Cognitive Dissonance Case Study: Working With Adolescents
Working with Adolescents - Assignment 1:
Contents:
Introduction:
Definition of adolescents
Adolescent Identity Development: a theoretical overview
Definition of Cognitive Dissonance
A theoretical Overview of Cognitive Dissonance and its relation to understanding adolescents
Assisting counsellors in working with adolescents who experience symptoms of cognitive dissonance.
Introduction:
In this assignment I will be doing a case study (made up) on an adolescent named Mark. I will be explaining in further detail how cognitive dissonance is a vital factor to be taken into consideration in one's life, specifically why and how it ties into working with adolescents.
Definition of Adolescents:
"According to the Macquarie Dictionary, …show more content…
adolescence is the transition period between puberty and adult stages of development (1991, p22). Adolescence is also commonly referred to as youth.
Coleman and Hendry (1999) indicate that adolescence should be viewed as a transition stage between childhood and maturation., including physiological, physical and cognitive developments. Sandstrom (1981) points out that “maturation must be understood as a relative concept, related to the type and degree of difficulty of the demands made by society” (p220)." (Study manual Page 5)
Adolescent Identity Development: Theoretical Overview
" Identity formation is a lifelong and largely unconscious process. The roots of one's identity can be traced back to the early experiences of mutuality between the mother and infant. Identity formation continues throughout childhood through a process of selection and assimilation of childhood identifications. Adolescents spend a lot of time examining themselves. The increase in abstract and idealistic thought serves as a foundation for exploring their identity (Santrock 2003)." (Gouws, 2008, p. 109).
As the adolescent develops and grows there area number factors that must be taken into consideration. I will be going into further detail with regards to certain key developmental factors that play a big role in the development of adolescents. I will be further explaining gender identity, career identity, and cultural identity, as well as moral, emotional, and religious development in the adolescent.
Gender Identity:
During adolescents more pressure is put on behaving in certain ways that accommodate what is regarded as appropriate behaviour for the specific gender of the adolescent. There are pressures from both peer groups as well as adults in society that may expect a certain type of behaviour from the adolescent given their gender. Whereas before adolescents, less focus and pressure is put on the different types of behaviours and activities that the child would take part in as boys and girls will tend to take part in similar or the same activities without any prejudices or any expectations for them to act specifically suited to their gender.
" There are two schools of thought concerning gender-role identification. The traditional school holds that social forces maintain a constant and cumulative pressure on the gender role identification of the child. As the child grows older, this leads to increasing conformity to cultural norms for gender-appropriate behaviour. Up to puberty, for example, boys and girls are allowed considerable freedom with regard to what is seen as gender-typical behaviour. Usually little is made of girls climbing trees and playing with toy cars while boys help to bake cakes. From puberty, however, pressure is exerted on adolescents to display more gender-typical behaviour by: * the peer group who exerts strong pressure, partly owing to their growing consciousness of their own sexual maturation * adults who see this behaviour in their interaction with the adolescent to ensure successful adjustment to adult life.
Both groups emphasise particular gender-role standards and demand that the young person conform to them (Coleman 1980)." (Gouws, 2008, p. 110).
Career Identity:
"Whereas young children usually base their career choices on that with which they are familiar, or on fantasies (policeman, doctor, educator, ballet dancer, astronaut), adolescents begin to form an increasingly realistic conception of their own abilities and interests, with the result that their career interests also become gradually more realistic. (Gouws, 2008, p. 111). Cultural Identity:
" Another aspect of self-identity is a sense of ethnic heritage. According to Rice and Dolgin (2008), ethnic identity is the sum total of group members' feelings about those symbols, values, and common histories that identify them as a distinct group." (Gouws, 2008, p. 112).
Identity Diffusion:
" Identity diffusion (sometimes called identity confusion) arises when adolescents are incapable of making any decisions about themselves and their roles, or when there is too little opportunity for experimentation with social roles, with the result that the different roles cannot be integrated. Then, when adolescents are confronted with conflicting value systems, they lack the ability or self-confidence to make decisions. This state of confusion causes anxiety, apathy or hostility towards rules or values and may lead to feelings of incompetence or the formation of a negative identity. Parents may also cause identity diffusion in adolescents. For example, by demanding that their adolescent children meet unrealistically high standards or by choosing careers, friends, courses of study and sports for them, parents force them into roles in which they are not happy. The result is that the children may experience identity diffusion and become rebellious because they feel that they have no control over their lives." (Gouws, 2008, p. 112).
Emotional Development:
"Life without emotion would be bland and empty. They can foster happiness and well-being or they can contribute to psychological and physical dysfunction • Parser & Smith 2007). Emotional development refers to the development of attachment, trust, security, love and affection, as well as a variety of emotions, feelings and temperaments. It includes the development of concepts of self and autonomy." (Gouws, 2008, p. 116).
"The heightened emotionality and emotional liability characterising the adolescent years are caused by a variety of physical, cognitive, moral and other factors. Adolescents must develop an identity that will bridge the gap between what they were as children and what they are to become as adults(Gouws, 2008, p. 117).
Moral Development:
" Moral development is based on the customs, manners or patterns of behaviour that conform to the standard of the group (Hurlock 1973), and is a reflection of the way in which people learn to distinguish between right and wrong.
Children grow up from infancy with these norms, some of which are formalised in statutes (e.g. prohibition of theft); while others are established by use and tradition (e.g. human life is sacred). Adolescents become familiar with these norms through education. Thus adolescents gain moral independence and responsibility. This entails that they must choose between right and wrong, propriety and impropriety, and they have to accept responsibility for such choices. (Gouws, 2008, p. …show more content…
122).
"There are several factors that influence adolescents moral development, for instance, the role of the family, peer group, reference groups, television, school and community." (Gouws, 2008, p.
128).
Religious Development:
"Cognitively adolescents begin to develop a capacity for abstract thought, which enables them to move from a concrete level of intellectual activity to a level at which spiritual matters are understood. Accordingly adolescence is characterised by a search for spiritual fulfilment and certainty, for a religion that can serve as a spiritual refuge where conflict and doubt can be resolved and the meaning of life and the answers to life's questions can be found.
Abstract thought also enables adolescents to be more tolerant and less emotional and dogmatic about differences in religious convictions. Some adolescents begin to question religious convictions that they used to accept by asking questions as: 'Why must we go to church/mosque/temple/ synagogue?', 'Why are priests not allowed to marry?', 'Is there a heaven and a hell?', 'Does God exist?' and so on." (Gouws, 2008, p. 141).
Definition Of Cognitive
Dissonance:
"Leon Festinger's classic cognitive dissonance theory holds that people want their thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes to be consistent with one another and with their behavior. When people experience inconsistency, or dissonance, among these elements, they become anxious and are motivated to make them more consistent" (Bernstein, 2008, p. 701).
Theoretical Overview of Cognitive Dissonance and its relation to understanding adolescents:
Leon Festinger mentions that "Someone who believes that "smoking is unhealthy" but must also acknowledge that "I smoke" would be motivated to reduce the resulting dissonance. Because it is often difficult to change behavior, people usually reduce cognitive dissonance by changing inconsistent attitudes. So rather than quit smoking, the smoker might decide that smoking is not so dangerous." (Bernstein, 2008, p. 701).
"Cognitive development in adolescence functions as an organisational core that affects all areas of thinking, natter what the topic. Cognitive development therefore affects a wide range of other aspects of ^cement, from family relations and friendships, to school performance and risky behaviour." (Louw, 2007, p. 303).
" Erik Erikson provided the most comprehensive description of identity development during adolescence. (Identity refers to the individual's awareness of him- or herself as an independent, unique person with a specific place in society.) He was also the first theorist to identify the importance of the formation of a personal identity in the personality development of an individual and viewed the establishment of an identity as an important step in the development of a productive and happy adult.
According to Erikson, in order to form an identity, all the psychosocial crises of the previous stages need to be resolved. This means that adolescents should have acquired basic trust, autonomy, initiative and industry to accomplish successfully the tasks required for identity development.
Identity development implies that adolescents need to define who they are, what is important to them and what directions they want to take in life. Erikson referred to this identity development as an identity crisis - a temporary period of confusion, during which adolescents explore, question existing values and experiment with alternative roles in order to develop an own set of values and goals. According to Erikson, this experimenting, exploring and questioning is not an indication of negative development, but rather of the way in which the individual forms a personal and social identity. In fact, Erikson points out that society allows adolescents a certain period of time, called the psychosocial moratorium, to find themselves and their roles as adults. Experimentation takes place during this psychosocial moratorium, by for instance, trying out various identities, by endless self-examination, the investigation of careers and ideologies, fantasising about roles and identifying with other people and hero-figures. In order to develop an own identity, adolescents have to master the following tasks: They have to form a continuous, integrated, unified image of the self. Erikson refers to this as ego-synthesis. This means that regardless of the course of time and the accompanying changes, a person should feel that he or she is still the same person.
Identity confusion
Identity confusion occurs when adolescents are indecisive about themselves and their roles. They cannot integrate the various roles and when they are confronted with contradictory value systems, they have neither the ability nor the self-confidence to make decisions. This confusion causes anxiety, as well as apathy or hostility towards roles or values.
Negative identity
This means that adolescents form an identity contrary to the cultural values and expectations. Examples of such adolescents are drug abusers, social misfits and juvenile delinquents. (Louw, 2007, p. 311).
Assisting counsellors in working with adolescents who experience symptoms of cognitive dissonance:
While there are various ways to go about counselling adolescents who struggle with cognitive dissonance and the symptoms surrounding it, the method that I will focusing on in this assignment will be the behavioural and cognitive behavioural strategies, specifically self control.
" There are four stages involved in learning behavioural self-control: 1 Identification of problem behaviour. 2 Observation of behaviour. 3 Evaluation of behaviour. 4 Setting consequences for behaviour When self-control issues need to be addressed it can be useful for a counsellor to describe these stages to the adolescent, so that, together, they can plan a programme for behavioural change. Identification of problem behaviour: In counselling, an adolescent may be able to identify one or more behaviours which have been causing problems. For example, the young person may be fighting with a younger sibling and getting into trouble as a consequence of this. An adolescent with this sort of problem might initially complain about a younger brother's behaviour and blame him for what is happening. It is the proactive counsellor's responsibility to help the young person recognize that they cannot change other people's behaviours. To help a young person acknowledge this, a counsellor might ask questions such as 'Do you think your brother is likely to change?' and/or 'Do you think that you can change your brother's behaviour?' As a consequence of these questions, which challenge the young person's beliefs, the young person will perhaps recognize that the only behaviours they can change are their own. Observation of behaviour: If adolescents wish to change their behaviours, the first thing they need to do is observe their current behaviours so that they can fully understand them and their consequences. Often, simply observing when an unwanted behaviour occurs, and when it does not occur, will result in change in that behaviour. The use of a diary may be helpful to adolescents who wish to observe unwanted behaviour. They can record situations and/or events where the unwanted behaviour occurs, and record both antecedent behaviours and the consequences of the unwanted behaviour. The number of times the unwanted behaviour happens in each of these parts of the day may give useful information about times and situations where problems in management of the unwanted behaviour occur. Evaluation of behavior: In this stage adolescents evaluate their own behaviour against criteria which they set for themselves. For example, an adolescent may make a decision to try to reduce the number of times he rights with his younger brother by 50 per cent. Setting a level of 50 per cent is more realistic than trying to extinguish the behaviour completely, which might set the young person up for failure. Adolescents often become discouraged if they believe that they are not making good progress in achieving change. To avoid this and provide motivation and incentive for continuing change, the adolescent can be encouraged to monitor quantitatively the success actually being achieved in meeting predetermined goals.
Setting consequences for behavior:
If an adolescent is to be motivated to achieve self-control, there will need to be rewards for the achievement of goals. Often, rewards occur naturally because, as undesirable behaviours change, negative consequences diminish and positive consequences are experienced. However, in the early stages of change, such naturally occurring consequences may not be noticeable. It is therefore sensible to put in place formally a system of positive rewards. These rewards can take a variety of forms. They may be specific rewards, such as a new possession or participation in a desired activity, for achieving target criteria, or they might be in the form of tokens which can be cashed in later for a specific reward.
As an important goal is to encourage self-control in young people, it is preferable for adolescents to be in control of determining what kinds of reinforcement or reward they should receive. In some cases, parents or significant others can be involved in the process of reward-giving.
Challenging self-destructive beliefs:
Many adolescents are simplistically logical and like to argue. If we use Ellis's term 'irrational beliefs', they may argue that some so-called 'irrational beliefs' are not irrational, but do have a logical rational base. Thus, calling these beliefs 'irrational' invites unnecessary argument. However, if we call these beliefs 'self-destructive beliefs' there is unlikely to be any argument and most young people will understand the concept and agree with the definition.
When an activating event occurs, the young person responds automatically by using current beliefs. These beliefs condition the person's response and there are consequences related to this response. Thus, when a young person has self-destructive beliefs, these will condition their responses to external events and are likely to result in negative consequences for them, so that they will feel bad. If the young person changes a self-destructive belief, and replaces it with a more useful constructive belief, then they will respond differently to an activating event as a result of the new belief. Having behaved differently, there will be a positive emotional consequence for the young person, who will be more likely to feel good, than to feel bad, in the way they did when they responded in accordance with the self-destructive belief." (Gerald, 2004, p. 168).
Conclusion:
Cognitive dissonance plays a role in everyone's lives, and due to the fact that adolescents are going through so many changes on so many levels, cognitive dissonance can often become a barrier to healthy and constructive development of the adolescent growing up into an adult. Thankfully there is an awareness as well as many tools and methods that are available to counsellors in order to tackle cognitive dissonance in adolescents and the symptoms surrounding cognitive dissonance in the time of adolescents.
Reference List:
Gouws, E.(2008). The adolescent. (3rd ed)
South Africa: Heinemann Publishers
Bernstein, D.A.(2008). Psychology (9th ed)
Wadsworth: Cengage Learning
Louw, D.(2007). Child and Adolescent Development
South Africa: ABC printers
Gerald, K. (2004). Counselling Adolescents (2nd ed)
London: SAGE Publications Ltd
Contents:
Introduction:
Definition of adolescents
Adolescent Identity Development: a theoretical overview
Definition of Cognitive Dissonance
A theoretical Overview of Cognitive Dissonance and its relation to understanding adolescents
Assisting counsellors in working with adolescents who experience symptoms of cognitive dissonance.
Introduction:
In this assignment I will be doing a case study (made up) on an adolescent named Mark. I will be explaining in further detail how cognitive dissonance is a vital factor to be taken into consideration in one's life, specifically why and how it ties into working with adolescents.
Definition of Adolescents:
"According to the Macquarie Dictionary, …show more content…
adolescence is the transition period between puberty and adult stages of development (1991, p22). Adolescence is also commonly referred to as youth.
Coleman and Hendry (1999) indicate that adolescence should be viewed as a transition stage between childhood and maturation., including physiological, physical and cognitive developments. Sandstrom (1981) points out that “maturation must be understood as a relative concept, related to the type and degree of difficulty of the demands made by society” (p220)." (Study manual Page 5)
Adolescent Identity Development: Theoretical Overview
" Identity formation is a lifelong and largely unconscious process. The roots of one's identity can be traced back to the early experiences of mutuality between the mother and infant. Identity formation continues throughout childhood through a process of selection and assimilation of childhood identifications. Adolescents spend a lot of time examining themselves. The increase in abstract and idealistic thought serves as a foundation for exploring their identity (Santrock 2003)." (Gouws, 2008, p. 109).
As the adolescent develops and grows there area number factors that must be taken into consideration. I will be going into further detail with regards to certain key developmental factors that play a big role in the development of adolescents. I will be further explaining gender identity, career identity, and cultural identity, as well as moral, emotional, and religious development in the adolescent.
Gender Identity:
During adolescents more pressure is put on behaving in certain ways that accommodate what is regarded as appropriate behaviour for the specific gender of the adolescent. There are pressures from both peer groups as well as adults in society that may expect a certain type of behaviour from the adolescent given their gender. Whereas before adolescents, less focus and pressure is put on the different types of behaviours and activities that the child would take part in as boys and girls will tend to take part in similar or the same activities without any prejudices or any expectations for them to act specifically suited to their gender.
" There are two schools of thought concerning gender-role identification. The traditional school holds that social forces maintain a constant and cumulative pressure on the gender role identification of the child. As the child grows older, this leads to increasing conformity to cultural norms for gender-appropriate behaviour. Up to puberty, for example, boys and girls are allowed considerable freedom with regard to what is seen as gender-typical behaviour. Usually little is made of girls climbing trees and playing with toy cars while boys help to bake cakes. From puberty, however, pressure is exerted on adolescents to display more gender-typical behaviour by: * the peer group who exerts strong pressure, partly owing to their growing consciousness of their own sexual maturation * adults who see this behaviour in their interaction with the adolescent to ensure successful adjustment to adult life.
Both groups emphasise particular gender-role standards and demand that the young person conform to them (Coleman 1980)." (Gouws, 2008, p. 110).
Career Identity:
"Whereas young children usually base their career choices on that with which they are familiar, or on fantasies (policeman, doctor, educator, ballet dancer, astronaut), adolescents begin to form an increasingly realistic conception of their own abilities and interests, with the result that their career interests also become gradually more realistic. (Gouws, 2008, p. 111). Cultural Identity:
" Another aspect of self-identity is a sense of ethnic heritage. According to Rice and Dolgin (2008), ethnic identity is the sum total of group members' feelings about those symbols, values, and common histories that identify them as a distinct group." (Gouws, 2008, p. 112).
Identity Diffusion:
" Identity diffusion (sometimes called identity confusion) arises when adolescents are incapable of making any decisions about themselves and their roles, or when there is too little opportunity for experimentation with social roles, with the result that the different roles cannot be integrated. Then, when adolescents are confronted with conflicting value systems, they lack the ability or self-confidence to make decisions. This state of confusion causes anxiety, apathy or hostility towards rules or values and may lead to feelings of incompetence or the formation of a negative identity. Parents may also cause identity diffusion in adolescents. For example, by demanding that their adolescent children meet unrealistically high standards or by choosing careers, friends, courses of study and sports for them, parents force them into roles in which they are not happy. The result is that the children may experience identity diffusion and become rebellious because they feel that they have no control over their lives." (Gouws, 2008, p. 112).
Emotional Development:
"Life without emotion would be bland and empty. They can foster happiness and well-being or they can contribute to psychological and physical dysfunction • Parser & Smith 2007). Emotional development refers to the development of attachment, trust, security, love and affection, as well as a variety of emotions, feelings and temperaments. It includes the development of concepts of self and autonomy." (Gouws, 2008, p. 116).
"The heightened emotionality and emotional liability characterising the adolescent years are caused by a variety of physical, cognitive, moral and other factors. Adolescents must develop an identity that will bridge the gap between what they were as children and what they are to become as adults(Gouws, 2008, p. 117).
Moral Development:
" Moral development is based on the customs, manners or patterns of behaviour that conform to the standard of the group (Hurlock 1973), and is a reflection of the way in which people learn to distinguish between right and wrong.
Children grow up from infancy with these norms, some of which are formalised in statutes (e.g. prohibition of theft); while others are established by use and tradition (e.g. human life is sacred). Adolescents become familiar with these norms through education. Thus adolescents gain moral independence and responsibility. This entails that they must choose between right and wrong, propriety and impropriety, and they have to accept responsibility for such choices. (Gouws, 2008, p. …show more content…
122).
"There are several factors that influence adolescents moral development, for instance, the role of the family, peer group, reference groups, television, school and community." (Gouws, 2008, p.
128).
Religious Development:
"Cognitively adolescents begin to develop a capacity for abstract thought, which enables them to move from a concrete level of intellectual activity to a level at which spiritual matters are understood. Accordingly adolescence is characterised by a search for spiritual fulfilment and certainty, for a religion that can serve as a spiritual refuge where conflict and doubt can be resolved and the meaning of life and the answers to life's questions can be found.
Abstract thought also enables adolescents to be more tolerant and less emotional and dogmatic about differences in religious convictions. Some adolescents begin to question religious convictions that they used to accept by asking questions as: 'Why must we go to church/mosque/temple/ synagogue?', 'Why are priests not allowed to marry?', 'Is there a heaven and a hell?', 'Does God exist?' and so on." (Gouws, 2008, p. 141).
Definition Of Cognitive
Dissonance:
"Leon Festinger's classic cognitive dissonance theory holds that people want their thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes to be consistent with one another and with their behavior. When people experience inconsistency, or dissonance, among these elements, they become anxious and are motivated to make them more consistent" (Bernstein, 2008, p. 701).
Theoretical Overview of Cognitive Dissonance and its relation to understanding adolescents:
Leon Festinger mentions that "Someone who believes that "smoking is unhealthy" but must also acknowledge that "I smoke" would be motivated to reduce the resulting dissonance. Because it is often difficult to change behavior, people usually reduce cognitive dissonance by changing inconsistent attitudes. So rather than quit smoking, the smoker might decide that smoking is not so dangerous." (Bernstein, 2008, p. 701).
"Cognitive development in adolescence functions as an organisational core that affects all areas of thinking, natter what the topic. Cognitive development therefore affects a wide range of other aspects of ^cement, from family relations and friendships, to school performance and risky behaviour." (Louw, 2007, p. 303).
" Erik Erikson provided the most comprehensive description of identity development during adolescence. (Identity refers to the individual's awareness of him- or herself as an independent, unique person with a specific place in society.) He was also the first theorist to identify the importance of the formation of a personal identity in the personality development of an individual and viewed the establishment of an identity as an important step in the development of a productive and happy adult.
According to Erikson, in order to form an identity, all the psychosocial crises of the previous stages need to be resolved. This means that adolescents should have acquired basic trust, autonomy, initiative and industry to accomplish successfully the tasks required for identity development.
Identity development implies that adolescents need to define who they are, what is important to them and what directions they want to take in life. Erikson referred to this identity development as an identity crisis - a temporary period of confusion, during which adolescents explore, question existing values and experiment with alternative roles in order to develop an own set of values and goals. According to Erikson, this experimenting, exploring and questioning is not an indication of negative development, but rather of the way in which the individual forms a personal and social identity. In fact, Erikson points out that society allows adolescents a certain period of time, called the psychosocial moratorium, to find themselves and their roles as adults. Experimentation takes place during this psychosocial moratorium, by for instance, trying out various identities, by endless self-examination, the investigation of careers and ideologies, fantasising about roles and identifying with other people and hero-figures. In order to develop an own identity, adolescents have to master the following tasks: They have to form a continuous, integrated, unified image of the self. Erikson refers to this as ego-synthesis. This means that regardless of the course of time and the accompanying changes, a person should feel that he or she is still the same person.
Identity confusion
Identity confusion occurs when adolescents are indecisive about themselves and their roles. They cannot integrate the various roles and when they are confronted with contradictory value systems, they have neither the ability nor the self-confidence to make decisions. This confusion causes anxiety, as well as apathy or hostility towards roles or values.
Negative identity
This means that adolescents form an identity contrary to the cultural values and expectations. Examples of such adolescents are drug abusers, social misfits and juvenile delinquents. (Louw, 2007, p. 311).
Assisting counsellors in working with adolescents who experience symptoms of cognitive dissonance:
While there are various ways to go about counselling adolescents who struggle with cognitive dissonance and the symptoms surrounding it, the method that I will focusing on in this assignment will be the behavioural and cognitive behavioural strategies, specifically self control.
" There are four stages involved in learning behavioural self-control: 1 Identification of problem behaviour. 2 Observation of behaviour. 3 Evaluation of behaviour. 4 Setting consequences for behaviour When self-control issues need to be addressed it can be useful for a counsellor to describe these stages to the adolescent, so that, together, they can plan a programme for behavioural change. Identification of problem behaviour: In counselling, an adolescent may be able to identify one or more behaviours which have been causing problems. For example, the young person may be fighting with a younger sibling and getting into trouble as a consequence of this. An adolescent with this sort of problem might initially complain about a younger brother's behaviour and blame him for what is happening. It is the proactive counsellor's responsibility to help the young person recognize that they cannot change other people's behaviours. To help a young person acknowledge this, a counsellor might ask questions such as 'Do you think your brother is likely to change?' and/or 'Do you think that you can change your brother's behaviour?' As a consequence of these questions, which challenge the young person's beliefs, the young person will perhaps recognize that the only behaviours they can change are their own. Observation of behaviour: If adolescents wish to change their behaviours, the first thing they need to do is observe their current behaviours so that they can fully understand them and their consequences. Often, simply observing when an unwanted behaviour occurs, and when it does not occur, will result in change in that behaviour. The use of a diary may be helpful to adolescents who wish to observe unwanted behaviour. They can record situations and/or events where the unwanted behaviour occurs, and record both antecedent behaviours and the consequences of the unwanted behaviour. The number of times the unwanted behaviour happens in each of these parts of the day may give useful information about times and situations where problems in management of the unwanted behaviour occur. Evaluation of behavior: In this stage adolescents evaluate their own behaviour against criteria which they set for themselves. For example, an adolescent may make a decision to try to reduce the number of times he rights with his younger brother by 50 per cent. Setting a level of 50 per cent is more realistic than trying to extinguish the behaviour completely, which might set the young person up for failure. Adolescents often become discouraged if they believe that they are not making good progress in achieving change. To avoid this and provide motivation and incentive for continuing change, the adolescent can be encouraged to monitor quantitatively the success actually being achieved in meeting predetermined goals.
Setting consequences for behavior:
If an adolescent is to be motivated to achieve self-control, there will need to be rewards for the achievement of goals. Often, rewards occur naturally because, as undesirable behaviours change, negative consequences diminish and positive consequences are experienced. However, in the early stages of change, such naturally occurring consequences may not be noticeable. It is therefore sensible to put in place formally a system of positive rewards. These rewards can take a variety of forms. They may be specific rewards, such as a new possession or participation in a desired activity, for achieving target criteria, or they might be in the form of tokens which can be cashed in later for a specific reward.
As an important goal is to encourage self-control in young people, it is preferable for adolescents to be in control of determining what kinds of reinforcement or reward they should receive. In some cases, parents or significant others can be involved in the process of reward-giving.
Challenging self-destructive beliefs:
Many adolescents are simplistically logical and like to argue. If we use Ellis's term 'irrational beliefs', they may argue that some so-called 'irrational beliefs' are not irrational, but do have a logical rational base. Thus, calling these beliefs 'irrational' invites unnecessary argument. However, if we call these beliefs 'self-destructive beliefs' there is unlikely to be any argument and most young people will understand the concept and agree with the definition.
When an activating event occurs, the young person responds automatically by using current beliefs. These beliefs condition the person's response and there are consequences related to this response. Thus, when a young person has self-destructive beliefs, these will condition their responses to external events and are likely to result in negative consequences for them, so that they will feel bad. If the young person changes a self-destructive belief, and replaces it with a more useful constructive belief, then they will respond differently to an activating event as a result of the new belief. Having behaved differently, there will be a positive emotional consequence for the young person, who will be more likely to feel good, than to feel bad, in the way they did when they responded in accordance with the self-destructive belief." (Gerald, 2004, p. 168).
Conclusion:
Cognitive dissonance plays a role in everyone's lives, and due to the fact that adolescents are going through so many changes on so many levels, cognitive dissonance can often become a barrier to healthy and constructive development of the adolescent growing up into an adult. Thankfully there is an awareness as well as many tools and methods that are available to counsellors in order to tackle cognitive dissonance in adolescents and the symptoms surrounding cognitive dissonance in the time of adolescents.
Reference List:
Gouws, E.(2008). The adolescent. (3rd ed)
South Africa: Heinemann Publishers
Bernstein, D.A.(2008). Psychology (9th ed)
Wadsworth: Cengage Learning
Louw, D.(2007). Child and Adolescent Development
South Africa: ABC printers
Gerald, K. (2004). Counselling Adolescents (2nd ed)
London: SAGE Publications Ltd