Podcast: Play in new window
Every since Leon Festinger gave us the term cognitive dissonance, we’ve been asking questions about contradictions in human behavior. For example, can you be pro choice and against the death penalty, or vice versa? That’s the question we examine this week along with other quandries such as Gingrichs’ affair and Al Gore’s house. This week on The Psych Files.
Quote of the week
Here on page 407 of The Story of Psychology is a quote from a report called When Prophecy Fails, published in 1956:
Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief and that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before
Videos of the week
Her’s the MSNBC report on the details of Al Gore’s home energy consumption which appears to be a case of dissonance with his stance on global warming.
In another case of dissonance, listen to Newt GinGrich explain why his affair during his prosecution of Clinton is, from his point of view, not relevant.
And in my last example of potential cognitive dissonance, listen to an interview of Dick Cheney by Wolf Blitzer. The conflict here is that Cheney’s administration does not support same sex marriage or bringing up children in a same-sex family, yet his daughter is pregnant and going to up the child in a same-sex partnership. Cheney says to Blitzer that the question is essentially “none of his business”, but you decide: clearly there is a contradiction here and that’s why we’re drawn to this situation. Like the other contradictions that we’ve talked about, it begs for resolution.
Watch a very interesting video about global warming and how it is causing a lot of people some cognitive dissonance. The video (about 3 min long) asks this question: can say that we want to “save the planet” and support other Earth Day type initiatives while at the same time feeling that we are entitled to drive any vehicle we want, or consume any and all goods we want?
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