As social beings, people have a need to affiliate or establish and maintain personal relationships that are mostly rewarding with other people (McAdams, 1989). This drive leads people to do some crazy things, and in this frenzy of relationship making some people are rated as more desirable (whether it be for friendship or a romantic relationship) than others. For example, Carrot top vs. Emma Stone, they are both red heads (most of the time) and both funny (one much more than the other, Emma!) but I would bet that if asked Emma would get better ratings and more people would want to be her friends than carrot top.
Additionally, this drive for rewarding relationships leads us to want to associate ourselves with people who are popular and beautiful, because it is common for people to judge a person on who they hang out with. This leads to the hard-to-get effect, which is when people like people who are very selective in who they chose to associate with because it makes them scarce (Waltser et al., 1973). Im sure we have experienced this effect with at least one person who we have wanted to either date or be friends with. For example, going into high school I hung out with some people who weren't really very good friends of mine and they also weren't "cool", and when I looked at the "in-crowd" they all seemed to be so happy and all the best of friends, so I made my way in. It was fairly easy, with a few giving me crap at first but I made it "in" and I did have a few good friends, although they ended up sucking too. But what I found once I got into this "elite" group was that they kind of really freakin sucked, they were so self-absorbed and dumb. It was all about partying and who was the prettiest and skinniest and who wore the cutest clothes and honey that aint me. I thought that because these people were so exclusive and "hard to get" that they must have really close ties and be really awesome, turns out everyone talks about each other behind their backs and backstab even their "best friends". It was an interesting experience because for the most part I was able to stay out of most drama, but goodness those people have what is important so mixed up. Granted it was high school and thats how a lot of kids are so I will give them that, although most of them are the exact same. The funniest part of the whole thing was seeing how caught up in themselves people were, the "beautiful" people had everyone fooled that they were so great and awesome when really everyone was under the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype. This stereotype is the common misconception that because a person is physically attractive they also have good personality characteristics, when in reality a person's appearance on the outside is no sign of who they are on the inside (Dion et al., 1972). These people who were so beautiful and popular because of it are judged based solely on their looks and people, even their friends, ever get a glimpse of who they really are. I can tell you that those girls who people thought were the hottest in the school were not that great on the inside, some of them were really good people but some were not, and its funny because so much stereotyping happens based on the "type" of attractive you are. At my school the guys would rate girls based on a scale that had different categories of attractiveness, this included cute, hot, sexy, beautiful and many other "levels" a girl could be. Interestingly, these actually mattered to people and they viewed others based on what they got. Not trying to brag at all because those stupid guys opinions of me means nothing, but I was rated as a bunch of levels including sexy which not sure why a lot of girls did not get, and these stupid girls automatically started looking at me in a sexualized way when really the "cute" girls were the freaks but because they seemed so innocent and cute certain characteristics were placed on them where as others were placed on me. Im sure that many of you have been judged on your outward beauty but in reality the sexiest or most beautiful part of a person is what they have to offer from the inside, I know that that is how I chose my relationships because I know a pretty face doesn't mean a good friend and a hot guy doesn't mean good boyfriend. Plus, I have WAY more to offer than my face and sexuality and if someone wants to only see that then I must say I dont care a flip about them or their opinions. Its kind of like mean girls were everyone is obsessed with Regina George because she is so pretty and they ignore how awful she is because she is so popular has the hot guys, the hot friends, and basically gets to run the school.
Basically when you are making your friend and mate selections dont be fooled by looks and high status. Hope yall enjoyed my blog this year here is one more funny picture and video to send you off on a great holiday season.
hahaha love this kid, you know that doesnt taste good and that the kid had to do it either for a long time or multiple times for them to get this great pic. poor kitty
only in Europe could you get away with this crap lol Happy Holidays!!
Citation:
Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 24(3), 285-290. doi:10.1037/h0033731
McAdams, D. P. (1989). Intimacy: The need to be close. New York, NY US: Doubleday & Co.
Walster, E., Walster, G., Piliavin, J., & Schmidt, L. (1973). 'Playing hard to get': Understanding an elusive phenomenon. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 26(1), 113-121. doi:10.1037/h0034234
I am more than sure that at some point in time we have all been stuck with a sucky group partner, well last year I was lucky enough to get stuck with TWO slacking sucky partners. Of course they will remain anonymous so I will refer to the crazy one as Thing 1 and the I have better things to do lazy one as Thing 2. Just to give you a little background on the situation, there were four of us in the group and we had to run an experiment for research methods. We of course had to start with brainstorming and basic research to find a topic, well me and Bernie would be the only ones who would bring actual literature to the meetings and sometimes thing 2 would say she read some stuff and had ideas but she never had the actual literature with her so that was obviously a problem. It was like from the start they were going to throw out random ideas and hope that other people in the group would bring it all together, now I'm a leader and I have no problem doing so but I am NOT willing to do an entire project for other people. Throughout the entire semester (yes Dr.G is that hardcore and we do a huge project that takes up your WHOLE life) it was one thing after the other, people making excuses and constantly blaming things on other people, especially thing 1. There were even instances were both thing 1 & 2 told me they just did not have time for it, or flat out that they did not care as much as I did and sleep was more important. They were able to do this because they knew that Bernie and I are not the kind of people to let things not get done, and as much of a toll it took on our lives someone had to do it and it was more than clear they were not going to push to get things done. Throughout the entire process it was everyone relating all of their problems to me "Cheyenne fix this" "Cheyenne I messed this up what should we do?" and because no one was talking to anyone else it all ended up on me and MAYBE the person relaying the problems to me. After awhile it became too much and I reached out to both Bernie and Dr.G to say look this is the real deal and how people are being this is CRAZY (literally the girl was insane like having mental problems idk). So Bernie and I pushed through it and ended up with a decent experiment. You are probably thinking wtf? how did they scrape by with this, well they didnt really scrape by their inability to contribute was not only recognized but not tolerated (still sorry for getting in an yelling argument in your class Dr.G) but they felt they could and basically did get away with it because of social loafing (Latane, 1979). Social loafing is when people are working towards a common goal in a group and one or a few slack off and do not effectively contribute because they feel that it is unnecessary for two reasons. The first is the free riding (DeRosa et. al., 2007), which is when people believe that everyone else is doing more than enough work so there is no reason for them to work super hard too. The second is the sucker effect (Houldsworth & Mathews, 2000) which is when people feel like because they are in a group they should not have to take on too much of a burden and that other people should do lots of work and not just them . So in my situation it was apparent from the beginning that both Bernie and myself are the kind of people who get things done so these other girls knew right off the back that if they didn't want to that they could slack off and that the project would still get done and be great. As for the sucker effect, i have no idea where these girls were getting it from but they were like delirious they legitimately thought they were doing all the work and that they should stop doing so much because they knew that so and so wasn't doing as much as them and that was unfair, when reality neither thing 1 or 2 was doing that much at all and even when they were contributing only a part of the time was it helpful, most of the time it was either wrong or not really help at all. Basically, in all group situations we try to get by with doing as little as possible, whether it be because we are not that interested or we are very busy with other things, but there is only so much a person can refuse to do (and they did refuse to do basic and necessary things) and put on other people. I guess for me I know I can handle stressful situations and still get things done so from the beginning I was way too relaxed about the direction the group was moving in but there is only so much myself and another person can do, especially when thing 1 and 2 were not even that concerned with Dr.G and their grades (mostly thing 1). Sometimes you get a rotten apple and you just have to go with it and try to make the best apple pie you can, but damn two bad apples?? there is only so much a person can do, my advice say screw them early on and break off and do the project with just the other productive person and yourself and leave those two slackers to fend for themselves. Im sure you can think of situations where you were in my shoes or even were in thing 1 & 2's, its a natural thing to want to slack but lets stay responsible people. Just to add its kinda funny I had thing 2 in another group during the middle of this experiment (so things were bad but not at their worse yet) and I immediately was like i relinquish all leading abilities I think thing 2 should do it, and of course because I was having to ride her ass in the other project she would like try to ride my ass about stuff and I was like heck no shut it down. So I slacked alittle more than I would usually, I still wrote 13 freakin pages of the dumbest crap ever but I gave it to her late just to spite her lol, I know sounds bad but if you were there you are probably thinking I wouldve done worse.
This has NOTHING to do with my blog but its freakin hilarious and everyone loves alittle animal humor so enjoy... you may want to watch multiple times to catch all the funny components (his facial expressions, the cat, his tone of voice etc.)
Citation:
Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 37(6), 822-832. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822
DeRosa, D. M., Smith, C. L., & Hantula, D. A. (2007). The medium matters: Mining the long-promised merit of group interaction in creative idea generation tasks in a meta-analysis of the electronic group brainstorming literature. Computers In Human Behavior,23(3), 1549-1581. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2005.07.003
Houldsworth, C., & Mathews, B. P. (2000). Group composition, performance and educational attainment. Education & Training, 42(1), 40-53. doi:10.1108/00400910010317086
The title is referring to a segment of my Book "Made to Stick" by the Heath brothers, about a very popular slogan that was over-used and then stopped working. Basically the slogan is They all laughed/ did something upsetting at me when I ______ and then I ____, this slogan was very popular and effective (at first) because it was short, simple, and invoked emotion which then invokes action. Before I jump too far ahead of myself let me give you a brief breakdown of the book. It starts with an outline of the book, and a short summary of what is to come in each chapter, which I thought I was going to appreciate because I knew what to look for and then I realized the whole book is the same stuff in different lengths three times (an obvious negative for the book, who wants to read the same thing three times in one reading of it?). Specifically, the book is broke down into an Intro: What Sticks?, and then six chapters explaining the main idea, SUCCES, and then an epilogue which is basically just a restatement of the six chapters and the same thing as the introduction just a little more information included. I honestly chose this book because I liked the title and then when I glimpsed at what it was about I thought that it would probably be helpful for me because I am always trying to be right and it would be helpful to know the best ways to make other people think what I think. I think this book is useful because it showed me how to better the things I was already doing. For example, when I am talking to someone about pretty much anything I will make it a story, I know that it is easier for someone to understand you if you put it in words they already know. And this book just reassured me of that and let me know that keeping things basic and tangible I will be more successful in doing that. It is also going to help me make decisions, I feel as if I am a more informed consumer (more on that later). I liked the book in that it had a lot of good ideas, I think I might have liked choosing another book better in hopes that it wouldn't be so repetitious. I would recommend it to all people trying to teach someone else something or trying to sell something to other people, because this is the basis for what you need to know to include and what to use to be successful. I liked that it gave examples for everything, and they were all examples that I was either already familiar with or was easily familiarized with, because it made what they were saying stick in my brain that much more because I can think of the different stories and think about what I need to do. I think the whole book is useful, because it provides important information when trying to get messages across (which we all do every single day all day) and it makes me a more knowledgeable analyzer of the messages that are being given to me and I think that everyone would agree with that. I also believe that this book is a credible, scholarly source because both authors are more than capable and they give so much support from previous literature. The book was written by the Heath brothers, Chip is a professor at Stanford and he has focused his research on why some ideas "Stick" better than others, he has been featured in countless journals; Dan is a "senior fellow at Duke University's CASE", he is also a well-published author and experimenter ( Heath Brothers Inc., website below).
To keep this as short as possible if you would like more in depth information on them and other books they have written please click on this link: http://www.heathbrothers.com/authors/
What Sticks?
Sticky refers to an idea that is easily understandable, memorable, and effective in changing people's opinions and behavior. In addition, the "Curse of Knowledge" is introduced in this chapter and this concept refers to fact that the person delivering the information has a lot more detailed and insightful knowledge on the topic than the audience does and therefore forgets to effectively explain the ideas (Heath & Heath, 2008). In order to create a sticky idea you must you Simple.Unexpected.Concrete.Credible.Emotional.Stories.
Simple:
To keep things simple and sticky you must do two things (1.) find the core and (2.) share the core. Finding the core means taking your greatest ideas and trimming them down to the one most important all inclusive idea. When doing this we must avoid two things (1.) burying the lead: is a journalism term in which the core idea in an article get buried too far down in the piece "buried" under all of the less important ideas and (2.) decision paralysis: which is when given options, even options completely irrelevant to the decision people have a harder time making a decision and chose differently. Sharing the core is basically having the ability to convey your message in a clear way that motivates people to make decisions in regards to your message. Ultimately parsimony is best in this situation, and in order to be as simple as possible it is best to play off of people's schemas for bigger things. In doing these things a person can make simple ideas complex and sticky.
Unexpected:
You have to do two things to get your message across: Get people's attention and Keep it! In order to get people's attention one must break the mindless routine most people live their lives in, you have to do something unexpected and bold to do so. Surprising someone increases alertness and focus which is a good start but then we must keep them interested in order to be successful in persuading them (Heath & Heath, 2008). To keep people interested we must open "gaps" in their knowledge and then let them know we have the information to close those gaps (Heath & Heath, 2008).
Concrete:
When conveying an idea you must avoid abstract language or jargon, it is more efficient to use tangible concrete object for you examples, because it makes it easier for people to attach those ideas to previous memories which then makes them think about them more. Obviously, the more you think about something the more cemented into your brain it is.
Credible:
People believe things more easily if a person in an authoritative position says them. Unfortunately, a lot of the time we cannot get an expert to come support our message so we must do one of the following to create a sense of credibility in what we are saying: (1.) use an anti-authority, example in the book was a smoker for non-smoking campaigns, (2.) use concrete ideas, using vivid and personal details that people either relate to or know for themselves, (3.) use statistics, illustrate a relationship not just numbers because people fall victim to the base-rate fallacy, people aren’t receptive to information given in a numerical way (Argote, Devadas, Melone, 1990), (4.) The Sinatra test, if an idea can make it in one place it can make it anywhere, (5.) testable credentials, challenge the consumer to test the idea or product out them self (Heath & Heath, 2008).
To get people to listen to our ideas we have to get them to stop thinking analytically and think on a more emotional level, feelings invoke action where as analysis takes a lot of time. Therefore, your idea should appeal things people already care about, or their self-interest and identities. In provoking associations between what they know about others and themselves and your idea you make an idea even sticker. You get people thinking what is everyone else doing? and what are other people, who are like me, reacting to this information? Thus, further cementing your idea into their brains and keeping them thinking about it.
Stories:
When people hear a story they play it over and over in their head, so when you turn your idea into a story then a person will think about it over and over and over. There are three types of stories that make an idea stickier: (1.) The Challenge Plot, this refers to the classic underdog, rags to riches, or will power triumphing over adversity stories, (2.) The Connection Plot, these are stories about people who develop relationships that bridge gaps (either racial, or class, or ethnic, or religious, or demographic), (3.) The Creativity Plot, these are stories of people making mental breakthroughs or coming up with innovative ideas. The stories work because of social comparison theory, the theory that people evaluate their own thoughts and behaviors by comparing themselves to others (Leon Festinger, 1954). Therefore, as they are thinking of your idea in terms of the story you told they are thinking of how they fit into it, and how to apply that idea to their lives.
Overall, these tactics are successful because the employ a number social psychological methods. The most important being the theory of planned behavior, when making decisions people are influenced by their attitudes toward that behavior, subjunctive norms, and the perceived control to influence their actions (Ajzen, 1991). For example, a person is presented with the advertisement to buy a new Ipod (I am currently looking to buy a new Ipod or music device) they know that they want to indeed comply with the message, but two other issues may arise in making this decision. The first being, what type of mp3 or music playing device should I buy? Well if that person looks around them they will see pretty much everyone has an Ipod, so because of conformity and both informational influence, people want to make correct judgments so they will often look to see what other agree on and if the majority agree then they must be right (Sherif, 1936), and Normative influence, people don’t want to be seen as deviant so they conform to what the group thinks or does (Schachter, 1951), that person is most likely going to buy an Ipod, if they have the perceived means of buying it (i.e., money). These processes often lead to private conformity, a person changes their actual beliefs to match that of society (Kelman, 1961), and many of you including myself have done this for this exact topic. I know that when I go to buy a new music player I’m going to get and apple product and I’m sure that many of you are also loyal customers, because everyone was getting them and then you got one and well they aren’t too bad so they have continued to be popular and the idea has continued to STICK! Other very important social concepts to recognize here have to do with the routes people take to persuasion. First, it is important to recognize that people have different needs for cognition, this is an aspect of a person’s personality that is based on how much that person likes thinking effort-fully (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), and levels of elaboration, this is the process of critically analyzing the arguments in persuasive messages (Greenwald, 1968). Obviously, this book appeals to both the people taking the peripheral route to persuasion, because using these tactics a person is presented with the most basic and memorable message making it easy for them to make decisions about it; as well as people taking the central route to persuasion, because even those the base message is simple the idea may not be the influencers may be using one simple idea that connects to your schemas for other things as well as how you think of yourself and the people around you (Cacioppo & Petty, 1986). Now let’s connect this to our buying a new music playing device dilemma, I like to make a smart choice when I am buying anything (especially something expensive) and I don’t want to fall for any sneaky persuasive tactics so I want to take the central route in choosing. Luckily I can take the simple ideas and messages from all the apple commercials and mix them together to get a larger more complex message that includes memory, how they function, other people’s assessment of the product, and my own personal experiences with the product. This means that Apple has done a very good job of making the products sticky in people’s brain, most of the time people won’t even consider another company’s product. The authors say one of the best examples of SUCCES is the Dont Mess With Texas Campaign, which I know we are all familiar with so in order to give you a reason to reply to my blog in a analytical manner (helping you out lol) I would like for you to use the ideas that I have presented here and tell me why this is successful! Hopefully these analogies will help you remember: Pay attention: Unexpected
2.Understand and remember it: concrete
3.Agree/believe: credible
4.Care: emotional
5.Be able to act on it: story
(Heath & Heath, 2008).
Citation:
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (n.d.). Heath Brothers.Heath Brothers. Retrieved November 10, 2011, from http://www.heathbrothers.com/
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes.Human Relations,7117-140. doi:10.1177/001872675400700202
Argote, L., Devadas, R., & Melone, N. (1990). The base-rate fallacy: Contrasting processes and outcomes of group and individual judgment.Organizational Behavior And Human Decision Processes,46(2), 296-310. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(90)90034-7
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior.Organizational Behavior And Human Decision Processes,50(2), 179-211. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Kao, C., & Rodriguez, R. (1986). Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: An individual difference perspective.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,51(5), 1032-1043. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.5.1032
Greenwald, H. J. (1968). The Basic Assumptions of Dissonance Theory.Psychological Reports,22(3,PT. 1),
Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,42(1), 116-131. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.116
Sherif, M. M. (1936).The psychology of social norms. Oxford England: Harper.
Schachter, S. (1951). Deviation, rejection, and communication.The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology,46(2), 190-207. doi:10.1037/h0062326
Kelman, H. C. (1961). Processes of opinion change.Public Opinion Quarterly,25(1), 57-78. doi:10.1086/266996
Lucky for the Beibs this was an actual door in the face and not the door-in-the-face technique (Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler, & Darby, 1975), which is a compliance technique that could've been used against him to get him to do something for some crazy fan. Specifically, the door-in-the-face technique is when a person makes a rather large request, knowing that you will most likely say no, and after you say no they then they ask for a smaller favor etc. (all along the "smaller" favor is what they really wanted). You are probably wondering how this works on someone when it is so obvious well there are two reason why this technique works. The first reason is perceptual contrast: because the first request was so large the second request seems even smaller and easier to do than if the first one had been presented without the larger request leading people to think well that isn't that hard to do so I will do it (Cialdini et. al., 1975). The second reason this technique works is reciprocal concessions, which refers to the pressures people feel to change in a bargaining situation (Cialdini, 1975). I know from experience that this technique works because I use it ALL the time on my boyfriend. For example, I ask if we can go eat at some fancy restaurant and when he says no blah blah blah we are poor college students blah blah blah, I say well then could we at least go to Garcias (super amazing and cheap mexican food place in San Marcos, yall should go!!) and since he already said no to the bigger request he's like well yeah we could handle that its pretty cheap and good so yeah lets go. His rational is that I want to go eat out and since I cant get exactly what I want (some expensive place, even though I wanted Garcias in the first place) he will bargain with me and we will go there and sometimes he will be like "ok if I pay for food you do the tip" and I dont care as long as I get that delish food. I also do this with shopping, I love to shop even if I don't buy anything I like to just go look at stuff but Adrian hates it!!! So in order for me to get him to go with me anywhere I always start with something big like "Lets go to the outlet mall or lets go to wal-mart" (I know wal-mart may not be a big request for you but Adrian HATES wal-mart with a sever passion) so then he is like OMG NO anywhere but there, so then we go to TJ Max or Target or somewhere else. This is an intense example of people's desperation for good deals, Im sure you have all heard some crazy Black Friday story and are quite familiar with the "shopping holiday". This happens EVERY year, and although there are some incredible deals on the products the other risks and costs of being there to get the limited amount of on sale products in actuality out weigh how much you are saving. Events or sales happen all the time and for each of them there are a number of people (most of the time not as many in the video) who rush out and will fight for those deals. These deals can vary from 75% off to buy 5 get on free, but never the less "sweeting" the pot even slightly makes people want it. This is due to the thats-not-all technique, which is when a person (or store, or community etc.) is trying to influence a person to do something (give to their charity, buy this product, mow the lawn etc.) by giving them an inflated request and then decreasing it or offering some sort of bonus or discount on the request or item ( Burger, 1986). For example, very often when a new product comes out a store will sell it at a 500% mark up just because they know they can and people will buy it, but they also know that when sales begin to go down that they can use the thats-not-all technique and mark it down or offer a free game with purchase of a console and people will rush back out and buy them all up. Now it is time for me to admit a truth about myself... I am ... a huge sucker for deals, and when I say huge I mean HUGE. For example, I will be walking around target looking for whatever and I will see all there little "on sale" shelves and I can not help but go look and see what is there. Of course it is a bunch of stuff I do not need or even want but I see that red sticker with like 3 dollars off and I get excited like I just found treasure. I know that this is a really dumb thing and most of the time I resist and dont get whatever was on sale, but sometimes if Im not sure If I want to buy a shirt or whatever and I see that it is on sale that makes me want it and sure that I want to buy it. This is the problem with me shopping at TJ Maxx or Marshalls because everything there is on sale, and usually at an awesome discount but I go in for one thing and come out with six. The worst part is I know why they put big signs on things that are only a little bit on sale, its so that I will see the big sign and think "Man what a big discount" and even knowing all the techniques the store is using on me I can not help it. I love a good deal, and I love a good shopping trip even more so I guess its good that I mostly stay at places that are all on sale and stay away from the Gap which is like get these jeans for 75% off and they still cost like $60 lol. Anyways, beware!! use this knowledge and guard yourself against the media, stores, your parents, friends, boyfriends & girlfriends (dont tell Adrian though lol).
Citation: Cialdini, R. B., Vincent, J. E., Lewis, S. K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 31(2), 206-215. doi:10.1037/h0076284
Schwarzwald, J., Raz, M., & Zvibel, M. (1979). The application of the door-in-the-face technique when established behavioral customs exist. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology, 9(6), 576-586. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1979.tb00817.x
Burger, J. M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that's-not-all technique. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 51(2), 277-283. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.2.277
To begin with I would like for you to watch this video of researchers conducting what is called the marshmallow test, not the whole video start around 45 sec. to about 5 min. and 13 sec. For those of you who do not know the marshmallow test is an experimenter takes a child into a room and puts a marshmallow in front of them and then tells them they can either eat it now or wait and receive another marshmallow, and in this specific study chocolate syrup.
These children are faced with a situation that invokes a great amount of cognitive dissonance, which is when their attitudes ( wanting to eat the marshmallow) and their behavior (most of the time not eating the marshmallow) are not consistent. This inconsistency causes people to feel uncomfortable and even physiologically aroused, and according to cognitive dissonance theory people have an innate motivation to reduce these uncomfortable feelings (Festinger, 1957). So in the case of this study the children can either chose to go ahead and not wait to eat the marshmallow or they can decide that they don't really want to eat the marshmallow that bad and can wait. In this specific situation the children are faced with a situation in which effort justification is needed in order to overcome their cognitive dissonance, effort justification is when we put a lot of effort into something that we do not really like or enjoy that much and because we put so much effort into it we feel that we must indeed like it (that our attitude has changed) (Aronson & Mills, 1959). In addition, these children are faced with post decision dissonance/free choice dissonance which is when a person choses between two options and in order to deal with their dissonance they devalue the other option (Brehm, 1956). Obviously if they chose to eat the marshmallow now they will miss out on a second marshmallow but the bonus is that they do not have to wait and eating one now is better than eating two later.
During our day to day lives we are faced with similar tests to this, maybe not about eating a marshmallow now or later but about eating them at all or whether going to a party would be better than reading for a quiz. Im sure that as you have read through this blog you have thought of many instances in which cognitive dissonance has affected you and you probably realized that you have used both ways mentioned to deal with it. What specifically comes to my mind is my current predicament to either go to Phoenix, Arizona for soccer nationals (my boyfriend plays for texas state and the are going!!) My attitude is that I would love nothing more but to go and watch them because they have such a good chance at winning, but my behavior is that I am not going to go :(. This is causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for me, but through devaluing the unchosen alternative I am going to be able to get over it. I am devaluing going to Phoenix for a few really good reasons: (1.) its freakin expensive and I am freakin broke (2.)It is the weekend before our 2nd Social exam as well as a bunch of other papers and proposals and (3.) I want to do something really awesome for Spring Break (because it will be my 21st!! birthday week) and if I go to Az I wont be able to do anything cool because I wont have any money. Therefore, I am beginning to be ok with not going because it is obviously the better choice (right?!?!?!). In conclusion, everyday we are faced with situations in which our behavior does not match how we really feel. Thus, we must find some way to rid ourselves of this cognitive dissonance and in my case I am doing that through devaluing my unchosen option as much as possible.
whole team pic.
up close !!arent we cute? lol
Citation: Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology,59(2), 177-181. doi:10.1037/h0047195
Brehm, J. W. (1956). Postdecision changes in the desirability of alternatives. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology, 52(3), 384-389. doi:10.1037/h0041006
