Judging from the reading in the textbook, dieting seems to be a very popular example of cog dis. I'm going to be a bit unoriginal and do the same because I have a very good example. Everyone in my group of friends is fairly health conscious. That's not to say we don't get lazy sometimes and ignore the gym for a while, or have ice cream or mini pie parties... But, for the most part, we all try to eat fairly healthy things and be as active as we have time for. There are also extremes within the group. One of my friends is very careful about sugars and carbs, while another eats mostly pasta. It always seems like the pasta friend is hungry and (though she doesn't eat very large portions), she is always up for food- especially italian. The no-carb friend, on the other hand, is always conscious of what she has eaten that day. None of us really need to diet but we all sort of joke about it and so health is always kind of on our minds. There is a sort of expectancy to at least try to be healthy, and if you don't, to feel a little guilty. The pasta friend is always talking about wanting to eat or just having eaten. The no carb friend is always saying, jokingly, "that's not part of the diet." It has become a joke among our group of friends. Because health is important to all of us, this has become our gentle way of helping each other resist certain temptations and stay on track with food and exercise. We also get amusement out of it because everytime we eat, our pasta friend says something about how healthy she has eaten all week. We all turn to give her the "yah right" look and she always responds with "ok, well I did go to taco bell earlier today...twice" or "yah, well I did have Romeo's yesterday, and taquitos." She will then proceed to that she is little, after all, so what's the harm? Or she will mention her health problems and say who cares, I have to enjoy life! All of these (what I would previously have called) rationalizations are examples of ways of reducing cognitive dissonance. People are uncomfortable with inconsistancy (such as eating whataburger daily when trying to eat healthy), (Festinger, 1957), and so they make changes to their attitude or perception of behaviors or consequences of behavior in order to reduce this inconsistancy, (McKimmie et al., 2003 & Gosling et al., 2006). When my pasta friend claims that she has been eating healthily, flat-out ignoring all the whataburger, she is trying to reduce this inconsistancy because it is uncomfortable.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Standford University Press.
Gosling, P., Denizeau, M., & Oberle, D. (2006). Denial of responsibility: A new mode of dissonance reduction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 722-733.
McKimmie, B. M., Terry, D. J., Hogg, M. A., Manstead, A. S. R., Spears, R., & Doosje, B. (2003). I'm a hypocrite, but so is everyone else: Group support and the reduction of cognitive dissonance. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, 214-224.
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2 comments:
I'm guilty of reducing cognitive dissonance when it comes to eating too! I've been eating somewhat healthy lately because of a project I'm doing for my health psychology class, for which I cannot eat refined sugars for three weeks. Today is Halloween...my favorite holiday simply because of the copious amounts of candy! I was thinking that if I happened to slip up today, I would have to reduce my cognitive dissonance...but don't worry, I'm going to try my hardest to stick to my project plan! :)
It's crazy how many different things cognitive dissonance applies to. Also, its interesting to think that things that you used to call "rationalizations", and I used to call just "excuses" are legitimately means of reducing inconsistency between our attitudes an behaviors.
Now that I think about it, I do the same thing. I'm not supposed to eat things that contain a lot of cholesterol - doctor's orders, not just a self-inflicted diet - but I slip up every now and then. So I tell myself, "Well I've been doing so well lately, so it's ok," or "It's alright just this once, and this food is too good to go to waste."
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