It Was Totally Worth It

         This week in AP Psychology we discussed social psychology. *sniff* It's our last chapter unit! We learned that social psychology includes social thinking, social influences, and social relations. Within social thinking, we discussed attribution process and attitudes. I was most interested in the attitude portion, in which we learned how attitudes affect actions and how actions affect attitudes.

         "Actions affect our attitudes" simply means that the way we act impacts the way we think. Many phenomenons arise with this concept, including that of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. This is the tendency to agree to something larger after originally agreeing to something smaller. For instance, you ask someone to get you some water because you happen to be extremely busy. Oh, you know what, you really need caffeine, so they could just go on a Starbucks run really quick, right? Once you get your foot in the door, it's easy to get someone to agree to something bigger.

         The opposite of this phenomenon would be the door-in-the-face phenomenon, which is the tendency to agree to a smaller request if the original one was larger. For instance, using the same example, you first ask someone if they could go run out to Starbucks to get you something. They say no, as they don't really want to go all the way out there now, so you sneak in a smaller request- could they just grab you a cup of water quickly then?

         Then comes brainwashing. Overtime, when forced to repeatedly act in a way that goes against your values or beliefs, you will change your beliefs. This has to do with cognitive dissonance, where conflict between action and belief causes you to either change your actions or your beliefs.

         Another concept that arises is the impact of role-playing on attitude and action. If you act in a certain way, it will affect your attitude. Even when understanding that you are simply playing a role, you can still change the way you behave. When learning this, I had a flash back to a book I read a while ago, in 8th grade I believe, called Home for the Holidays. It is part of a series called The Mother-Daughter Book Club, which I was obsessed with. Anyway, in this particular book, one of the main characters, Becca, decides to take on an alter-ego to feel more confident. She pretends to be playing the role of Rebecca, someone who exudes confidence and charm. Eventually, she begins to act as snottily as Rebecca would, which ruins many of her relationships with her friends and family. Even though she knew it was just a role, she eventually began to take on the attitude of her alter-ego.

         Cognitive dissonance is the last phenomenon that arises. Leon Festinger came up with the idea that when you act in a ways that you cannot justify, it creates dissonance. This conflict comes up between your actions and your attitude. You've acted in a way that goes against your attitude of it. This unpleasant state of tension can only be relieved by either changing your actions or changing your attitude.

         When looking up examples of cognitive dissonance to make it more applicable to everyday life, I found one that actually directly relates to what I did today. On psychohawks.wordpress.com, Sam Eddy gives everyday examples of how cognitive dissonance arises. One being that Sarah buys a new car that cost a lot more than she could really afford. However, instead of feeling the uncomfortable emotions of regret and embarrassment at spending more than she should have, she convinces herself that the new car is in much better condition than her old one, and will save her a lot of money in the long run. Today, I went to Stein Mart and bought some clothes for Pesach. Although I do need some snazzy things for the holiday, I did feel like I could have spent less money. But, of course I'll where the clothes all the time, so it was totally worth it.

Link: http://psychohawks.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/cognitive-dissonance-made-easy/