Leon Festinger, an influential American social psychologist, wrote, “We come to love the things we suffer for”. Festinger was referring to the result of the cognitive dissonance people feel when something we have worked incredibly hard to achieve turns out to be quite disappointing.

Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort people experience when our behavior becomes inconsistent with our self-concept, the perception of ourselves in the past, present, and future.

Typically, humans have rather high levels of self-esteem, which has proven to be a crucial aspect of mental health. Unfortunately, people with low self-esteem are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, and other forms of disordered thinking. A problem arises when this high self-esteem is challenged by behavior. Humans whole heartedly believe in the commonplace “I am a good person”, therefore when our actions contradict this statement, our minds are automatically filled with discomfort.

When actions threaten self-esteem, people must somehow find a way to eliminate the discomfort we feel. Often times, we resort to modifying our thoughts and beliefs about something in order to make it appear more appealing in our eyes. The occurrence of this process is even more likely when we have exerted large amounts of energy to acquire something or become something.

This phenomenon is better understood when explained in the context of examples. Take the puzzling relationship between hazing and fraternity loyalty. Hazing is a degrading, embarrassing and hurtful process. Logically, one would think that the subject of such initiation bullying would strongly dislike, even hate, those responsible for such actions. Surprisingly, the opposite it true.

Victims of hazing experience a blow to their self-esteem; they become ashamed of the insane requirements forced upon them in order to become a part of a community. Drinking beer until one vomits and crawling around on all fours on command of a fraternity brother, contradict the victim’s belief that they are “a smart, logical, and good person”. Therefore, the victim must somehow justify his past behavior.

And what better way to do this than to pledge their undying love for that fraternity? Due to the psychological presence of social cognitive dissonance, the more a boy endures during fraternity initiation, the more devoted he will be to that organization. In order to make up for the inner humiliation he feels for his coerced actions, he asserts that no fraternity’s greatness could rival the greatness of his own and that he has no better friends than his fraternity brothers. He convinces himself of the fraternity’s amazing brotherhood.

There have been numerous psychological studies concerning social cognitive dissonance. Due to the multitude of fantastic study examples, I decided to focus on examples of dissonance in everyday life rather than feature a specific study during this blog post.

This process occurs in our minds more often than we may believe and in less obvious ways than are revealed through fraternity hazing. After you have successfully made any type of decision, whether it is choosing between using a pen or pencil to write notes or choosing between attending a university located on the west coast or the east coast, your brain will ultimately do the same thing. You will attempt to justify your decision, stressing the positives of the option you chose while conveniently forgetting its drawbacks.

Not all of us will experience hazing, but we will all undoubtedly experience social cognitive dissonance. I find it extremely interesting to dive into my reasons for feeling some way about a topic or choice, and this process has shed some light on the inter-workings of my complicated brain. I hope you can take this knowledge and apply it to your future decisions as well.