Overcoming Cognitive Dissonance

As many of you may know, I am a mother of two boys: Bailey is 15 and Brendan is about to turn 12. They are my life. I try my best to be the best parent possible and always put them first. I think I do a pretty good job now, but in the past there was a time where I fell short of being a great parent. In fact, for a short time I was a lousy mother. It hurts to admit this, but I have accepted it and have used this realization to make me a better parent now. 

Long story short, about 7 years ago I was a 25 year old single mother who was struggling to make it. I went through a crisis where I lost my job in Real Estate and subsequently ended up bartending down on 6^th street in Austin. This was not a healthy situation for a girl who had become a parent at the age of 17 and who had not had the chance to party and do all the things normal adolescents do. Unfortunately, I fell into the trap of alcohol and hanging out with bad people. My parents ended up watching my boys more and more often as I began working more shifts and partying afterward. Eventually, I was barely seeing my boys at all because I worked all night and slept all day. When my parents protested I did the worst thing I could do: I sent my boys to live with their father and I moved downtown with a coworker at the bar. I spent the next few years being a lousy parent and a mess of a person. I look back now and I don’t even know how I got to that point. I try to imagine not having my boys with me now, or not seeing them often, and it breaks my heart. But at this time in my life, I was able to push those feelings aside and become numb. It is scary and I never understood how I did it until I started studying Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Basically, this theory states that people have a need to maintain consistency between their attitudes and their behaviors; if their behavior deviates from how the person believes they would normally act then they will experience physiological discomfort. In order to alleviate these feelings the person will sometimes change their attitudes to match their behavior (Festinger, 1957). 

Once I learned about cognitive dissonance it made perfect sense to me how I was able to seemingly turn off my motherly feelings for my boys. In essence, because I was under the influence of alcohol and bad people, I was behaving selfishly and acting like I didn’t care about them (which did not match my actual attitudes about my children). This resulted in me changing my attitudes in order to not feel the discomfort and shame from my behavior. In fact, the less I saw my boys and the more I focused on my own needs the easier it got for me to continue on that way. It was almost as if my feelings had been completely extinguished. It frightens me to remember how I was during this time period…almost like a robot.

Thankfully, I got my shit together (excuse my profanity) and started working towards getting my life back in order. My boys have been back living with me for 2 years now and I am the happiest I have ever been. I could not imagine my life without them, and I will never ever hurt them again or put anyone (especially myself) before them. Once again, my actions are consistent with my behaviors (but in a good way). By working hard in school and focusing on positive things, it has allowed me to be a positive force in my sons’ lives. By being a good student, a good friend, and a good person in general, these actions have helped me shape my attitudes about myself so that I now act in line with these values. No more cognitive dissonance; and I am thankful for that!

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References

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.

A Day of Compassion

 

Compassion can be defined as having empathy for the suffering of others ("Compassion-definition and more," 2013).  I believe that being compassionate is a fundamental part of being a human being. Although there are some non-human animals that exhibit signs of compassion in some ways, such as a mother lion comforting a disgruntled cub, or a family dog that licks the face of its owner when they are feeling sad, compassion seems to be one aspect of behavior that sets humans apart. Humans display remarkable examples of compassion at times, such as when an entire nation comes together to raise money or donations to help another nation in need, or when a stranger puts their life in danger to save the life of another person. Without compassion our world would be a much bleaker place to live and our existence would seem less meaningful. For these reasons, I chose to participate in a Day of Compassion for my Participant Observer Blog.

I tend to think of myself as a pretty compassionate person on a day-to-day basis, so I wanted to try to stretch myself for this assignment and express compassion in ways that I normally do not. Therefore, I operationalized being compassionate as tailoring my behaviors in order to be understanding, kindhearted and empathetic for the people around me and their situations. Because I usually am compassionate to people who I spend the most time with, I wanted to focus on people that I do not know, or do not know very well.

I started my day normally, but as I got out of bed I reminded myself to act with compassion in every action throughout my day. The first recipients of compassion were my husband and my two sons. Because my husband usually gets up after me, I tried to be very considerate of waking him while I was getting ready. I tried to be extra quiet, and turn very few lights on. After all, he may be tired and need those few extra minutes of sleep in order to feel refreshed and have a productive day at work. When I woke up my boys I made sure not to keep my voice quiet, as not to startle them awake, and lightly rubbed their backs as I told them it was time to get up. I placed a towel in the bathroom and started the shower for my older son, so it would be warm and ready for him (usually he does this for himself). I went downstairs and prepared my younger son’s cereal and turned on cartoons for him (again he usually does this for himself). I wanted to do some things to help their morning run a little more smoothly, and feel more relaxed and less rushed. They both seemed a little confused as to why I was doing these things, but when they asked what was going on I just smiled and said “Just because I love you.”  Because my behavior was unexpected, I am sure that they were trying to make attributions as to why it occurred.  They might have made an internal attribution (attributing the behavior to some characteristic of my personality, such as “Mom’s crazy”), or they might have made an external attribution (attributing it to the situation, such as “It’s almost Spring Break so Mom is feeling happy and less stressed”). All of these explanations would fall under Attribution Theory, which states that people have a need to understand why events happen, and will look for explanations by using past experience or gathering information (Heider, 1958). Regardless of what my boys thought my reasons were they seemed in a better mood as they got ready for the day.

After the boys were dropped off at school, I made sure that my husband’s lunch was ready for him and started his car so it would be warmed up for when he was ready to leave. He seemed very surprised, but also grateful, for these little acts of service. He thanked me, gave me a hug goodbye and walked out of the house with a big smile on his face.

I was feeling pretty good as I began to plan out the rest of my day. Because it was a day that I do not have class, I would not need to go up to campus so I wouldn’t have much interaction with other people if I stayed home. I decided I would go run some errands; first stop was the grocery store. As I was shopping I paid close attention to the other people around me, which normally I probably wouldn’t do. Usually I am really busy and distracted, and just trying to get in and get out. But on this day I looked at people and smiled and said hello. Many shoppers smiled and said hello back. Surprisingly, others just looked at me kind of oddly, and said nothing. I realized that they may have been engaging in impression formation, which is the process of integrating information about a person’s appearance, behavior, and perceived traits into a coherent schema of that person (Asch, 1946). Perhaps they were even influenced by an event schema, which is an organized framework of knowledge derived from past experience that tells people how others act in certain situations (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Most of the time strangers do not speak to each other at the grocery store or other public places, so the shoppers may have felt that it was unexpected behavior when I said hello to them. 

While at the store, I also helped an older lady by grabbing a few items off of a shelf that was too high for her to reach. She was very thankful and told me “God bless”. As I walked to my car I noticed a mother of two small children struggling to hold the shopping cart (which was sliding down the hill she was parked on) while she was unloading her groceries. I ran over and held the cart for her, explaining that I have the same problem all the time and they should really put brakes on them! She seemed relieved and thanked my very graciously.

As I drove home I felt very positive about my experience at the store. Even though a few people did not seem to have the reaction that I had hoped for, I still felt that I was able to make a few people’s days better. Although I am normally a compassionate person, I do tend to get enveloped in my own life sometimes and do not think about how one little smile, or helping hand can influence another person’s day. I began to think about the reasons why some people are more compassionate than others and decided that I should try to perform acts of compassion more often.

As I continued my day of compassion, I donated some money to a few charities online, gave encouraging words to a few friends who were struggling with hard times, and spent a little more time giving attention and love to my pets. I noticed my neighbor’s trash can was still out on the street from trash day, so I brought it up to the driveway for them. When I picked up my son from school I offered one of his friends a ride home so he didn’t have to ride the bus, and when a telemarketer called selling newspaper subscriptions I went ahead and signed up. What’s a few dollars a month if it helps someone make their quotas, or simply just made their day by making a sale and instead of getting yelled at or hung up on? I probably should read more actual news anyways.

It seemed like as the day went on it became easier and easier to act with compassion in everything that I did. I wondered if my motivations were altruistic, motivated simply by improving another person’s welfare ("Altruistic-definition and more," 2013), or egoistic, motivated by my own feelings derived from helping someone ("Egoistic-definition and more," 2013). According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson, 2009), these two motivations actually work together in influencing helpful actions. Based on this theory, when someone sees another person who needs help they can either take the other person’s perspective, which would lead to feelings of empathy, or they can keep their own perspective and not feel empathy. If the person feels empathy for the person in need then they will experience altruistic feelings and want to help that person. If no empathy is felt, then the person may help in order to reduce their own feelings of discomfort, but they will not help out of altruism. 

I generally believe that I act compassionately with altruistic intent most of the time. However, I do accept that sometimes I may be acting compassionate in order to increase positive feelings about myself. Feeling good is definitely one of the psychological benefits of being compassionate. When you help others, or are just nice to others without any expectation of receiving anything in return, it makes you feel like you are a good person and increases your self-esteem. However, there are some psychological costs related to helping others as well. Sometimes we help others because we truly care about them, like our family and friends, and we are even willing to put their needs above our won. While this is very selfless, it can become a problem if you do not take care of yourself because you are taking care of others. I know that I often feel exhausted and stressed because I constantly put my sons’ needs before my own. Even though it is part of being a good mother, at times I feel like I wear myself out and my health suffers. 

Even though there may be some costs to being compassionate I still feel that it is more beneficial than harmful. I would encourage other people to try being compassionate for a day so they could see how great it feels. I would explain to them that helping others would increase their self-esteem through self-enhancement, which is thinking positively about oneself (Taylor & Brown, 1988). 

I would definitely say that this experiment was a good experience. I believe that in a month from now I will still be benefiting from what I learned today. First of all, I think I will be more cognizant of other people when I am out in the world. Second, I think that I will remember the way that it felt to help people or be kind to people and not get anything in return. Hopefully I can stick to my goal of being more compassionate on a daily basis, not just to my family and friends, but also to people that I do not know. If I can achieve this goal I believe I will have gained much more than a grade from this assignment.

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References

Altruistic-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/altruism

Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality.

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.

Batson, C.D. (2009). "Two forms of perspective taking: imagining how another feels and imagining how you would feel". In K. D. Markman, W.M.P. Klein and J.A. Suhr (Eds.), Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation (pp. 267–279). New York: Psychology Press.

Compassion-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

 Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations.

New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Egoistic-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egoistic

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), 193-210. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty:

Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1130.

I believe all men are created equal...or do I?

Most people do not want to admit to using stereotypes or having any prejudices against other races. In fact, much of today’s society would like us to believe that racism is a thing of the past and no longer in practice. As far as we have come as a nation, racism has unfortunately not been completely eradicated, and continues to hinder the lives of the numerous ethnic groups living in America. Interestingly, much of this racism may not be overt, meaning that the people who are discriminating against other races may not even know that they are doing so.

In fact, Greenwald et al., (1998) began research on this very idea by examining implicit memory, which consists of memories or beliefs that are not accessible to conscious awareness but can affect our attitudes and behavior. To test implicit memory they created the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which is a computer-based test which measures automatic associations within a person’s memory.

During the test, participants are instructed to rapidly match attributes such as happy with an image or another set of words, such as a picture of a black person’s face or the word African American paired with the category good, versus a picture of a white person’s face or the word European American paired with the category bad. The idea behind these pairings is that people will pair words more rapidly with certain images or other words if they have an unconscious association between those items. For example, if a participant categorizes the word evil more quickly with the category of African American paired with good then with the category of European American and bad, then it follows that they may hold some implicit beliefs that African Americans are bad or evil. 

As previously stated, these implicit beliefs may be unconscious, but they may also reveal deep seeded beliefs that people might try to hide due to social desirability. Social desirability bias is a theory that describes people’s tendency to act in ways that are socially acceptable, even if their true beliefs contradict their behaviors, in order to avoid being socially outcast (Zerbe & Paulhus, 1987).  Because most people would not want to be seen as racist, they may self-report that they like all races equally, or act friendly to people of other races when in the social sphere; however, their true feelings about other races may be different than what they portray. 

In research on racism, one way to eliminate social desirability bias is by using the IAT. Because the IAT tests unconscious or hidden beliefs, it is possible to assess people’s true feelings about other races. I recently took the Race IAT and was very surprised with the results.

According to my results I have a moderate automatic preference for European Americans. I was actually inclined to disbelieve these results because I have always had a very strong connection to people of other races, especially African Americans. I know this sounds strange, but as a child I was extremely interested in learning about slavery in America and the horrors that African American slaves suffered due to my ancestors. I sought out as much information as I could on the subject and every school project I completed seemed to fall under this theme. I was so disgusted by the way these human beings were treated, and I empathized with their pain. My heroes quickly became Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and many other former slaves who were influential in helping African Americans break through the chains that were placed upon them. I admired Abraham Lincoln for putting an end to the horrible practice of slavery and for decreeing that all men should be treated equally (even though I found out later that he wasn’t exactly as anti-slavery as he was portrayed to be). 

Throughout my adolescence I often made friends with the minority kids and hung out with a very diverse ethnic crowd. Even though I was white, I was a rather tall, skinny, and awkward looking teen, so I identified with their feelings of being ostracized from the main social groups. I also found that my non-Caucasian friends were more accepting, honest, and genuine than many of the Caucasian girls at my school. The girls from my own race were mean, fake, caddy, and judgmental. If you didn’t have the right clothes or wear your hair the right way then you were belittled and laughed at. So I found refuge with my African American, Hispanic, Asian, and mixed friends. They never made me feel like an outcast. 

Ever since, I have had countless friendships with people of all races, and I truly love and embrace all of their unique backgrounds and qualities. I feel that they enrich my life and have taught me so many things that I would have missed out on if I had only had friends within my own race/culture. Based on all of this background, it goes without saying that I was not happy with the results of the IAT. Although I do believe in the validity of the measure, I do not believe that results indicate that I am unconsciously racist. I do feel that I have been socialized to associate certain words with African Americans and European Americans, but these associations do not override my deep beliefs that people of all colors deserve to be treated equally. I may never really know if these implicit thoughts affect my interactions with African Americans, but I truly believe that they do not. After all, I have been socialized to associate many things, such as marriage with man and wife, but I am a strong advocate for gay marriage, and have many friends and family members who are gay. I do not believe that these learned associations, even if they are automatic in my mind, can alter my decisions as to how I feel about or treat gay people. Implicit memories might be powerful, but so is my free will; therefore, I choose to view my IAT results as an opportunity to break through stereotypes and prejudice by being more cognizant of how unconscious thoughts might affect my behavior with people of other races.

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References

Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.

Zerbe, W. J., & Paulhus, D. L. (1987). Socially desirable responding in organizational behavior: A reconception. The Academy Of Management Review, 12(2), 250-264. doi:10.2307/258533