Cognitive Dissonance and Education: Mars or the Moon?

Last week I had an interesting discussion in my astronomy class. Our job was to guess, using clues, where in the solar system our teacher was describing and then create clues describing our own place in the solar system for other students to guess. Stop me if I sound nerdy, but it was actually really fun! Anyway, using the prompt from our instructor, I guessed that she was describing Mars. It made sense to me. Most people including myself guessed that she was describing Mars.

Then, she informed the class that she was not describing Mars. This caused me to reevaluate and rewrite my initial conclusions and come up with a different solution: she was describing the Moon!

This discussion that my teacher created for our class was effective. Also, this discussion in my astronomy class is a perfect example of how the theory of cognitive dissonance can influence a student's motivation towards education.

Using the comical picture of "Cognitive Dissonance Man" to the left I will describe to you what this theory is all about. Did you look at it? Good. Now, in order to have cognitive dissonance you must keep in mind that the way we act and the way we think may not always convey the same attitude. This superhero does things for the good of humanity, but he does not have these same noble thoughts. This is how cognitive dissonance works.

Now that you understand cognitive dissonance a little better, consider the situation of the astronomy class discussion. How was cognitive dissonance used? If you need help on this one, here it is:

My professor told us to guess using clues. Guessing is the behavior and the clues are another part of the cognition. Probably knowing that most of us would guess Mars first, my teacher told us that Mars was the wrong answer after we had already made up our minds. After this, I found that my behavior and logic did not match. This is the cognitive dissonance I held, and I had a desire to change it.

So, I changed the behavior by rewriting my evaluation to match my cognition all in an attempt to resolve my cognitive dissonance. However, the desire to change this dissonance is what is most powerful to the student. This cause for change is a form of self-persuasion, or changing of attitudes. Also, it is a great motivator because motivation comes from a more implicit desire to find this knowledge.

To find out more information about this subject you can read about it in the sources and video below or you can ask me by commenting on this post. Please feel free to share your personal experiences, also! Cognitive dissonance is always an interesting topic for discussion.

Sources and More Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Social Psychology 8th Edition by Kassin, Fein, and Markus