Cognitive Dissonance and Value Salience within Political Parties

1. Cognitive Dissonance and Value Salience within Political Parties Why politicians continue to support failed public policy

2. Cognitive Dissonance and Value Salience within Political Parties • Statement of the Problem and Proposition • Concepts • Critical Analysis • Considerations

3. Statement of the Problem and Hypothesis • Why do politicians continue to support failed public policy. • Failed public policy= Public policy which has not been enacted, has been enacted yet is failing, or lacks public support • Proposition- Politicians are more likely to support failed public policy when they possess high levels of value salience and engage in cognitive dissonance.

4. Concepts- Value Salience • Homans and value • Value as a form of symbolic mediation • Values, when routinized and reified, become generalized • Generalized values serve as structural determinates of self • Kuhn’s Role Salience applied to generalized values • Hence, value salience

5. Concepts- Cognitive Dissonance • Relationships between cognitions can either be consistent (consonant) or inconsistent (dissonant) • Sufficient and Insufficient Justification • Cognitive Consistency- Negative drive state in which people attempt to maintain consonance and eliminate dissonance, between cognitions.

6. Concepts- Cognitive Dissonance Cont’d • Cognitive Dissonance- Reduction of dissonance between two inconsistent cognitions (actions, beliefs or opinions). • Three methods • Change one of the cognitions to regain consistency with the other. • Forget or discount the importance or one of the cognitions. • Acquire new cognitions which add consonance to the original relationship

7. Concepts- Social Groups • Social Group- A social group is defined as the emergence of three or more individuals into a pattern of goal orientation, characterized by an interrelationship of statuses and awareness of membership • Primary Group- cohesiveness and interpersonality. Informal bonds and rules • Secondary Group- Goal oriented and instrumentality. Formal bonds and rules. • Distinction is not a function of size. • Reference groups and small groups within a corporation.

8. Critical Analysis • Politicians exist within political parties. • Political parties will often morph between primary and secondary groups • Most politicians possess high levels of value salience • When policies are not enacted, dissonance develops. • Changing cognitions is not an option due to the presence within a group and value salience. These factors are not present in Festingers experiment.

9. Critical Analysis Cont’d • When Prophecies Fail • Attitudes Shifts within The John Birch Society • Dissonance Reduction Technique- Introduce new cognitions which create consonance in the original relationship • Group manifests more ideological fervor to reaffirm their own beliefs and bring in new members. Abandons goal oriented behavior. • Group shifts from secondary to primary

10. Critical Analysis Cont’d • Goals are not abandoned, rather rhetorical emphasis is shifted from attainment to justification • “Why speech” replaces “how speech” • When the consonance from this shift to primary group status is sufficient to bring the original relationship back into consistency, the political party will once again shift to secondary group status and pursue goal oriented behavior.

11. Considerations- Group Think • The underlying assumption of this analysis is that groups foster conformity. • Group think- Members of a group will collectively rationalize their actions and as a result generate an illusion of morality. This illusion justifies the use of negative stereotyping of dissenters, which in turn creates a pressure towards conformity and a generation of self-censorship. This self-censoring of opinion leads to an illusion of unanimity that further validates the actions. • Stronger in primary groups? Hence, the shift to primary status being such an effective dissonance reduction technique.

12. Considerations- Alternative Proposition: Sufficient Justification? • Might a politician explain away this dissonance by adding the consonant cognition that the public doesn’t fully understand what he is saying, hence continuing the goal oriented behavior? i.e. liberal media • If so, is sufficient justification= political capital? • Might this be an intermediate step to the dissonant reduction technique described in the analysis?

13. Considerations- Methodological Implications • Content Analysis • Examine the rhetoric of politicians for “how speech” and “why speech.” • See how it corresponds to popularity ratings

14. Concluding Thoughts • Academic turf wars • Does the check and balance nature of our political institutions foster more divisive ideological debates? • What makes a successful politician • Low value salience- Clinton • High value salience- FDR and Reagan