Conformity And Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance The term cognitive dissonance explains 2 conflicting cognitions where behavior and belief are inconsistent between each other. When one’s behavior and belief contradict each other, we possess an uncomfortable feeling by which we call dissonance. Because we are not able to change our behavior, we unconsciously change our attitudes for our behaviors to be consistent with each other; making the uncomfortable feeling go away. This adjustment is termed insufficient justification.
After learning about this topic, I have noticed that this concept has applied to many situations in my life and in others as well. To friends believing that global warming should be stopped, but continue to use plastic water bottles, or believing that
animal cruelty is unacceptable, but continue to eat factory farmed goods and use non-cruelty free makeup products, I have noticed cognitive dissonance when it comes to my procrastination habits. For instance, I had a 5-page psychology essay and an English assignment all due on Monday that I had planned to do all weekend. English is not one of my greatest strengths, so when I encounter such assignment, I would need to start significantly early. Though I knew this, I continued to procrastinate as I was captivated by a TV series named iZombie that was recently added on Netflix. With my inconsistent attitude of knowing I had to start my work plus not doing my work, I created an insufficient justifying thought of convincing myself I had enough time on the weekend to do my work and so ended up relaxing on Friday. When preparing to do my work on Saturday, I changed my attitude to believe that I could finish all my work on Sunday, but when Sunday came, I was able to persuade myself that I could finish everything by Monday night. As a result, the neglectful procrastination habits could be contributed to the concept of cognitive dissonance which leads to insufficient justification.

Conformity
Conformity is a social influence where one changes their belief or behavior to fit into social norms that are rules or guidelines constructed by a group or culture where one is expected to follow and behave to.
Different types of conformity explain why we conform or behave the way we do, whether it is the desire to liked (normative influence), by which we conform with others so they would accept us, or the desire to be right (informational influence), by which we believe others evaluation of the situation is more accurate. The influence of others can either be real or imagined and can also progress from conformity, to compliance (taking direct requests from others), or obedience (obeying an authority
figure).
Norms that many people in society conform to could be staying in your seat in class, not falling asleep, talk when the teachers teaching something, or wear appropriate clothing in public. When one does not conform to such norms, it can sometimes evoke unsatisfactory attitudes towards them, major or small. As recently stated, real influence of others could be related to Asch’s line judgement study where a participant joins a study with other confederates and is asked to pick which of the 3 lines is the same length as x. When all the confederates agree on the same wrong answer, the participant conforms to their answers rather than choosing the right answer. Coming from my experience, an imagined influence would be having to eat when all my other friends are eating. Back when I had trouble with my eating habits, I was not able to eat much or want to eat at all. Though, when I do eat, I would generally eat a quarter of my dish, but when having to eat out with my friends, I feel the pressure of conformity of having to eat when I'm out with them. As a result, I try to eat as much as my friends do even if it makes me sick to my stomach. When I did not eat as much as they did, I unconsciously felt judged or criticized for not eating or finishing my plate too soon. Self-Serving Attributions Attribution theory could be defined as how one explains their behavior. From internal dispositions such as personality, attitude, and internal motive factors to external dispositions that are caused by situations outside one’s self. This relates to self-serving attributions, or sometimes called self-serving bias, is because we attribute our success to our internal factors (self) while we attribute our failures to external factors. From personal experiences, I have noticed that self-serving bias has happened occasionally in university, but not as frequent from when I was in high school.
An example would be when I enrolled in a business and honours arts program by which I had to take ECON 101 as an elective. I had a hard time in this course because firstly, I was never into business, the power point slides were confusing, and the professor did not make the explanations easier. Although I did try in the beginning, the course was too hard for me to handle due to these reasons. As a result, I would either be in class online shopping or playing Tetris. Occasionally, I would skip class as well and when the first midterm came up, I didn’t do so well. When I received my marks, I started attributing my bad grades (external factors) to how poor the professor taught, how he couldn’t explain the slides properly, and how the test was so hard instead of attributing my bad scores to how I was skipping class and playing Tetris (internal factors). When the second midterm came along, I studied a bit harder and sought help from my friends to tutor me. I eventually did well on my second midterm and started attributing my good scores to internal factors of how I did so well because I’m really smart and I’m pretty good at
math. This reveals that when something aspect of one’s life turns bad, we sometimes attribute the event to an external factor rather than internal factor as a way to make one feel better about themselves.