Cognitive
Dissonance Theory proposed that individuals are “dissonance-intolerant”,
therefore they strive to pursue consistencies within themselves (Festinger,
1962). Efforts are made by individuals to avoid the dissonance before
proceeding to solve it. The process of reducing dissonance and achieving
consonance would then result in an attitude change (Festinger, 1962).
On
February 26th, 2015, a photo of a dress ignited a worldwide debate
after being circulated on various social platforms. Some people insisted that
the dress is blue and black in colour while the other party asserts that it is
white and gold instead (refer Appendix 1). The idea of writing this essay arose
while observing how people reacted towards this perplexing debate. This
phenomena will be presented using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
During
the early phases of the debate, people tend to have their own stands regarding
the colour of the dress. However, when they encounter the other group with a
contradicting point of view, dissonance emerged when they fail to reach an agreement.
Before they are forced to solve the inconsistencies, people will tend to avoid
the face to face debate about the issue of the dress.
According
to the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, the first stage of avoidance would be the
process of selective exposure whereby people would choose to see or to listen
to certain messages or only parts of them. In this case, when search engines
such as Google display diversified messages about the rationale behind the
mystery of the dress (refer Appendix 2), people who think that the dress is
white and gold will tend to look out for scientific evidences that support
their stand, for example, “This May Be Why You’re Seeing the Dress as White and
Gold”.
Following
selective exposure, selective attention would be use when people have no choice
but to read through messages that contains multiple explanations about this
phenomena. For example, in the article written by Ryall (2015), those
advocating white and gold would tend to focus on the line which Dr. Robert
Freedman of Swampscott, an ophthalmologist told Mashable that, “It is yellow
and gold in this lighting," instead of the remaining parts of the articles
that suggested other theories in explaining the different point of view.
The
third stage would be selective perception where people tend to judge the
contradicting evidences in order to further strengthen their stand. For
example, in the same article written by Ryall (2015), she quoted a post from
the forum named Neogaf that claimed that it is the individual’s “high functioning”
or “don’t work well” retina cones that caused a different view of blue-black
and white-gold respectively. Those advocating white-gold might judge this kind
of explanation as a fake and unreasonable message thus choose not to believe
it.
The
last stage of avoidance would be selective retention. When individuals are
unable to come up with a judgement against the credibility of the opposing
evidences, the last resort would be to just forget it. Even though Ryall (2015)
included alternative explanations such as the evidence of colour perception
(refer Appendix 3) which is practically inarguable, one might only remember the
information that is in line with their belief after browsing through the whole
article. In this case, the takeaway for those white-golds might only be the
words of Dr. Robert Freedman.
There
might be a point when individuals were put into a debating situation that was basically
unavoidable, thus they have no choice but to make an effort to solve the
inconsistencies. Representatives from both sides would start to voice out their
own stands and supporting evidences in order to win over their opponents. The
colour debate might end up with one side being persuaded and change their
beliefs.
The
advantages of using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory in explaining this phenomena
is because it provides a general view in understanding individual’s decision
making process while encountering contradicting beliefs. Persuasion efforts
could be modified by including rewards that surpasses the psychological
discomfort, thus reducing individual’s motivation to avoid the message. Rewards
such as celebrity testimonials on the colour debate might reduce their fans’
motivation to avoid the contradicting message. In Ryall (2015)’s article, she
also quoted Taylor Swift’s Instagram reply on this issue.
Nevertheless,
the Cognitive Dissonance Theory has its own discrepancies that omits the
possibility of no attitude change (Cooper, 2007). In this case, individuals
might not even attain the state which persuasion occurs due to the lack of
scientific knowledge. The theories used to explain the phenomena might be too
complicated for the public to absorb. For instance, in Roger (2015)’s article,
the complex operation of human’s visual system was used to justify the
occurrence of this colour difference. However, not all individuals are
well-equipped with the knowledge to understand the justifications. Thus, the
utmost decision that could be made by individuals is to avoid the intricate
situation without changing their attitude.
All
in all, this theory doesn’t take into account individuals’ differences in terms
of ability to achieve the state of consonance. By assuming that individuals are
passive and vulnerable towards dissonance, it also disregards the active roles
of individuals in resisting the state of dissonance. Therefore, there are still
space for improvement to make this theory more generalizable to the society.
