|
LifeLeon Festinger is a well known social psychologist and a pioneer for cognitive dissonance and social comparison. Festinger was born on May 8, 1919 in Brooklyn New York to his Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. As a young boy Festinger attended Boys' High School in Brooklyn and later went to City College in New York where he recieved his BS in Psychology. After getting his BS in Psychology, Festinger studied under Kurt Lewin and was influenced by Lewin's work at the University of Iowa. At the University of Iowa, he received his MA and two years later in 1942 he received his PhD in the filed of child behavior. After graduating, Festinger worked as a researcher at Iowa and later married to Mary Oliver Ballou. Together they had 3 children; Catherine, Richard, and Kurt. In 1945 Festinger joined Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT as an assistant professor where he first was able to establish himself in field of social psychology. MIT became an important turning point in his career that eventually led him to his most notable experiments and research later in his career. After the death of Lewin, Festinger moved to various private institutions where he conducted research. Most notably at Stanford, he published his influential paper on social comparison theory and following that a paper on cognitive dissonance. Festinger and his first wife separated and Festinger later remarried to Trudy Bradley in 1968. Around the same time that he remarried, Festinger left the field of psychology in 1964 to pursue a different avenue of research. In his later life, Festinger pursued prehistoric archeological data and tried to better understand why ideas are accepted or rejected by a culture. Before being able to publish the research about why cultures either reject or accept an idea, Festinger was diagnosed with cancer and chose not to pursue treatment leading to his death in 1989.
|
Cognitive Dissonance |
Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger during a observation study of a cult whose memebers believed that the Earth was going to flood and be destroyed. Festinger found that the less invested memebers of the cult were more likely to realize the lunacy of the cult's ideas while more invested memebers were more likely to reinterpret the experience and that they were right all along believing it was thier faith that stopped the flood. When there is an inconsitency in the attitude or belief, people try to eliminate this dissonance by changing their belief or behavior to better align with their beliefs. What are the causes? 1. Forced Compliance Behavior 2. Decision Making 3. Effort Forced Compliance Behavior Forced compliance behavior occurs when an individual is forced to do something publicly that they do not want to do. This in effect creates dissonance between cognition of not wanting to do it and their behavior of doing it. Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) conducted an experiment in which they asked the participants to do a dull task (turning pegs for an hour) which would create a negative attitude toward the task. The aim of the experiment was to see if using forced compliance of the participants to perform the task would create cognitive dissonance. For the method, Festinger and Carlsmith gather 71 male students to perform the uninteresting tacogsk of turning the pegs for an hour. The independent variable being the amount of money given to the participants and the dependent variable being the presence of dissonance. Some of the constant and control variables were the task, the time elapsed in the experiment, the confederate, and the participants being asked to tell another participant (confederate) that the experiment was fun. The participants were then given either $1 or $20 to tell a confederate that the monotonous task was fun. The psychologists found that participants who were paid $1 rated the experiment more fun than the participants paid $20. They concluded that the $1 payment was not a sufficient incentive to lie and in effect experienced dissonance. In order to resolve the dissonance the participants had to really believe that the task was fun and entertaining while those paid $20 did not experience dissonance as they had no reason to believe it was actually enjoyable. Decision Making In general decision making has a correlation to dissonance. For example: You are an exchange student and you must choose between the two difficult decisions of leaving the U.S. to go back to France and consequently ending your exchange early due to the corona virus or you can stay for the remainder of your exchange but potentially become sick and not be near family. Both of these decisions have good and bad points, but making the decision cuts off any chance of the other alternative and it's advantages. A common way to reduce this dissonance is to "spread apart the alternative" or to increase the attractiveness of your choice and decrease the attractiveness of the alternative choice. This was investigated in greater detail by Brehm in 1956 who conducted an experiment to study the relationship between cognitive dissonance and decision making. Effort Often times people most highly regard the tasks that take considerable effort. If we spend a considerable amount of energy on a task and it then produces less than desirable results this creates dissonance. In order to reduce the dissonance produced we use "effort justification" or persuade ourselves that the task we did was worthwhile and enjoyable. This was further researched by Aronson and Mills. How Can Cognitive Dissonance Be Resolved? cognitive dissonance can be resolved by changing one's beliefs or behaviors, acquiring new beliefs, and reducing the importance of beliefs. 
|
Social Comparison Theory |
Social Comparison Theory was developed by Festinger in 1954 whose research showed that people who regularly compare themselves to others often have deep dissatisfaction of themselves and as a result participate in behaviors such as lying or disordered eating. Social Comparison Theory is the idea that individuals asses their own self worth based on the comparison of themselves to others who often share similar attributes (age, gender, background, etc...) to create a positive self image. These comparisons can be healthy measures of development such as a child reaching a certain milestone in growth, but can also be highly negative when individuals make unreasonable comparisons to others who have achieved at a far greater level, making them have anxiety about their own life as well as self doubt.
|
