cognitive dissonance is a good thing
TRANSCRIPT
Table of ContentsAbstract.................................................................................................................................................3
Preface and Assumptions......................................................................................................................4
1. There is a causal inconsistent thought.......................................................................................4
2. Unawareness.............................................................................................................................5
3. Consistency................................................................................................................................6
4. Desirability of Dissonance..........................................................................................................6
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................8
The Problem of Doublethink..................................................................................................................9
Why worry about it?........................................................................................................................11
The Experiment...................................................................................................................................13
Results and Brief Analysis................................................................................................................14
Individual.....................................................................................................................................14
Aggregated..................................................................................................................................15
Discussion............................................................................................................................................16
The Model...........................................................................................................................................18
The Process..........................................................................................................................................19
Why this model?..............................................................................................................................20
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................21
References...........................................................................................................................................22
AbstractThis paper starts with some expansion on the theory of cognitive dissonance. It lays out some assumptions and structural foundation in the preface. We then introduce and highlight the theory of doublethink, distinguishing it from “cognitive dissonance”. We proceed to argue that moving from doublethink to cognitive dissonance is desirable for Critical Thinkers (while mixed opinions exist about the desirability of cognitive dissonance itself).
Our key research/empirical contribution lies in demonstrating easy ways to achieve the above movement, and find evidence for doublethink. In this entire process, we lay out an alternate and original perspective to model values, thoughts and behaviour that presents an approach to resolve dissonance.
Preface and AssumptionsThe theory of cognitive dissonance is one of the most significant and influential theories in the history of social psychology (Cowol, 2008). However, this study is not about Cognitive Dissonance. At least not for the most part. For our purposes, we limit the definition to:
“There is some kind of consistency in what someone does and believe …consistency is the usual thing, what about exceptions …[Exceptions are] rarely
accepted as psychological inconsistencies.”
“…In the presence of inconsistency [in thought and action], there is psychological discomfort.”
(Festinger, 1962)
The above inconsistency, in the special case of “being psychologically uncomfortable” is referred to as [cognitive] dissonance. The theory further builds on how humans try and achieve consonance, and “avoid situations and information likely to increase dissonance”, and a lot of current work in the field focuses on the distress that accompanies these inconsistencies and human responses to them, ranging from denial, depression, ignorance and rationalization. We do not look into this.
There are two very important but overlooked assumptions in the construction of this definition that are discussed below.
1. There is a causal inconsistent thoughtAccording to Festinger, there is an “action inconsistent with thought”. If we assume there is at least one cause behind all action (and this may be a perfectly refutable and very ambitious assumption), with a simplification of multiple causal thoughts representing one complex “thought” still, our situation is represented by the following model:
Figure 1: The simple thought-action causal model
Where At and Ba are observed and found to be inconsistent. However, Bt, a thought, would precede Ba, and the true inconsistency lies between At and Bt. This is more important than apparent incongruence between At and Ba. This is important to point out for two reasons:
a. While the cognitive dissonance theory is constructed on At and Ba, our paper uses the relationship between At and Bt as a starting point, and focuses on it.
b. Further, we extend the above model further in our humble proposition of a possible solution to the dissonant being’s “distress”.
Thought At
Action Aa
Thought Bt
Action Ba
Now, returning to the “causality assumption” and also overly simplified one-to-one mapping of thought to action here, we present our stance. The causality assumption, specifically “every action must have an underlying thought” or “everything has a cause” delves into metaphysics, concerning involved discussions ranging from the cosmological argument, quantum theory and beyond. Daniel Wegner and Wheatley further propose a structure that seems to dissect our “thought” and “action” paradigm into:
Non-Automatic action Automatic actionConscious Thought 1 2
Subconscious Thought 3 4Figure 2: Thought-Action pairs
Thus further expanding on what constitutes a “thought”. They say that:
“Automatic thoughts and behaviors are ones that occur efficiently, without the need for conscious guidance or monitoring” (Daniel Wegner, 2001)
From the diagram above, case 1 and 2 (exemplified by automatic decisions taken while driving) are easy to map. In such cases, tracing the action back to the thought is a an easier process. For 3 and 4, it is particularly challenging (and it may also be arguable if there is a causal thought to start with).
Festinger seems to ignore this problem, but in fairness, it is not too critical to the theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Our proposition (and assumption, hereon) is that beyond reasonable doubt, an action or manifestation of a choice/decision has an inextricable causal element (among many) traceable to the human nervous system. This may not always be as palpable as a conscious aware thought, but when such is not the case the proposed approaches (including ours) to resolve dissonance are no less valid.
Moreover, our focus area of dissonance and distress rests on the responsibility of a human behind underlying action or thought, thus there is faith that it is an agent that can alter the same. We extend our definition of “thought” to be this agency of choice against incongruent action.
Lastly, takeaway propositions are specifically designed to handle these challenging cases of imperceptible linkages. This perhaps is also the justification behind applying the theory of cognitive dissonance over inconsistencies in varying combinations of thoughts, behaviour and attitude without much exploration of the latter.
This is our strongest justification behind the validity of this model, by means of validity of a responsible incongruent thought behind every candidate incongruent action with regards to the problem of dissonance versus a reference thought, within the definitions laid out.
We propose an alternative model that accepts the shortcoming of unclear links between action and thought as its own biggest challenge and the source of coexisting inconsistent thoughts.
2. UnawarenessSecond, Cognitive Dissonance as a theory only addresses thoughts that we are aware of. Having acknowledged a lesser examined domain of subconscious thoughts, we have laid the foundation for they focus area of this paper, i.e. doublethink.
3. ConsistencyOur movement away from dissonance is in favour of consistency in thought. When seen through the screen of Edward De Bono’s 6 thinking hats, this may appear to suggest a movement against multi-perspectival thinking, and resignation to a single perspective or value system for judgement on all items.
However, we re-iterate that this is not the case. To exhibit the same, we start with the premise that there is no such thing as an “unbiased” decision or judgement. Every consciously made decision has some underlying assessment on parameters that are subject to natural bias or simply, influence. However, “bias” does not connote the meaning the word has come to assume today – which is inclusion of influence from parameters considered to be irrelevant or inappropriate in the scenario. We do not like this definition because the declaration of something to be ‘irrelevant’ or ‘inappropriate’ is subjective and arbitrary.
To the point that there is any influence on decision, and by the introduction of assessment parameters natural to conscious thought (or even a sub-conscious feeling that says “Hey, this is nice”), this applies to virtually all our decisions, our decisions and thoughts are biased. We exhibit, by our very nature, a preference for certain rubrics for assessment.
Moving forward, this gives room to:
1. Observe, realize and accept our preference for certain “thinking” hats, perspectives of values
2. “Correct” said preference, if at all necessary – i.e., the Black Hat
- in the favour of multi-perspectival thinking, much akin to a mild level of cognitive dissonance as is usually favoured.
The acquisition of our much touted consistency in thoughts, therefore, is not the cause but rather the effect of the first step. Our proposed methodology encourages point one therein completing the first step in the direction of multi-perspectival thinking. “Consistent” here, therefore, does not imply uniform or unvarying, rather coherence of action/thought with (which is only possible after full recognition of) how our 6 hats, values, and natural preferences align.
4. Desirability of DissonanceWhile the former half of this paper attempts to suggest ways to move from doublethink to dissonance, the latter half builds on Festinger’s and the original treatment of dissonance as an undesirable phenomenon. Having said that, we recognize this is not a consensus opinion – and many educators today incline towards suggesting smaller levels of dissonance may be healthy for one’s development.
It thus becomes crucial to clarify some semantics. For this paper, unaware cohabitation of conflicting thoughts is doublethink, which is clearly (as is explained later) undesirable. In relation, the desirable step forward is the awareness of existence of conflicting thoughts. This may or may not be distressing. When it is distressing (and Festinger specifically calls this state to be one of dissonance), there may or may not be a need to seek resolution. When it isn’t distressing, it technically isn’t cognitive dissonance.
To put things into perspective, consider a state where one is aware of their conflicting influences. The consistency of the extent of these influences with one’s value system therefore is examined, evaluated and verified. Were this step absent, there is either scope for much distress or absence of full awareness, which implies the subject is in doublethink. Even the distressful state of dissonance is desirable in education for it pushes the subject to follow through this step. Thus we have narrowed down our state space in this diagram:
Figure 3: Semantics and Flow of our work
Thus we are in agreement that cognitive dissonance is desirable, but this desirability is limited to the opportunity it provides to move to the fully desirable and a more “consistent” state, as per the definition laid out above. The non-distressing state is therefore either that of doublethink or our very target. We assume that the non-distressing state, when not doublethink, is the desirable one wherein the due diligence is already done.
Our paper focuses on blue and the green arrows. The blue arrow is the first half of the paper, exemplified through our experiment. The green arrow is comes from the process we suggested, that sits on a model of consistent value prioritization as per the assumptions laid out.
Conflicting Thoughts
Aware
Distressful (Cognitive Dissonance)
Due Diligence(acquiring awareness and consistency - the process)
Desirable State(ability for multiperspective
thinking, consistency)
Non distressing
Unanalyzed / Incomplete Awareness
Unaware / Doublethink
IntroductionWe thus arrive at the focus area of the paper, doublethink. Simply put, this is coexistence of contradictory thoughts in one’s mind, whether or not they are aware of this.
From figure 2 above, we have:Non-Automatic action Automatic action
Conscious Thought 1 2Subconscious Thought 3 4
Figure 3: What we want to achieve
1. The desirable state: Carefully analysed and controlled thought and action. Example: “I feel hungry, I should eat.”
2. Actions which are done automatically, having reasons we may not be focussed upon at the time of activity but are definitely justified and easily traceable for the being. Example: Passively driving or playing catch. Given that these are motivated by conscious thought, we will not concern ourselves too much with these and club them with category 1.
3. These being thoughts that do reside within our system but are unknown to us, and not easily traceable without external aid. People who are unknowingly racist would fall here. Racist actions may be a conscious ones, but we would deny (perhaps worryingly honestly) having racial views.
4. This is one we don’t have a solid handle on. We’d say reflex actions or behaviour during a state of extreme drunkenness would fall here. As per Deborah C England, litigator and writer at CriminalDefenseLawyer.com,
“Intoxication is not an excuse for criminal conduct, but it may deprive an intoxicated person of the mental capacity to form the intent required by law to be
convicted of certain crimes. This is a very complex area of law and standards differ from state to state” (England)
What remains a mystery is that if we cannot trace an action back to intent or some product of a rational an irrational mind, what [intent] can we trace it back to? Due to this complexity, we do not give this area detailed treatment, though we assert that suggested methodology would assist in moving from said state to the first as well.
However, there is a strong case for most regrettable (thus leading to cognitive dissonance) actions coming from category 3 and 4. In fact, 3, by its very nature, allows for inconsistencies by means of latent or unexamined truths (precisely why examination thus becomes important). When these result in distressing situations, we have a possibility of dissonance. Dissonance would really happen when the subconscious yet incongruent thought is on the cusp of awareness. Pulling it into consciousness thus becomes a necessary condition for its resolution.
In this structure, thought-action combinations of the 3rd category, if in contradiction with themselves or those of the 1st category constitute “doublethink” situations. As opposed to well-studied “cognitive dissonance”, the perils of doublethink lie in the complete unawareness of discordant action and behaviour. We wish to move from state 3 to state 1, which draws the incongruent thought into the domain of awareness, thus possible inducing cognitive dissonance by means of psychological confusion and distress. This thus lays the foundation for the resolution of such inconsistency.
We now proceed to explain doublethink, why this movement is desirable (for critical thinkers), showcasing the problem of doublethink, presenting models and methods to make this movement.
The Problem of Doublethink
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them,
to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one
erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth…
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled
out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that
democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory
again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the
ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to
understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink -
(Orwell, June 8, 1949)
The term “doublethink” was first coined by George Orwell, in his book 1984. We do not feel greater explanation of the concept is required, the above definitions are sufficient as they were. It is surprising to see the extent of literature present on cognitive dissonance that does not treat or address “doublethink”. Moreover, there is a dearth of work specifically concerning the problem of “doublethink” by itself.
We argue that doublethink is a serious problem present in overwhelming degree in the general public. To some extent, it may perhaps even be unavoidable. There are two parts to this assertion:
1. It is a serious problem. While there is comfort in not thinking about animal slaughter while sinking teeth into a hamburger or steak (and it is primarily this convenience of transmutability of beliefs we highlight), there isn’t as much in teen pregnancies or developing cancer after a lifetime of smoking. We are assuming that the last two would generally be undesirable states to be in, partly due to overbearing resentment. Now we don’t preach not smoking or abstinence, but highlight that the above resentment comes from the convenient tuning in and out of thoughts. Thus, had the choice to smoke been a conscious one made in full awareness of the possible consequences every single time a person smoked (and this is the effort of the government in printing gruesome pictures of tumours on tobacco products), one would embrace that the consequences were asked for and thus not be in a dissonant state of resentment.
However, consequences needn’t concern health or be time indexed (wherein the problem begins to touch upon short-sightedness of human action).
They can also manifest in the form of embarrassing situations for a Hindu nationalist politician when they send their children to English medium schools or abroad for higher education, only to face media criticism. Also consider a possible case of an ardently pro-quota and pro-employment-reservation politician who refuses medical treatment from an SC/ST doctor appointed through quota, arguably not as competent as the general category counterpart. Now, we make an important distinction.
a. The politicians mentioned above could be actually in a state of doublethink/dissonance, wherein the process is definitely helpful to find the answers for themselves.
b. The unfortunate politically unideal situation of the politicians being clear about their personal views but choosing to take hypocritical public stances and playing the odds of not being cornered so. This is not a case for doublethink, and such awareness in the light of hypocrisy and “playing the odds” is a dangerous argument of nearly all presentable evidence for doublethink. However, we treat this in two ways:
i. The approach and process presented below to resolve personal dilemmas and conflicting thoughts “may” equip us with resolutions that can guard against such scenarios.
ii. A complete state of embarrassment and being dumb-founded may be avoided if the figure is clear on what he/she values more, a public image (with the caveats of being further caught) or honesty. Having resolved this (which is an objective of the proposed process) does in fact lead to smoother sailing in the event of being answerable to one’s apparent hypocrisy.
A very similar situation yet again is of people who may have a series of affairs or relationships prior settling down in an arranged marriage as per their parents liking. When the same occurrence is an unpredicted and distressful effect, its cause largely seems to be doublethink. However, when the same is a conscious choice of an individual, it’s a perfectly validate-able stance.
2. The extent to which doublethink plagues our lives. Given that doublethink can cause difficult situations (which may or may not have to do with psychological confusion or distress but perhaps simply consequential distress), it begs the question, how susceptible are we to finding ourselves in these situations? And our answer is very. We demonstrate this in the following section by means of a small experiment.
Why worry about it? As mentioned previously, the most dangerous and alarming thing about doublethink is that we remain unaware of the coexistence of conflicting ideas (unlike cognitive dissonance). It is not difficult to imagine situations arising thus wherein this could lead to horrible degrees of personal cognitive dissonance or consequential regret.
Being aware of one’s assumptions and beliefs is the hallmark of a critical thinker and a “true” individual. Acknowledging one’s influences is the first step to becoming an individual, and that isn’t something we’re born into. This is inspired by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero’s chapter on “How to become an Individual”, found across many of his books on Critical Thinking.
In the proceeding steps, we identify externally sourced beliefs and re-evaluate all of them. This is a painstaking process, and we suggest this is exactly the time wherein a person undergoes dissonance. The objective being, that by the end of this exercise, the ideas are no longer “something you read in a newspaper or your dad told you”, but rather your own. This encourages consistency. Even if the final idea is something along the lines of:
Smoking is fun enough, and thus worth getting lung cancer.o Or as Freud put it, “it helps me think.”
Or, it is perfectly okay to brutally slaughter animals for our pleasure. o Or even just admitting that the taste of chicken is worth killing a bird for (but not
otherwise), which one of our sample points did arrive at.
Consciously embracing the above will prevent resentment or dissonance thereafter. Take care to note that we do not advocate rationalization of poor habits, rather re-evaluating them (along with your thoughts, and beliefs) to the point that they’re either no longer “poor choices” for you, or that you’ve dropped the said habits altogether. What you arrive at is still some form of rationalization, but the same is no longer an automatic or an indefensible premise.
Secondly, the same exercise in intensive introspection and value prioritization can lead to massive creative breakthroughs and self-awareness. This happens because we often realize that some of our influences are from undesirable sources; one’s irrelevant to us or not in alignment with our own values. For instance, most creative inventions that emerged from distress or felt needs came about when a solution outside the realm of obvious possibilities was forced in. What excludes such a solution from a sphere of palpability is a set of untested, unexamined and often implicit assumptions.
For instance, use of swab of grain alcohol as an antiseptic is creative breakthrough particularly in emergency situations. Countless lives during war (American World War) have been saved this way. While the period of dissonance upon realization may not have been long enough to boast about, it takes commendable re-assessment of assumptions (that vodka is ‘only’ meant for drinking) to independently arrive at a possibly life-saving solution in the moment.
The same applies to things like live-in relationships and e-cigarettes that have arguably improved the lives on many people – and have yet come from the very dissonant marriage of contradictory schools of marriage-bachelorhood and ‘healthy’ smoking.
We thus conclude this section having explained cognitive dissonance, doublethink, their difference. We have also thrown light on why doublethink is a serious problem, and why it should be of particular interest to critical thinkers and individuals. We will now proceed to demonstrate the extent of doublethink that exists in our surroundings.
The ExperimentA classroom of 19 students were asked to answer the following binary questions in a sequential fashion. No corrections or revisions of old answers were allowed. Affirmative, negative and “choose not to disclose” were the only options available.
The questions were as follows:
0. Do you feel at ease, mentally comfortable and rested?1. Would you want a part of you to stay alive after death2. Have you ever had non-veg food?3. Do you trust your parent's judgement about everything?4. Do you consider yourself to be a law abiding citizen?5. Is there anyone in this room you wish wasn't here?6. Are there aspects of your sex life (thoughts, history, actions, desires) that you CANNOT let
your mom find out about?7. Is there anyone in this room you’d like to kill?8. Do you believe in a benevolent God who controls and sees everything9. Are there aspects of your sex life (thoughts, history, actions, desires) that are not acceptable
to society?10. Have you ever promised yourself you won't do something you went ahead and did anyway?11. Are there aspects of your sex life (thoughts, history, actions, desires) that could be
considered illegal?12. Is there someone in this room you’d like to sleep with?13. Do you think someone might answer “yes” to the above question with you in mind?14. Have you ever had alcohol?15. Do you think your parent's would be okay with it if you did?16. Have you ever had marijuana?17. Do you think your parent's would be okay with it if you did?18. Would you ever like to kill any animal who never did any harm to you?19. Do you think what happened to the Jews was fair/deserved?20. Would you donate your organs after death?21. Are you excited to find out what the survey takers had to say?22. Do you still feel at ease, comfortable, and mentally rested?
Our idea was to analyse if people gave responses that might reflect a conflict in belief. Within 10 minutes, this exercise yields aggregated results evidencing doublethink in a small classroom. Detailed analysis of the responses further shows fine grained evidence of doublethink.
While not a perfect mechanism, we suspect doublethink when non-consistent answers arrive for the following question groups:
1 and 20 (Organ Donation) 2 and 18 (Killing Animals) 3 and 6 and 15 and 17 (Parent Judgement) 4 and 7 and 11 and 16 (Law) 5 and 7 (Kill Someone) 6 and 9 (Home vs. Society) 7 (Murderers) 8 and 19 (Is there a good God)
9, 10, 11 by themselves 12 and 13 (How I see people, vs. How
people see me) 14-15 (Alcohol) 16-17 (Marijuana) 21 by itself 0 and 22 (Entering cognitive dissonance)
Results and Brief AnalysisWe maintain that while none of these results are very conclusive or directly evidence doublethink by themselves. A reasonably good case can be made about questionable research practices and level of bias too. However, in aggregated totality they present a picture and a case that cannot easily be refuted.
IndividualThe following data is too limited for any comprehensive statistical presentation. Nevertheless, we find (out of 19 people unless stated):
9 out of 18 respondents had differing answers for organ donation and wanting to stay alive. 6 non vegetarians who do not wish to be responsible for the killing of animals. 2 respondents have blind faith in their parents’ judgement:
o 14 respondents cannot let their mother’s discover aspects of their sex lives.o 5 alcohol consumers’ parents would not approve of alcohol.o 5 marijuana consumers whose parents would disapprove.
The above thus become weak results as the respondents have claimed to not act in a manner so as to be in agreement with the views of their parents. In retrospect, perhaps our question was very strongly worded. Nevertheless, it still begs a question if such extent of disagreement in views is desirable.
11 of 19 people consider themselves to be law abiding citizens, of whom:o 3 would like to kill someone in the room if they could get away with it. Another 2
would do it but don’t claim to be law abiding. o 3 claim to have legally unacceptable aspects within their sex lives. India laws, at the
time of study, are intolerant to pornography, same-sex marriage, and any form of “unnatural sex”. The definition of “natural” herein seems to be very conservative.
o 7 respondents have consumed alcohol. While it is not possible to determine where and under what conditions, the legal age for drinking in New Delhi is 25. All the respondents were around less than 22 years of age.
o And 3 have consumed marijuana. This is strictly illegal. 5 respondents would wish people present were “not here”, but wouldn’t want to kill them. 13 of 19 respondents said aspects of their sex life would be received differently between
home and society (acceptable in one, unacceptable for the other). Apparently homes are much less tolerant than the society in general.
Only 2 respondents believe in an all-controlling benign God, yet no one claims to think what happened to the Jews was “fair and deserved”. We feel these are incompatible thoughts.
5 of 17 people admitted to having sexual attraction towards others in the room, but felt no one feels that way about them. 2 people chose not to comment on the latter, while another 2 didn’t find anyone attractive yet felt people found them to be so. We feel this mildly hints at difference in how we see others and how we feel others see us.
Also, about 14 of the 18 respondents were very interested to see these results.
Aggregated Most importantly, 3 of the 19 people claimed to be not as relaxed and comfortable as they
were when the activity began. This perhaps is the only question that directly points at cases ofs doublethink being pushed into dissonance, to some degree.
From 10 combinations of potentially double think answers, we found our spread of total
doublethink answers to be:
Table 1 and Figure 4: Spread of number potentially doublethink responses over 19 respondents
The mean is about 3.1, variance is 3.54 around the mean.
The greens represent the people who seem to have felt they had entered a state of dissonance.
We also found that the only two respondents seem to have a combination of answers that don’t hint at doublethink. The potential doublethink responses were spread across respondents and questions quite evenly.
Lastly, the respondents with the most potentially doublethink answers claimed to be comfortable and at ease with themselves (highlighted in red). The only 3 cases of dissonance came from respondents who had much fewer potentially doublethink responses.
And this may be particularly interesting, because it suggests that even in the face of doublethink, we seem to be reasonably comfortable with ourselves and our thoughts.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2
1
5
3
4
2
1 1
Number of potential doublethink answers
Num
ber
of r
espo
nden
ts
2 3 5 3 2 1 5 4 6 4 7 2 3 0 4 0 2 2 4
Discussion There are two key takeaways from our experiment. One, that we doublethink in possibly surprising quantities. Second, and more importantly, that it may not be too difficult to realize the contradictions in our thoughts. The experiment (hopefully) showed that doublethink emerges and can evolve into cognitive dissonance in simple everyday situations, or through simple external pointing out. While it may be argued that the results are blown out of proportion and that the evidence for doublethink here is shaky at best, we present one sample point and argue that the argument for “no doublethink” is yet weaker.
We considered the case of subject A, who was presented with the questions above outside of a classroom or a testing environment. She admitted being in a state of doublethink with regards to killing of animals, while she did partake in enjoying chicken preparations. Moreover, while she would still be okay with eating chicken, she felt particularly morally wrong about consuming mutton while still fully appreciating that she doesn’t value the life of lamb more than that of a chicken. The questionnaire sent her into a state of dissonance and confusion, which she admitted to. It is hard to say this would be the case for a hypothetical or real politician, but in this limited sense this presents solid evidence. Time constraints disallowed us to arrive at a good resolution, but at the time a premature and unrefined resolution was that she’d “avoid eating chicken – and thus killing animals, be it chicken or lamb – to whatever extent possible. She would still consume chicken on occasion, if the temptation, social setting or a combination of the two warrant it”.
We’d say that is fair. It is better than being unaware of the inconsistency. While it is still a rationalization, our idea is not to “fix” everyone’s behaviour. It is merely to turn subconscious rationalizations into more conscious, evaluated ones. Ultimately, most logic is but rationalization. To argue that the social view on the matter is right or wrong is beyond our scope, but to check for consistency and confidence of unregretted belief is a less subjective affair. This is helpful when the case is being made to oneself so as to keep dissonance at bay, or for an external social image as the case for a politician. The rationalization however should be deliberated upon, hopefully at more depth than “eh whatever”.
Unfortunately, we as people may form habit to avoid those who point out contradictions in our thought processes.
Freud's analysis of the puzzling phenomena of Denial, which consists of simultaneously denying and revealing the truth. (Eecke, 2006)
The ones perceptive enough (and “mean” enough) to do so to others are often greeted with comments like “you’re mean!” or “go away!”. While we won’t say the ones who do make a habit of pointing out inconsistencies in people’s thoughts/action/behaviour are mean or that they do it with someone’s best interests in mind, yet we would say that they are an invaluable resource to have. We should go out of our way to keep around people and encourage our friends to point out our oxymoronic assimilations.
The same activity is very difficult when attempted on oneself, as our self-rationalizing behaviour may adequately conceal one of the conflicting thoughts as per convenience. This is often evidenced by marked disagreement (and often, even embarrassment) that is evoked upon revisiting old journals, diary or writing. However, we are often quick to empathize with our own past situation in order to neglect serious conflict of values or dissonance.
Thus we may avoid the problem, quite actively. Our mind appears to be naturally resistant to cognitive dissonance. Why else would someone consciously consuming non-vegetarian food for the longer half of their life be so dumbfounded when the action is juxtaposed against a will to kill an animal? While proving that every case of doublethink necessarily leads to harm is difficult, the way backwards, arguing that almost all resentment, regret, confusion and cognitive dissonance finds root in some form of doublethink is easier. Thus it is critical to actively rip ourselves out of doublethink states and resolve our dissonances before they unfold in non-controlled environments, being if not potentially disastrous then very hurtful and confusing.
One way to achieve that, as suggested, is to seek external help. Friends and family. It isn’t that one’s existing friends and family won’t suffice – or point to cases of inconsistency, but a certain comfort level and mutual acceptance might get in the way of the same points to actually lead to action. Thus, another way is to check oneself against denial. Pretty much every case of regret or rebuttal in one’s life should fire alarms with respect to the possibility of dissonance or doublethink, if not big ones, at least one’s warranting a small thought.
Assuming one has found inconsistency, which, as we have shown, may not be too difficult, the question arises as to how to resolve the same. With all due respect to past work on cognitive dissonance and modelling of attitude, behaviour, affect and thinking, we humbly propose our own model for the same – and then suggest how to use the same for such resolution.
The ModelThis part of the paper delves heavily on trust-based theorizing. This is a proposed model for action, thought and values that may overlap with existing models (or completely stand in the face of existing cognitive and psychological theory), out of pure generality or independent discovery/invention.
We borrow the structure from our preface and stick another level of “values” over it. To briefly recap, we argued that any regrettable action should have an element of agency around it. Agency is tied to deliberateness of action, unlike intent, which is linked to consequence.
We reiterate that we do not concern ourselves with the regret of consequence, but merely agency.
The agency thus, and as per the definition laid out is linked to a thought. Further, we say, the most human element governing thought is the subject’s values. We highlight that:
i. By no means are values constantii. By no means are values all that
influences thought. We have, among other things, the environment, stimulus, physiological factors, and perhaps a lot more.
iii. The subject may not be aware of the value at the time
iv. Actions influence thought toov. Thought influences values too
This essentially boils down to the traceability of all non-automatic action (state 1 and 3) back to a thought, and upon enough introspection and reflection, a value that the subject may or may not have been aware of previously. In the latter case, we could say that the value was existing either subconsciously, or was not clearly defined. Thus the subject did not have full clarity or awareness of its existence.
This unearthing is itself constitutes acquiring self-awareness, which if motivated by a seemingly inconsistent thought or action (thus possibly coming from doublethink), has a high chance of leading to dissonance, even for a short period of time. This provides the subject an opportunity for resolution.
The following section, which elucidates the process, also exemplifies a few cases wherein the model fits reasonably well, thus completing our description and case for the same.
Figure 4: Our Model
Value A
Thought A
Action A
The ProcessAt this stage we’d assume the subject is in a state of dissonance. This could have either emerged from actively eliminating doublethink through suggested methods in the discussion or otherwise. This may also have arisen unexpectedly, which may be a more frequent case for a non-critical thinker. Our suggestion:
1. Trace back the thought behind the dissonant or distress-causing action (if any). If the conflict lies in merely thoughts, and this is a very large domain, identify them. At the end of this step, one should have two divergent thoughts.
Example: Someone who is ardently “anti-smoking” goes and smokes. This sets up a dissonant state. The key question being, “why did I smoke?”. Possible answers for such a situation could be:
- I was stressed and I wanted to catch a break- Peers pressured me into it- Looked good when I saw it in a movie
And so on. It could also be a combination of the above reasons (and many more).
This stands in the face of the thought that smoking may cause lung cancer, and that one would want to lead a long, healthy and happy life. The inconsistency is clearly laid out.
2. At this point, dig deep to exhume the underlying values behind both such thoughts. It may not always seem like there are any, but often that is probably why there may be a state of dissonance itself. In the above example, it may lead to the following discoveries:
- I felt stressed, I did it for momentary relief. It made me happy for a moment. I probably value short term happiness to some degree.
- I want to lead a healthy and long life by abstaining from tobacco consumption. Thus long term happiness is important to me too.
3. Put the values into perspective and re-evaluate them. Often, when there isn’t clarity between dominant action or thought, there may be some in values – or some may be established. We can find what is more important to us when we’re not bogged by the nitty-gritties of details, structure, action, thought and consequence. The answer may not even have to be a choice between two values, but even a tradeoff function would amply suffice.
From the above example, the same person may decide that while long term happiness is more desirable in general, but occasional short term pleasures are warranted – as it helps us sustain ourselves over the long term. This has nothing to do with cigarettes, it is purely a value assessment.
4. Finally, we take our refined discovery or re-assessment of values into then crystallizing our thoughts and actions in accordance and sequence. This should lead to easier transition and significant backing of value behind thought behind action so as to avoid dissonance.
Continuing the example, as a result the person may decide that they may abstain from smoking to whatever extent they can, but would not refrain from an occasional indulgence.
This, in our opinion, is marked progress over the originally held view which may frequently send the subject back into a state of resentment, distress and confusion. The decision finally may well be to abstain or smoke freely in the interest of short term happiness. Or, a value assessment to balance the two may lead to a decision to not smoke till e-cigarettes are clinically proven safe or better medical services are available to treat smoking related conditions.
Either way, success lies in the clarity of thought and rationalization that arises from this situation rather than the decision or thought itself.
A fair question arises,
Why this model? Why give such importance to values? This is for two reasons.
1. Among actions, thoughts and values, arguably, values are the slowest to change. Moreover, the relationship and interplay of values, thoughts and actions is such that values dictate thoughts, which intern dictate actions significantly more than the other way round. That is to say, one does not “decide” they have pro-meritocracy values upon finding inclination towards capitalism, rather the very inclination may come from an innate value driven favour of meritocracy.
We accept the caveats of this reasoning, that values are one, transient, second, also likely to be extrinsic. The first is not too much of a problem, given general agreement that values tend to change more gradually than thought and action. The second, however, is a limitation we address below.
2. Values are, in some sense, crystallized thoughts. Thoughts that stand the test of time and re-verification are the ones likely to evolve into values, particularly the ones that change. Thus there is some faith that the value judgement on an issue may have greater depth and representative power than a relatively fickle or less-assessed thought.
The reader may not have to take our word for it the value of values, but such decision making processes are advocated by several faiths and religious beliefs – Hinduism for one. Unfortunately, in many religious contexts many values are already laid out for people to simply adopt and act upon.
Our key argument is that between values, actions and thoughts, due to the above two reasons, values (while still very imperfect) remain the best handle on what “a person really is” or represents at a point of time. It needn’t remain constant and is subject to change by one’s thoughts, actions and experiences over the long term, but is less likely to change overnight and even less so due over daily experiences of average intensity.
Thus, while such an approach may not always lead to the best decisions, it does lead to ones that are most likely to be consistent with one’s being (via value system, intrinsic or otherwise). This is, to us, the most favourable state to avoid and step out of a state of dissonance, and also to avoid doublethink.
ConclusionThis concludes this paper. We introduced cognitive dissonance as the state of psychological distress caused by inconsistent thoughts. We argued that causality of thought to action is prerequisite for regrettable thought, and all other cases fall under distressingly inconsistent thoughts. A state of awareness of these constitute dissonance, but an unawareness yet coexistence of the same (regardless of capacity to cause distress) constitutes the phenomena of doublethink. A model and case for causality and thought-action mapping is presented, with argument favouring moving from doublethink to dissonance.
We then elaborated on doublethink, highlighting why it could be problematic in its ability to lead to either dissonance or consequential problems. We conducted an experiment and a small case study to show evidence of doublethink, its capacity for distress, and also how easy it may be to unravel the doublethinking states in people. This was followed by a discussion on doublethink, with further elaboration on how and why to move away from doublethink into dissonance.
Lastly, we extended the above action-thought-values model to further illustrate our propositions. The crux of this model lay in the causality of value behind dissonant thought behind regrettable or dissonant action as a necessary prerequisite for dissonance. We suggested a process by which to overcome cognitive dissonance using the above model, which bears emphasis on values. Lastly, the use of values for the same purpose is justified.
Disclaimer
All the otherwise uncited work presented in the paper is theoretical proposition made by Aditya Gupta. While I accept ownership and responsibility for this work, I cannot guarantee for its correctness beyond the capacity within which it was authored.
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