Cognitive Dissonance - Term Paper Example

Cognitive Dissonance Violating norms of society and leading criminal life is a painful experience for the self-perception. Engaging in criminal activity provokes such disturbing feelings as shame and guilt and leads to a serious damage of self-image. In order to avoid such consequences most people subconsciously use neutralization techniques which help them to drift between criminal behaviour and normal traditional way of life (Sykex & Matza 67).It is possible to say that all the people who choose to lead criminal life are forced to deal with cognitive dissonance on a daily basis.

The opinion which the criminals hold about moral norms of behaviour obviously contradicts to what society considers to be moral and acceptable. This cognitive dissonance creates anxiety in individuals which they tend to decrease by applying five basic techniques: responsibility denial, harm denial, victim denial, condemnation of the condemned, appeal to the higher loyalties (68).In the experiment described by Festinger and Carlsmith the assumption regarding cognitive dissonance influence was tested.

The theory that if people are induced to say something that is opposite to their personal opinion under the influence of external force (whether these forces mean profit or threat) they tend to reduce this tension by changing their opinion to bring it with correspondence with what is done or said. The researchers aimed to find out under which conditions people aim to change their personal opinion more and how it correlates with external force ifluence.To conduct the experiment seventy one students of Stanford University were enrolled though the conditions of the experiment were not explained to the subjects.

They were asked to spend several hours by performing boring and repetitive tasks under a supervision of an interviewer. Later they were divided into three groups such as Control Group, One Dollar Group, and Twenty Dollars Group. The task of the last two groups was to persuade the girl who is unaware of the conditions of the experiment that it was interesting and enjoyable despite the fact that most students hold oppsite opinion. Later the students were asked to assess the tasks usefulness, interest, scientific importance, and the possibility of taking part in a similar experiment.

The finding of the experiment corroborated with the theory of cognitive dissonance proposed by Festinger. Therefore, people who are induced to express the opinion which is contradictory to their own tend to change it to reduce cognitive dissonance. However, the larger the external pressure forcing people to change the opinion, the weaker the tendency will be. In the experiment subjects who received just $1 showed the highest results of opinion alternation compared to those who received $20. Presumably, those who were less influenced by external force had to work harder to make up new opposite arguments and thus persuaded themselves more.

In terms of criminal behaviour this experiment may suggest that those criminals who are exposed to higher pressure from society to change their opinion about the morality of their activity will less likely do it and will use more neutralization techniques to avoid cognitive dissonance. Works CitedFestinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1959. 58, 20.-210Sykes, G., & Matza, D. Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency.

 American Sociological Review, 1957. 22: 664–67.