I am who I am… Hopefully!

“Cognitive dissonance is a motivating state of affairs. Just as hunger impels a person to eat, so does dissonance impel a person to change his opinions or his behavior.”
 - Leon Festinger

Within the field of social psychology there exists a theory known as “cognitive dissonance” or “dissonance theory”. Popularized by the work of Leon Festinger in the late 50’s, “dissonance theory” postulates that when two or more related ideas in one’s mind conflict with one another, or with one’s behaviors, it creates a tension, or dissonance, in one’s mind, or thoughts (Latin, cogitas). Since most people dislike tension, our tendency is to want to decrease or remove the tension. We can do this by either changing our attitudes which reconciles the conflicting ideas, or changing our behaviors. In either case, the “dissonance” tends to motivate change in the individual towards consistency.

If you are wondering if any of this relates to your experience, think about a time when you stood in line for an event for a long period of time, and you were really excited to participate in the event. But as it turns out, the event was not even close to what you had expected, and even so, you still rated the experience high because of all the effort you put into it; this is a phenomenon called “effort justification”. Think of a time when you dined at a highly rated restaurant, and even though the quality of the food was poor, you still praised the restaurant. Clearly the ideas about the experience do not match, “This is an exclusive restaurant” and “This eggplant parmesan was not very good at all”. So, often what we do is we change our attitudes to be more consistent so as to remove the tension in our minds even if it is not accurate, for example, saying instead “This eggplant parmesan was not the best I have had” or “It was okay”. At least that’s passing, right? This poses an obvious moral problem when considering the issue of lying.

More relevant to social concerns, cognitive dissonance has to do with a disparity between an idea and a fundamental aspect of one’s self-concept. For example, a person that has the idea that “stealing is wrong”, and he has a belief that he is a “good person”, and yet in reality, he steals money from his register at work. The ideas are clearly in contradiction with his behaviors. A tension builds when this dissonance persists, as reality increasingly is at odds with the self-concept.

Applied to the spiritual, dissonance occurs when we sin. Presuming we are Christians who take our faith seriously and wish to become saints by sanctifying our lives and consecrating it for God through daily sacrifice, dissonance is certainly a cause for anxiety. The word sacrifice comes from sacer (holy) and facere (to make). And so, our daily sacrifice is to make our lives holy for God. What happens when our ideas of holiness, come in conflict with the decisions we make in practice (sin)? It can certainly create a tension (not to mention losing our relationship with God, if it is mortal sin), which can only be alleviated through a number of defense mechanisms like justification (bad idea), rationalization (bad idea), projection (bad idea), scapegoating or blaming others (bad idea), and perhaps the only good response, which is to bring the ideas and practices into consistency with each other and conformity to the precepts of God and His Church. So, if there is conflict, reconcile the ideas and the practices. Remember, the Christian life consists of both orthodoxy (right-belief) and orthopraxy (right-practice).

The Pharisees seemed to have a problem with an inconsistency with their ideas and their behaviors, according to our Lord, who said: “Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” (Matthew 23:26-28) Also, don’t forget the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:10-14), where the Pharisee believed he did all the things required of him according to his religion, and yet it was not he who was right with God, but it was the tax collector who recognized that he was a sinner and pleaded for mercy from God. Quia omnis qui se exaltat humiliabitur et qui se humiliat exaltabitur. — “Every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.” The difficulty for some, however, is that there is variation between individuals with the need for cognitive consistency. In other words, some people are just fine with having conflicting ideas in their head. Ever hear of the error of relativism? So, there is no such thing as absolute truth, huh? Is that an absolute truth, or can I respectfully disagree with that statement?

The question then is: what is the solution? I believe we need to recognize the importance of cognitive, behavioral, moral, and spiritual consistency. This consistency must not only be true within the individual (for his own sake), but should also be observable by one’s friends, family, and enemies in all the contexts of one’s life (for his own sake and the sake of others). Our personality must always be reasonably consistent in all aspects of our lives. Achieving this consistency, for some, will be easier than others and all it takes is a good confession: concise (brief), contrite (genuinely sorry), and complete (all sins). For others, they will have to learn to see themselves for all their faults and virtues, realistically, just as God sees them. This is the person the world should see; they should see who we truly are, for who we are, purged of all the masks and formalities which only serve to conceal our identity. For our justification is not with men, but with God. Quid enim prodest homini si mundum universum lucretur animae vero suae detrimentum patiatur aut quam dabit homo commutationem pro anima sua—“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?”

When you look into the “mirror” which could reflect the image of your soul, what do you see? Do you recognize the person staring back at you? I hope all of you do; I hope I do too.

Instaurare omnia in Christo.

Laurence G. reverted back to the Catholic faith from atheism in his early 20’s while he was earning his bachelors in general psychology from California State University San Bernardino. He received his Masters from the same university in Child Development Psychology in 2009. He is currently seeking admission into a doctoral program in Clinical or Developmental Psychology.

Update: 

A version of this article appears in the May-June 2011 issue of The Pastoral Review, a bi-monthly journal for Catholics published in the UK. www.thepastoralreview.org