Love is unpredictable. Sometimes it develops slowly, blossoming over time. Sometimes it blindsides you, leaving you flat on your back with your entire world turned upside down. In fact, there's only one sure thing when it comes to love: if you're ever a contestant on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, you will convince yourself you've found it.
For readers who are (somehow) unfamiliar, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are reality dating shows where approximately twenty-five contestants (female on the former, male on the latter) vie for the affection of a single, eligible man (on the aptly named Bachelor) or woman (on the equally appropriate Bachelorette). Each version is an elimination style competition where "the Bach" (pronounced "batch" - a unisex term I'm making up solely for the purpose of this article) selects which contestants he or she wishes to stay and which will be sent home after a series of group events, exotic excursions, romantic dates, personal encounters, and a healthy dose of drama.
When asked about their motivation for signing up, most contestants insist that they have come to find their soulmate; their one true love. A touching sentiment, no doubt, but there are reasons to be skeptical about the feasibility of such a goal, the primary being that the filming of the shows - from season premiere to season finale - lasts a mere two months (Business Insider, 2017)! And that's not even two months of non-stop, exclusive intimacy; it's two months where each contestant is sharing their limited time with a gaggle of other hopeful romantics. Within such a narrow time frame, contestants might only find themselves with few cumulative hours of quality exposure to the person with whom they're hoping to spend the rest of their lives. Is that really long enough to decide if you're in love with someone?
Unless you happen to be living in an old-school Disney movie, the answer is no. However, that doesn't stop dozens of contestants from confidently gushing that they have indeed found "the one," leaving reasonable people everywhere to roll their eyes.
What's Actually Happening
Many might attribute the stunning expediency of these professions of love to Hollywood coercion, and I'm not saying that's necessarily untrue. Reality shows are notorious incubators of artificial emotion. It doesn't take a deeply cynical person to suspect that some contestants may be faking their passion, perhaps at the gentle prodding of the show's producers. But there's something more, too; something far less intentionally deceptive. A type of coercion that isn't coming from external sources like producers, but rather internally. The phenomenon I'm speaking of is known as cognitive dissonance, and it compels many contestants to convince themselves that they are in love.
Cognitive dissonance exists because humans have an incessant need to see themselves as rational, coherent creatures. We do not like it when our thoughts and/or behaviors are misaligned; we strive to maintain internal consistency. So when our thoughts (i.e. cognition) conflict with our actions (or vice versa), this conflict creates a state of dissonance, or mental discomfort, that we are motivated to reduce.
On shows like The Bachelorette, the process works like this. A group of men drop everything - leave their homes, their lives, their friends - to be a part of a reality show. This type of choice is both public and irrevocable - you can't suddenly show up at work several months later and pretend that you didn't just do that. So when these men arrive on the set, they're (subconsciously) desperate to convince themselves that they've made the right choice, lest they be forced to admit that they've just made a monumentally-embarrassing mistake. Abruptly abandoning all of your personal and professional responsibilities to pursue a woman you end up not even liking is humiliating, but making those sacrifices for someone you love is romantic. So their brains work obsessively to prove that their behavior was not irrational or impulsive, and the result is the (somewhat forced but seemingly real) belief that they actually do love this woman. In other words, they convince themselves that they're in love so they don't have to confront the sobering reality that they've left their comfortable jobs as firefighters and handsome dental hygienists to try to marry a woman who's opted to make one of life's most critical decisions based on the results of group hot-tub dates.
They convince themselves they're in love so they don't have to confront the sobering reality that they've left their comfortable jobs as firefighters and handsome dental hygienists to try to marry a woman who's opted to make one of life's most critical decisions based on the results of group hot-tub dates. The mind will go to remarkable lengths to protect itself from the label of "irrational."
Two Types Of Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance was first proposed by Leon Festinger (1962). Since his original work, cognitive dissonance has been studied extensively by generations of psychologists, and the field now divides the phenomenon into two general types: free choice dissonance and forced compliance dissonance.
Free choice dissonance is what we experience when, for example, we're making a purchasing decision. Let's say you were shopping for a new computer. During the research phase, your aim is to analyze your options as impartially as possible. You read both the good and bad reviews for a variety of makes and models, slowly determining which options seem the most promising. However, once you make a choice (e.g. you buy a MacBook) something peculiar happens: you no longer seek out information that could potentially undermine your choice. You now look exclusively for articles that praise MacBooks and espouse their superiority while avoiding any mentions of their flaws. Conversely, you're happy to read articles critical of the models you've passed on. Why? Because all of this selective searching helps to convince you that the choice you made was indeed the right one.
Forced compliance dissonance is a bit more complicated. Let's say you volunteered to participate in a psychological study. When you arrive, the researchers tell you that you'll be doing perhaps the most boring task imaginable: slowly turning pegs on a wooden board. You're presented with a large board containing a grid of several dozen pegs, and your instructions are to turn the first peg 90-degrees to the right, then do the same to the second peg, and the third, and the fourth...
You begrudgingly obey, wondering all the while what the hell this has to do with psychology? After what seems like an eternity, they mercifully inform you that you're done. Now, here's where things get interesting. After the procedure, the experimenters approach you with a strange request: they ask you to lie to the next participant by telling them that the task was interesting and enjoyable. They (privately) offer some participants $20 to tell the lie; for others, they offer only $1. After the lie is told, they ask the participants how much they had enjoyed the peg-turning task: which group (i.e. the $20 group or $1 group) will report enjoying the activity more?
Intuitively, most of us would think the $20 group. "They're walking out of there $20 richer, right? I'd sure be happier than if those science jerks had handed me $1 for all that nonsense." However, it's actually the $1 group that displays the more favorable attitudes toward the task (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Why? The logic works like this: when participants are asked to reflect on their involvement in the task, and thus implicitly made to justify their behavior, they inevitably consider the question of "why did I lie to that individual about this horribly boring task?" For the $20 group, the answer is pretty simple: for the money. For most, $20 is enough external justification to be able to admit that yeah, the task was stupid and pointless, but I got paid well to say something to the contrary. However, the $1 group does not have sufficient external justification; $1 is not enough to convincingly justify lying to an unsuspecting person and still feel good about yourself. So the brain, forced with an uncomfortable dilemma (i.e. I just lied to an innocent person and I can't find any external reason to justify it), fabricates an internal reason to justify: you know what, I actually did kind of enjoy the task, so I wasn't really lying. The $1 participants consequently convince themselves that the task wasn't so bad to avoid admitting that their behavior was out of alignment with their attitudes (i.e. that they had acted irrationally).
Fraternities And The Cost Of Belonging
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological mechanism of choice for organizations like fraternities. Initiation processes are designed to leverage the phenomenon in order to instill feelings of commitment to the group. When a young man volunteers to "pledge" a fraternity (i.e. participate in the extensive initiation process), he is often forced to take part in violent, humiliating, and otherwise traumatic "rites of passage" (known as "hazing"). While some drop out, many endure for the entirety of the pledging process and eventually become full fraternity brothers. For those who make it to the end, the inevitable question becomes "was it worth it?"
To admit that it was not worth it would be to admit that you acted irrationally - you voluntarily put yourself in that position, you could have removed yourself at any time, and yet you didn't. We hate admitting to ourselves that we've acted irrationally. So, in order to justify the treatment they were subjected to, some subconsciously convince themselves that the membership was absolutely worth what they've endured. That's not to say that some don't genuinely believe that without the influence of processes such as cognitive dissonance - many do! At their best, fraternities can provide a combination of brotherhood, purpose, and sense of belonging difficult to find anywhere else. What's interesting, however, is that while some endure the hazing because they sincerely value the membership, others value the membership to justify enduring the hazing.
Three Factors That Make It Worse
Cognitive dissonance can be exacerbated by a number of factors:
- Level of Effort. The more one is forced to endure, the larger the corresponding attitude shift must be in order to sufficiently justify it (Aronson & Mills, 1959). Thus, somewhat unfortunately, those who suffer the most during processes such as fraternity or military initiations often end up becoming the most vocal defenders of the practices.
- Inevitability. When we are faced with circumstances that are unavoidable, our brains immediately get to work convincing us that it actually isn't so bad. Think of it as a type of psychological immune system, buffering you from the all-too-frequent harshness of reality. If, for instance, you are looking for a new roommate and one of the applicants seems annoying and lazy, you don't need to convince yourself that this person is good company because you don't have to live with them - you can select a different applicant. If, however, you are assigned this individual as a roommate - such as they do in college dorms - and thus you have no say in the matter (i.e. the pairing is inevitable), then your brain will go into overdrive to paint this person's idiosyncrasies in a more positive light (e.g. "he's not annoying, he's just a little quirky").
- Inability To Deny Or Conceal Behavior. During the Korean War, the Chinese military employed a tactic in their prison camps that probably made it seem a little more like summer camp: they held essay writing contests for the American prisoners. The prizes were small (e.g. some cigarettes, an extra piece of fruit, etc.) but usually just enough to encourage participation. The topic of the essays typically revolved around the relative merits of communism versus capitalism, with the ultimate goal of planting pro-communist ideas in the heads of the American soldiers (Cialdini, 1984). However, the Chinese knew that if they only chose winners who had expressed unilaterally positive sentiments about communism, the intention behind the contests (i.e. indoctrination) would become transparent and most soldiers would refuse to participate. So, the Chinese took great care to frequently choose winners who had supported U.S. stances on a variety of issues but who had also occasionally conceded to the Chinese view. U.S. soldiers quickly realized that they wouldn't have to compromise their integrity to win the prize (e.g. by espousing the unquestioned superiority of communism), but that making one or two mentions of how communism might not be so bad could improve their chances of winning. For most, this was a palatable concession - and this is precisely what the Chinese wanted. Once the soldiers had written and submitted their essays, the Chinese now possessed a document that could not only be used to persuade other prisoners that many of their fellow soldiers supported certain aspects of communism (thereby encouraging conformity via social norm adherence), but also to shift the attitudes of those who had authored the essays. When Chinese guards would share the essays with other prisoners, it necessarily put the author in a position to defend what he had written. Since he had not been forcefully coerced into writing what he did (i.e. participation was voluntary) and there was insufficient external justification for his actions (i.e. neither a cigarette nor a piece of fruit is a compelling enough incentive to induce lying), many soldiers defended their statements by convincing themselves that they truly believed some aspects of communism weren't so bad. Sometimes, the savviest military strategies involve no violence whatsoever.
Once you've written the words publicly — voluntarily, without coercion — the path of least psychological resistance is to believe them. Commitment to a stated position, even a small one, can quietly reshape the beliefs underneath it.
Politics, Persuasion, And Spiraling Entrenchment
Cognitive dissonance is part of what makes persuasion on political issues so challenging. While a considerable degree of political divergence is catalyzed by individual differences in political disposition as well as incompatible philosophies surrounding human nature, entrenchment in our political positions is partially attributable to the inertia caused by cognitive dissonance. Consider an individual who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. If he's been a vocal Trump supporter, chances are that by this point he's made multiple public pronouncements defending Mr. Trump's policies. The more he defends Trump, the greater his motivation becomes to justify his public defenses of the president, leading him to continually shift his attitudes in a way that makes them consistent with his statements. This can often lead to a spiral of political embeddedness: I like this politician, so I feel compelled to defend even actions he takes that I might find somewhat objectionable. However, once I openly defend them, I now subconsciously convince myself that what was done actually wasn't that bad so I don't have to admit that I just defended an unjust practice. Then, when the next equally-objectionable action arises, it's even easier for me to defend it because I've shifted my attitudes accordingly.
How To Use This
While organizations typically go about attempting to stimulate attitude change so that it will subsequently produce behavior change, cognitive dissonance makes clear that the order of this sequence can be successfully reversed. If you can get someone to act in a manner that runs counter to their beliefs (with minimal external justification), they'll naturally feel compelled to adjust their attitudes accordingly. When implemented skillfully, cognitive dissonance can be used to induce shifts in organizational behavior, maximize voter turnout, and catalyze greater donation activity during fundraisers. What's more, it can be used to turn enemies into allies.
In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive, Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini (2008) tell a story about Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Franklin was forced to continually contend with a political opponent and fellow legislator who simply didn't like him. Rather than attempt to win him over with flattery, Mr. Franklin did something rather odd: he asked him for a favor. He knew that this gentleman had a rare book in his collection, and so Mr. Franklin asked if he would lend it to him. The gentleman obliged, and Mr. Franklin returned it about a week later with a note thanking him for his willingness to share. Of their next encounter, Mr. Franklin wrote:
When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued until his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."
Sometimes the best way to convince someone to like you is not to do them a favor, but instead get them to do you a favor. Cognitive dissonance will handle the rest.