About cognitive dissonance

Jason must be in a very good mood yesterday to treat me hot chocolate.

Anyway, there are always so many angles to look at the same problem. I was introduced to this psychological concept called cognitive dissonance yesterday and I spent some time reading about it. This is, of course, at the expense of doing one more past year but I'm getting quite sick of that already.

Cognitive dissonance describes the uncomfortable feeling when one cognition is in conflict with the other. This can be the realization that what you've always thought to be true isn't actually true. Hence, the mind creates new reasons to maintain conflicting principles or it filters away information to keep the former beliefs. This may then result in over justification, self-denial or hostility.

Applying this theory to the relationships between people, it offers some insights.

Were you ever angry at someone because that person did not behave like how you thought he should? Or felt confused because the person's behaviour fell short of your expectations?

Have you felt insecure because your actions to another person were not reciprocated in the way you have desired?

Did you feel betrayed when a best friend did something that was seemingly damaging to you, and hence you reacted in hositility?

You see, in our minds, we have a list of what people should and shouldn't do. And when reality and ideals contradict, we build up a defence mechanism to tell us to stay away or to counter attack. I've seen it happening around me too often. Like the two best friends who fought with each other because they were expecting the other person to do more work. The girlfriend who convinced herself that the boyfriend didn't love her because he wasn't the first to wish her happy birthday. The father who was disappointed in his son because he wasn't going in the direction the father had planned for him.

For me, I have also been through disappointment and frustration when things didn't turn out the way I believed they would. In the process, I have been mean to a lot of people too, especially when I was much younger. I hope i'm much better now.

Anyway, that brings us to one question. Why did we have expectations on what people should and shouldn't do in the first place? If a friend didn't send his wishes on your birthday, does that make him an unworthy friend? If a good friend hurled insults at you, would that destroy all the friendship you've built over the years?

I guess sometimes we have to modulate our expectations. Is it possible to have less expectations on people around you and just have good faith that they are all valuable? Can we overlook the little things we think are signals to what they're thinking? I don't know too.

But what is important here is that we must keep ourselves in check. Are the display of hostility a necessity or just effects of dissonance? If it's due to the dissonace, dip your head in cold water before you do anything else.

Maybe that will help to ease the dissonance.