Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that we feel when our mind entertains
two contradictory concepts at the same time.
For example: I should smoke because I enjoy it, and I shouldn’t smoke because it causes cancer.
When the concepts have ethical implications, this discomfort is called moral dissonance
or ethical dissonance.
Growing up Catholic and holding the value of life so sacred, but also going to a combat zone.
You know, I have a duty to the country and I also have a duty to myself as a person who
believes in the value of life.
Almost all people except psychopaths have a mental picture of themselves as ethical
people.
But sometimes people find themselves acting in unethical ways.
This creates cognitive dissonance.
The important thing is how people resolve that moral dissonance.
For example, suppose you think of yourself as a good person, but your boss asked you to mislead customers
about the reliability of your company’s new product.
This situation creates cognitive dissonance that is psychologically and emotionally uncomfortable.
In this context, the dissonance seems to manifest as guilt, an unpleasant emotion that you wish to resolve.
Now some people will react to this dissonance by refusing to mislead customers, opting to
resolve the conflict by acting honestly in order to preserve their self-image.
Unfortunately, many people will resolve the dissonance without doing the right thing.
For example, they may decide that product misrepresentations
are not so unethical after all, because well, customers should be able to look out for themselves.
Or they may rationalize that they are only doing what they’ve been ordered to do
so it’s someone else’s fault.
Or they may try to learn as little as possible about the product so that they can view their misrepresentations
as innocently ignorant rather than intentionally dishonest.
So I like to think of myself as someone who's very responsible with academics, I go to class,
I show up, I complete my assignments.
But every once in a while I decide not to go to class so sometimes I'll tell them I'm
not feeling well or some other excuse that may or may not be completely true.
So that's definitely an ethical issue and it's something that brings me a lot of guilt afterwards.
But then I also do a lot of rationalizing of it away and thinking,
"Oh everyone does it, it's not a big deal ."
Professor David Luban has noted: “In situation
after situation, literally hundreds of experiments reveal that when our conduct clashes with
our prior beliefs, our beliefs swing into conformity with our conduct, without our noticing
this is going on.”
In other words, too often we remind ourselves that we are good people and conclude that
what we are doing must not be bad because we are not the kind of people who would do bad things.
The human ability to rationalize or in other ways distance ourselves from our bad acts
sometimes seems unlimited and unfortunately we can quickly begin to see our wrongdoing
as acceptable.
It's just where your brain goes, your brain is trying to help you tell the easiest story.
I think some of the most common rationalizations are, "no one will know."
"Well everyone else does it."
"I know I shouldn't do this but it's for the greater good."
"These things happen."
"It's not illegal."
So I think those are common excuses, I don't know that people usually believe them.
There are no easy answers to cognitive dissonance’s potential for adverse effects upon our moral
decision making and actions.
But here are three quick suggestions to help minimize or combat cognitive or moral dissonance.
First, never ignore that guilty feeling you sometimes get.
Stop and honestly analyze why you are feeling it.
Second, study the many means our minds use to distance us from our immoral actions and
guard against them.
Third and last, get to know the most common rationalizations that people use to excuse
themselves from living up to their own ethical standards and let those rationalizations be
a warning to you whenever you hear yourself using them.
I think everyone wants to feel like we make good decisions all the time, which cant happen.
You know, you want to feel better or good or positive about the decisions you're making so...
It's always easy for us to judge ourselves in a good way and rationalize the things we do.
But if you're aware that that's where your brains is gonna take you, if you're aware
that its so easy to say well this is why I chose to do something, then you can be willing
to take the time to say "Ok, I know that's what's the fastest route, but if I'm gonna
reflect on this how can I not rationalize?
How can I not choose to do that bad behavior?"