Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance Consistency, the absence of contradictions, has sometimes been called the hallmark of ethics. Ethics is supposed to provide an individual with a guide for moral living, and to do so it must be rational, and to be rational it must be free of contradictions. When consistency and ethics are compromised, this is known as cognitive dissonance. Leon Festinger shared his brilliance with the world when he created the Cognitive Dissonance theory. Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (McLeod, 2008). Cognitive dissonance produces an uncomfortable tension of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. Situation In the United States, over two-thirds of the workers who call in sick are not physically ill (Perman, 2011). So why do employees jeopardize his or her job? A survey performed in 2007 found that absences were divided between personal issues, family issues, mental entitlement, and stress (Wolter Kluwer Law & Business, 2007). Employees are asked to give 110% to his or her employment and yet most supervisors and coworkers cannot empathize with personal and family issues. An employee may need an hour or two for a doctor appointment or to take a parent to an appointment. Perhaps there is a school function that a single parent would like to attend and needs a longer lunch hour. There is another group of employees who call in sick and are not physically ill, those that may be suffering from domestic abuse. The bruises may not be apparent to a coworker, but the employee may feel shame or mentally drained and cannot work for either a day or a few days. When a person calls in sick and does not appear to be physically ill, appearances may not be what they seem. Social, Cultural, and Spiritual Influences on Behavior and Personal Ethics Personal ethics may have a role to play regarding calling in sick to work. Each person has a set of morals and personal ethics that are pertinent to him or her, yet because of cognitive dissonance, the employee may decide to call in sick anyway and rationalize away the repercussions. Social, cultural, and spiritual influences may prevent the person from calling in sick, yet it may also permit the rationalization. Socially, within the group of people that the employee works with, it may be tolerated, thus excused once or twice. The person may convince his or her social contacts the sickness was real. Cognitive dissonance may prove that the person did not want to call in sick, yet the social hierarchy deemed it appropriate to do so. Although the employee knows it is ethically wrong to be absent from work when there is no physical or emergent reason, the person joined the social group anyway due to the groupthink mentality (McLeod, 2008). Culturally, within the United States, most people believe in the concept that an individual is responsible for his or her own success. When contrasted against the team concept of work that is prevalent in Asian countries, many Americans, unlike their Asian competitors, are able to rationalize that calling in sick unnecessarily will not affect the business. This simply is not true. Cindy Perman (2011) of CNBC writes, “calling in sick when you’re not may seem harmless, and even something you think you deserve, but the truth is, this type of unexpected absence costs companies millions each year.” Calling in sick is more the epidemic than being sick. Perman further writes that throughout her research, it was found that the younger employees are the most frequent violators and that being “sick” occurs more frequently on Fridays and Mondays. Culturally, this is harmful to the morals and ethics of an entire generation. Spiritual intelligence or (SQ) refers to an individual’s thought process regarding understanding and asking questions about life and its meaning, the capacity to sense, and have different levels of connection from or with other individuals within our society and world. Many individuals choose to be dishonest because of the lack of mindfulness in their spiritual walk. Mindfulness is a factor grounded in beliefs that there are many connections between the mind, body, and soul. This individual does not have the connections with himself or herself to say lying is wrong and that the consequences could end his or her career. This factor leads to extrasensory perception, which is a level of psychic awareness. This factor is often known as the sixth sense. “Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of the striving for the wish fulfillment of material kinds. The goal is to raise the spiritual values of society.” Albert Einstein. Reciprocal Relationship between Behavior and Attitudes Myers (2010) explains how attitudes and behaviors differ from one another. Attitudes are defined as a reaction toward someone or something based on beliefs and behaviors are defined as the actions taken based on certain beliefs; however, those actions taken may not be a predicator of attitudes (Myers, 2010). People are strongly influenced by the world around them, and the behaviors they exhibit are based on those social influences. For example, according to purpleslinky.com (2011), the top reasons people call in sick are based on social events, such as going to a club and drinking too much the night before or going to a sporting event the next day. It would seem that behaviors do not necessarily agree with attitudes. Behaviors seemed to be influenced by external factors more so than attitudes or personality (Myers, 2010). Despite this, there are still some ways that researchers can measure the reciprocity of behaviors and attitudes. Though some of the behaviors presented to the world are at odds with a person’s attitude, researchers have found ways to show how a person accurately feels about something based on factors such as facial configuration and reactions tests (Myers, 2010). The implicit association test, or IAT, “uses reaction times to measure people’s automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words” (Myers, 2010, pg. 126). This test helps to show how a person’s automatic behavior may be predicative of his or her attitude. Also, researchers have shown how attitudes did predict behavior when the attitude was “directly pertinent to the situation” (Myers, 2010, pg. 127). For example, the day after an employee is absent from work, usually the excuse is not accurate. The reason for this is something that the person believes his or her boss would be agreeable to. This is done because the employee does not want to lose his or her job. The employee desires to have the day off. This type of behavior may not correspond with that person’s attitude; however, the intent to keep the job and work does. Rationalize Behavior When an individual calls in sick for work and is not really sick, the individual has compromised his or her behavior. The individual begins to rationalize why he or she needed to be absent from work. The amount of dissonance one experiences is directly proportional to the effort one invests in the behavior (Rucker, 2011). By changing his or her attitude toward his or her employment (calling in sick versus not calling in sick), the employee rationalized and provided an acceptable explanation for his or her behavior (really needed the day off), which reduced the employee’s cognitive dissonance. Conclusion Cognitive dissonance plays a role in many valued judgments, decisions, and evaluations. The conscious mind is employed by the unconscious mind to justify our behavior, so that our self-concepts do not have to change so radically (Rucker, 2011). Being consistent between our ethical standards and our actions define who we are. Becoming aware of how conflicting beliefs influence the decision-making process is one way to improve an individual’s ability to make faster and more accurate choices.

References Cherry, K. (2011). What Is Cognitive Dissonance? Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/f/dissonance.htm. McLeod, S. (2008). Simple Psychology: Cognitive Dissonance. Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html. Myers, D. G. (2010). Social psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Perman, C. (2011). Are You Calling In Sick Too Much? Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.cnbc.com/id/41494142/Are_You_Calling_In_Sick_Too_Much. Rucker, V. (2011). Cognitive Dissonance as a Motivating Force. Retrieved November 19, 2011, from http://vdavisrucker.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/cognitive-dissonance-as-a-motivating-force/. Top Five Reasons Why People Phone in Work and Fake Being Sick. (2011). Retrieved November 13, 2011 from http://purpleslinky.com/humor/satire/top-five-reasons-why- people-phone-in-work-and-fake-being-sick/. Wolter Kluwer Law and Business. (2007). CCH 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey. Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://www.cch.com/press/news/2007/20071010h.asp.