance. We see people who give up their posessions and lives and devote them to a religious cause or group. Because of their great sacrafice, it is more difficult for them to be convinced of their poor decision (assuming it is a poor decision, we don't been to get into that).

analog

From Road Trip: "...of course it's hard, it's a shortcut- if it were easy, it'd just be 'the way'..."

If you had to work for it, it was an accomplishment. There is no valor in that which required negligible effort. Our minds are set up to mentally 'reward' us for hard work, by giving us a feeling of satisfaction. Can you imagine where we, the human race, would be without this basic drive? Cognitive Dissonance is where this drive meets a higher level of expectation, and puts you in a 'class', or peer group, different than (and perceived by those inside as better than) most.

yster

Hmm.. great replies, thanks everyone!
I guess, in my example, at least, the effort and trials I went through in order to view the movie ASAP were not enough to overcome the actual lousiness of it. Related to that, is the reaction a person has based on their closeness to overcoming the cognitive dissonance through a sort of.. positive-valuation?
If they were very nearly about to adopt a favorable attitude but stopped short, would that be the apex of their feelings of hostility towards the goal and process? I haven't yet seen any studies dealing with this, seems like everyone always bends the way the study wants, and never says "Screw This!"
For example, in the studies we researched in class about cognitive dissonance (Festinger stuff), there was a study wherein a person was give either $1 or $20 to lie to a third person about how great a bad/boring experience they had just had was. The $1 group changed their attitude regarding the event as questioned later to be remembered as more in line with their lie (vs $20 people). The $20 person was presumably more able to accept that the prior experience sucked, and they lied for the money or due to the importance of the study, not because they enjoyed it. They basically extrapolated that however much past a certain fixed amount of money/reward produced no further effects, but they didn't deal with the flip-side; how do different levels of persuasion insufficient to produce the dissonant effect (I lied: why?) impact their perceptions of the event?
Anyway, I'm tired, I'm sure I explained it poorly. Basically, I'm still just trying to figure out what causes such uniformity in studies such as this and in hazing. It seems like there should be more backlash. If anyone has seen other studies I could read about, I'd appreciate people pointing me to them. Probably a lack of serious self-investment or caring in the event in question flaws studies or questions like the $1/$20 and my movie situation, so something with more intensity would probably be much better.
-ciao, off to class

wml

Dissonance occurs anytime you hold two beliefs that are psychologically inconsistent. Often one belief is about some behavior (such as "I smoke") and the other is about the consequences of that behavior (such as "smoking causes cancer"). Note that these two beliefs are not logically inconsistent - just psychologically inconsistent. Holding psychologically inconsitent beliefs like these is unpleasant, so people try to reduce the dissonance. Dissonance can be reduced by altering one of the beliefs (such as denying that smoking really causes cancer) or by adding new beliefs that minimize the psychological inconsistency (such as "we all die anyway-- better to enjoy life and die young than to live a long and miserable life").

According to Elliot Aronson (in The Social Animal) dissonance effects are strongest when they violate people's self-concepts. I hope this helps.

Halx

I just had a revelation...

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zen_tom

Isn't this similar to the hot-cold-warm water experiment? Mix a bowl of warm water in the sink. Now run a hot tap and a cold tap, putting your left hand under one, and your right hand under the other. Hold them there for a while before plunging both hands into the warm water. The hand that has been under the hot tap percieves the warm water to be cold (or rather you do) and likewise, but opposite for the other hand.

So, assuming we are flexibly minded and percieve things in a relative manner (which I think is a safe assumption to make) bad times (once we get used to them) are going to be followed by more personally rewarding good, or reasonable times. Just like the warm water is a pleasant relief from the overly cold tap. It's a case of habitualisation. As for very sudden, or very stressfull experiences, often a release of adrenaline or other natural stress reliever once the experience is over can bring on a sense of euphoria - since the mind links what it directly percieves with how it feels, the laughing haze-boys will become associated with the sense of warm euphoria, and positive emotional associations made. This, and many other religious or symbolic rituals etc are nothing but a hot-wiring of mental chemistry that people have stumbled across over the last 1000 years or so. Same goes for feasting, speaches at weddings, praying, meditating, hazing whatever - it does NOT mean that these things are bad or worthless, they have been honed over years to have these effects - and it is the effects that are the real and beneficial product. Anyway, that's far too long an explanation...