Making Lemonade from Accidental Lemons

Cognitive dissonance is the physiological and psychological distress that arises from when one's actions or behaviours do not correlate with their attitude or beliefs (Festinger, 1957). Although our attitudes often lead to behaviours, when we exhibit behaviours that conflict with our attitudes we then, as a result of cognitive dissonance, change our attitudes to explain our external situation (Festinger, 1957). Cognitive dissonance is often divided into three types: induced compliance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959), effort justification (Aronson & Mills, 1959), and post-decision dissonance (Brehm, 1956).

SCIENCE!

The first of these, induced compliance, is when your behaviour goes against your attitude and cannot be justified by other means (as in the Festinger & Carlsmith study where some participants were paid a lot of money to lie). For some unknown and godforsaken reason, my mom signed me up to do swimteam the summer of my freshman year. Even though my friends would be there, I would not be interacting with them much (because I would be ideally swimming). Being on the summer swim team involved many things I did not enjoy. For starters, my ideal summer did not include waking up before the sun six days a week. Additionally, in high school I had a lot of body image issues and wore fairly conservative clothing. Therefore, being in a swimsuit six days a week (in front of boys, no less!) was an incredibly nerve-racking thought. Lastly, I was not a fit person and did not particularly enjoy being active, so joining a swim team so late in life was a horrendous fate that would force me to be in a social situation being impressively inept at something I did not particularly enjoy. However, my mom signed me up for swim team. Swim team, as expected, went semi-poorly. I was uncomfortable, tired, inept, and smelt of chlorine for most of my summer mornings.

Pictured: me, hating my life.

The summer passed and I escaped swim team. It had some good moments, but overall I was displeased with the experience. Never again, I swore to myself, never again will I be tricked into doing swim team! Until the next summer, when I signed up for swim team again. This time, I was very troubled. Not forced to do swim team, my behaviours belied my attitude when I willingly signed up for swim team! Stuck in a conundrum of not always acting according to my attitudes, but having already forced myself into a conflicting behaviour, I had no choice but to change my attitude! Well, I thought, swim team was not awful. After all, I had grown more athletic, and had even discovered that I was good at the butterfly! Oh man, how had I never seen what a marvelous emotional growth experience that had occurred that summer?! Such friendship was to be had, such comradeship! I was presented with an ocean (regulation-sized pool) of opportunities to explore different things about myself! Oh boy! I was pumped and blessed to be able to participate in a thing that I had SUCH A GREAT ATTITUDE ABOUT BECAUSE CLEARLY I NEEDED A GOOD ATTITUDE TO JUSTIFY MY BEHAVIOURS!!!

Happiness brought to you today by induced compliance!

Brehm, J. W. (1956). Post-decision changes in desirability of alternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52, 384-389.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Standford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210.