Imagine placing yourself in a situation where you see someone getting stabbed or raped and somewhere in the back of your mind, something is telling you to not believe it’s actually happening, what would you do? Would you immediately take action or dismiss the situation and not believe it’s happening? After reading chapters four and five of Lauren Slater’s book, Opening Skinner’s Box, it explains both the meaning of the diffusion of responsibility and cognitive dissonance. The connection between these two chapters show the human mind can be such a powerful and curious thing, but can be dangerous as well. We as human beings may not realize the psychological traps that our mind can play on us when facing certain situations that we may not believe
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Cognitive dissonance explains the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. Psychologist Leon Festinger gave us a theory about how people are more likely to modify their beliefs in order to fit their behavior rather than to change their behavior to fit their beliefs. One of his experiment consisted of a group of people believing that the world was going to end on December 21st by a massive flood. Festinger’s prediction was that when the prophecy turned out to be false, a major effort to gain social support would happen and turned out to be true. He also performed another experiment where students were paid $1 and $20 to perform a boring task. “The student 's who were paid $1 said the experiment was time consuming and boring, but enjoyable. They tried to justify wasting their time doing a pointless task by saying that it was interesting and fun. Still, those who were paid $20 experienced a bit of dissonance, so they were honest in their responses and said the task was boring” (116-17). Author Lauren Slater had her own moment of cognitive dissonance when she reached out to Linda Santo claiming her daughter to be a saint. Slater went to meet Linda Santo and discuss their faith. Upon doing so Slater witness an event that would have her questioning her beliefs. On arrival of the chapel Slater and Santo entered it and talked about how Slater doubts over Linda 's daughter. She then watches a Jesus Christ statue start oozing grease. Slater tries rationalizing with herself that it just butter, but can 't come to a definite
Cognitive dissonance explains the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. Psychologist Leon Festinger gave us a theory about how people are more likely to modify their beliefs in order to fit their behavior rather than to change their behavior to fit their beliefs. One of his experiment consisted of a group of people believing that the world was going to end on December 21st by a massive flood. Festinger’s prediction was that when the prophecy turned out to be false, a major effort to gain social support would happen and turned out to be true. He also performed another experiment where students were paid $1 and $20 to perform a boring task. “The student 's who were paid $1 said the experiment was time consuming and boring, but enjoyable. They tried to justify wasting their time doing a pointless task by saying that it was interesting and fun. Still, those who were paid $20 experienced a bit of dissonance, so they were honest in their responses and said the task was boring” (116-17). Author Lauren Slater had her own moment of cognitive dissonance when she reached out to Linda Santo claiming her daughter to be a saint. Slater went to meet Linda Santo and discuss their faith. Upon doing so Slater witness an event that would have her questioning her beliefs. On arrival of the chapel Slater and Santo entered it and talked about how Slater doubts over Linda 's daughter. She then watches a Jesus Christ statue start oozing grease. Slater tries rationalizing with herself that it just butter, but can 't come to a definite