Cognitive dissonance?

Dissonance is aroused when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs, with their view of reality. In Rory Sutherland’s TED we see a classic piece of marketing that demonstrates how easily we can be convinced that the diamond is a square. Or are you much smarter than those in the focus group? Even if you are smart you might learn a few things from Rory.

I’m sure there will be many reading this who have a good understanding of psychology, for those of you who don’t a Wikipedia is as good an overview as any. 

A search will bring forth many well crafted pages of explanations, theories and research findings, and so I’m not going to try and duplicate that. Those who are interested will find many psychological alleys and byways than can be travelled in pursuit of understanding the workings of the human mind.

But in this post I’m just dropping in a few examples and ideas related to this time and place, and some observations that have been made. An important aspect of any education is how we apply throughout life. Research and theories are valuable but they need to be applied in our everyday problem solving to fully exploit the potential.

For example; I believe that in a democracy there should be one vote per person. If a person can have more than one vote, achieving multiple votes by the means of buying property then this is a plutocracy not democracy.

In this shire we have an unknown number of people who do not live here exercising their votes to determine who serves on our council . In WA owning property buys you more votes.

To resolve this dissonance I could change my understanding of democratic principles, which would be very difficult, given that equality and social justice are fundamental principles of my form of democracy.

If more wealth equals more power I can’t accept that system is democracy. 

I especially cannot accept this when I know that so much property is held by anonymous limited liability corporations, who can exercise a vote.

Who is voting for your councillor, do you know?

To change democracy in WA I could work towards convincing others that every citizen should have just one vote, whether they own lots of property or no property.

But if that seems too hard, which it clearly is, I could trivialise the problem and say democracy is not that important and do nothing, and resolve my dissonance that way, by adjusting  my beliefs to match reality.

Which would you do?

Does democracy matter to you?

People who are paid to undertake work where they know that their actions conflict with the truth, honesty and decency, often suffer from dissonance. If they are highly paid they can rationalise their corrupt behaviour and justify it to themselves, “the end justifies the means” attitude prevails.

If a person is not highly paid but they are threatened by a bully they can justify their behaviour by claiming that they must protect their livelihood, cannot risk their family suffering, etc.

If they are neither highly paid nor threatened, then they may justify their corrupt behaviour by convincing themselves that whatever corrupt act they performed, or failed to report, wasn’t really anything important. By down grading the corrupt act they can resolve dissonance.

Even when an individual knows that their actions could have serious consequences they can justify what they are doing in order to reduce their own stress, and the inevitable anxiety they would feel if they remained in a state of dissonance.

People with very few external justifications; no cruel dictator, or threatening circumstances to blame for their inconsistent behaviour, must find other ways to produce some internal justification in order to reduce the high degree of dissonance that they will experience.

For example; if a Council approves a development that none of the community have supported the community may, “Ask why?”

Why have the people claiming to represent us acted against our wishes?

If there is no dissonance then one would expect a credible and convincing explanation from the councillors who voted in favour; but where there is dissonance there is more likely to be no comment at all, or a backlash against any community voices raised in protest.

Those individuals who challenge the dissonant decision may themselves be accused of being merely a handful of grumpy people, the usual suspects, always complaining. In this way the dissonant decision makers justify their failure to provide credible explanations by blaming those who ask questions, or denigrating them, suggesting that the questions themselves are somehow strange or unnecessary. 

The justification for not giving answers to those who are asking questions is that they are always “shire bashing” and complaining.

Another example; there are community members in this shire, at this time, who currently feel threatened by people in positions of authority labelling them the “usual suspects.” Or worse, being reported as trouble makers to the local media.

For some individuals merely being described in such terms is sufficient to make them afraid and insecure. They fear that some unidentified, and as yet unexpressed repercussions, might occur as a result of them voicing any criticisms. They rightly fear that the local authority can make life difficult for them, or for the group they might represent.

If at a subsequent time they are openly and honestly invited to voice their concerns, express their opinions, they may hesitate, and then deny that they have any issues to discuss. By trivialising their complaints, to themselves, they can reconcile their lack of action on previous occasions when they were not brave enough to face up to opposition. If we can convince ourselves that something is of little importance then inaction can be justified, and thus individual dissonance can be resolved. These aspects of dissonance are important to understand if any genuine community engagement is ever to be sought. Why people don't do things is just as interesting as why they do. 

When the means to an end is particularly distasteful dissonance can be reduced by exaggerating the desirability of the goal.

For example; our civic decision makers may be required to vote to approve an application for subdivision and rezoning. This proposal may be seen by the community as clearly inappropriate, a decision that robs the community of any opportunity for economic development, that allows the profit from subdivision to leave this shire, to leave Australia, and casts aside every valid objection raised by many local community members.

In such circumstances the community members are left in a state of dissonance; wondering how their councillors could possibly believe that the decision taken serves the needs of those they purport to “represent”, when an anonymous development corporation is the only beneficiary.

The community are left to “Ask why?”

In this case the community view of reality clearly does not match the Council’s view. To justify their dissonant behaviour our councillors may use the argument that their actions are in line with the requirements of the Leeuwin Naturaliste Ridge Statement of Planning Policy, and that they cannot have ad-hoc planning, or that it is extremely important that there is a strategic plan for the next 20-30 years.

These arguments might be acceptable if the LNRSPP had undergone the regular revisions that were promised every 5 years, and if it had been seen to be an effective piece of planning legislation that served the social and economic needs of the people. But the LNRSPP has not been revised since it was first adopted in 1996, and it does not protect the social and economic well-being of the communities it is imposed upon. In the 20 years since the community meetings that informed the LNRSPP we have learnt many things, society has undergone many changes, and most community members consider it foolish to ignore them all by slavishly insisting on this single outdated state policy as the only guide to planning for good social, economic and environmental outcomes.

So why are our councillors so pleased that they are adhering to a piece of planning policy written back in 1994? Why are they refusing to recognise the evidence of similar developments within this shire? The evidence is clearly available; that empty houses, and residential houses used as holiday letting accommodation, just aren’t delivering the social and economic benefits we need. We are not providing housing for our young people, or our low paid agricultural workers.

Why does this happen so often in our civic decision making? 

Why do our councillors so often appear at election time promising to serve the community, only to develop a pattern of working against that same community once elected?

One answer might be that they lack the capacity to solve the problems they promised to solve, and so, when they realise the goals they had set themselves when making promises to the community are unattainable, they justify their actions by claiming adherence to the LNRSPP is their priority, or some other state policy or guideline, clinging to the justification that compliance with policy is their only priority. They further reduce their own dissonance by criticizing the community, the “usual suspects”, for making excessive demands.

Circumstances can seduce us into believing almost anything if we have clever people manipulating our cognitive responses. In his TED talk Rory Sutherland uses a clever piece of marketing for a breakfast cereal to illustrate how people can be mesmerised by the power of the professional.

It's not only breakfast cereal that our human brains can be duped into buying.

When confronted by an expert witness many of us will defer to their opinion, even when their opinion is at odds with our own view of reality, our own experience and cultural values. We can justify our actions, and resolve our dissonance, by convincing ourselves that the expert must be right. This might create a feeling of peace and such a delegation of responsibility to the professional is certainly a coping strategy that many will adopt to reduce the stress of dissonance.

Yes, I am feeling the stress of cognitive dissonance.