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Psychological Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour - Coggle Diagram
Psychological Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour
Dissonance intro and some theories
Cognitive dissonance - When a person holds contradictory beliefs or values
eg- belief that the world will end on a certain day is dissonant with the awareness when the day breaks that the world has not ended.
A smoker may hear smoking causes cancer but may say that if friends smoke can't be that dangerous, or the filter filters out all the cancer pollutants.
People who are more committed to the course of action, more resistant to the information.
eg someone who spends 100k on building a house in a earthquake prone area is less receptive to arguments than someone who is renting in that area for short period as the homebuilder is committed
WHen someone reduces dissonance, they defend their ego and keep a positive self-image. Ppl will ignore danger to avoid dissonance
Dissonance theory often predicts that you will not listen to witnesses because to do so that will go against your initial judgement and decisions. Dismissing witnesses behaviour
if someone goes through a tough admission stage to a group and the group turns out to be dull and dreary they will often experience dissonance
Researchers found that before making a decision, often people research alternatives and then after they seek reassurance that they made the right decision by seeking info in support of their choice
Theory suggests that - when people find themselves doing something and they have neither been rewarded adequately for doing it nor threatened with dire consequences for not doing it, they will find internal reasons for their behaviour
eg - if u dont like someone and I ask you to make a positive speech abou thtem. The most efficient thing to do is either to pay u a lot of money or threaten death. This however will probably not change your opnion on him. In order to do that you should offer minimal reward or threat and then this would mean you would have to seek addiotnal reasons for your speech and could lead you to like some parts of this person.
Acting immorally
If you ignore conscience and go into an IMMORAL temptation the cognition "I am a decent moral person" with be dissonant with the cognition "I have committed an immoral act"
Easiest way to reduce dissonance in either case is to minimize the negative aspects of the actions one has chosen and to change ones opinion of its inmorality.
when national guard killed 4 students, several UNTRUE rumours spread that the girls were pregnant, so would spare the families from shame; students were filthy and had lice on them. Locals believed these rumours as they were conservative and didn't like general behaviour of students. Information that put victims in bad light reduces dissonance.
Dissonance and the self-concept
Dissonance is most powerful when self-esteem is threatened. Most important aspect is not i said something and did another but rather that I have misled ppl and I am a truthful, nice person
Predictions that ppl with low self-esteem cheat more than ppl with high self esteem
One problem of the theory is that the theory does not deal with logical inconsistency but psychological inconsistency
A young PHD gets rejecte from one available teaching position, if she feels she is a great scholar she will experience dissonance. SHe can then decide that members of that department are narrow minded, sexist etc. Or she could decide they rejected her as she is extraordinarily brilliant. Both will reduce dissonance
dissonance theory does not apply when a person performs an action in good-faith without having any way of knowing it was absurd
eg - tell students to work on a full task after telling them (A) their results would be of no use to them (b) results be of great vakliue. Students of the first one were in state of dissonance, they reduced this by deciding the task was enjoyable
Repear experiment with one change tell stydents after. Students told that the task was valued enjoyed it more.
We if no it has no purpose we try to convince ourselves its value to avoid looking absurd
people will go to extraordinary lengths to justify actions.