Cognitive dissonance
More freizeit dabbling in psych.First paragraph especially interesting. Heavy micro-cultural implications:
In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1957 experiment, students were made to perform tedious and meaningless tasks, consisting of turning pegs quarter-turns, then removing them from a board, then putting them back in, and so forth. Subjects rated these tasks very negatively. After a long period of doing this, students were told the experiment was over and they could leave.
However, the experimenter then asked the subject for a small favor. They were told that a needed research assistant was not able to make it to the experiment, and the subject was asked if they could fill in and try to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks they had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some subjects were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1 and a control group was not requested of the favor.
When asked to rate the peg-turning tasks, those in the $1 group showed a much greater degree of attitude change in favor of the experiment than those in either of the other two groups. Experimenters theorized that when paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, it is argued, had an obvious external justification for their behavior -- they did it for the money. But with only $1, subjects faced insufficient justification and therefore "cognitive dissonance" which they sought to relieve by changing their attitude in order to really believe that they found the tasks enjoyable.
Possible implication: when you get a bunch of people into a state of cognitive dissonance as mentioned above, they start forming artificial heirarchies and power structures to maintain a sense of competition, which in turn keeps productivity high. The core issue, however, remains: the entire structure is built on behavior related to cognitive dissonance. The key to keeping a structure like this stable is to a) keep the cognitive dissonance there (in case above, keep pay low), b) create artificial heirarchies to promote competition, and c) appease errant or rebellious notions through favors. These favors are perceived as scarce, eg. you can't get them anywhere else. This promotes loyalty and stickiness. Brilliant.
posted by Andrea @ 2:30 PM
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