Cognitive Dissonance and Jenny McCarthy’s Death Toll
Candace Stamper
PSY/400
Russell Sempell
June 4, 2014

Abstract Humans are great at rationalizing their behavior and actions. This is especially true when a group of people or a high status citizen supports an individual’s beliefs, even when there is no valid authority contributed to their stance. Individuals raised in the modern first-world are educated to believe in the science and efficiency of vaccinations to ensure public health and decrease infant and childhood mortality rates. A wealth of evidence exists to prove that vaccinations are safe, effective, and increase public health. The scientific and medical communities, by a vast majority, support the use of vaccinations and are desperately attempting to get vaccines to third world countries and end massive generations-long death tolls attributed to preventable diseases. The diseases that these vaccines prevent had been eradicated in the United States and Western Europe for decades. Why, then, are people willing to allow their children to go unvaccinated in first world nations? Cognitive dissonance may hold the answer to this question. Ian and Linda Williams are educated parents in Auckland, New Zealand, who refused to vaccinate their son, Alijah. This decision would be life-altering. The family was caught up in the recent anti-vaccine movement, promoted heavily by celebrities like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jim Carrey, and Jenny McCarthy - one of the most famous opponents to vaccine use. This paper will delve into the shocking story of one family’s regrettable decision to not vaccinate their child and the possible social psychological phenomena that led to their decision.

What is Cognitive Dissonance? Cognitive dissonance theory “assumes that we feel tension, or a lack of harmony, when two simultaneously accessible thoughts or beliefs are