Download and review War, Death, and Cognitive Dissonance: A Case Study for Social Psychology and answer these questions.

1. What combination of attitudes and/or behaviors are in potential conflict among these residents of Ohio?

2. What predictions would cognitive dissonance theory make for resolving tensions/conflicts around:

a. the residents' attitudes toward President Bush, arguably the strongest proponent of the war?

b. the residents' attitudes towards the war in Iraq?

c. the residents' attitudes towards withdrawing troops from Iraq?

3. What strategies did these residents use to cope with their dissonance? Given the evidence related to coping in the article, which predictions from Question 2 are supported?

Answer:

Review:

After reading a chapter on attitudes, beliefs and cognitive dissonance in social psychology, reading this article can help us analyzing the knowledge we have gained from the chapter plus help us explore the concept of cognitive dissonance with much vigor. The article describes about the time when soldiers from Ohio were deployed in the war zone in Iraq. Bush was the president of America then and was the main proponent of the war. The case study clearly shows how increasing death and casualties at Ohio made the people of Ohio think about their actions and their beliefs and how it lead them towards a state of cognitive dissonance and how they coped with it.

1. As people from Ohio were getting killed one after the other in the war in Iraq, plethora of different attitudes and behaviors were in potential conflict among the residents of Ohio. Some people were very disturbed because of the deaths and casualties and were of the opinion that this is caused because of false claims about iraqi weapons of mass destruction where as some were firmly supporting Bush for his decision of continuing the war. In short people's attitude and behaviors were divided into two main extremes, one half supporting the war despite loosing their own people and the other half fighting to stop the war.

2.

Cognitive dissonance theory was proposed by Festinger in 1957. The theory suggests that when we have conflicting attitudes and behaviors we land on a state called cognitive dissonance. For example I'm a person who talks ill about homosexual relationships but I myself is in one. Here my attitude and behavior are in conflict. In order to overcome this state of dissonance I need to modulate my attitude and thinking in order to fit my behavior or vice versa.

a. During the war many people lost their near and dear ones. Still many people were standing behind Bush backing him up. Some other people were against him because of the war was bringing so many deaths and casualties. People of Ohio had major contribution behind Bush's winning hence despite huge number of deaths in war they were supporting Bush so that they won't get into the state of cognitive dissonance. If they don't support him now there'll arise a conflict between the action of electing Bush back then and with the belief they have now which is continuing the war is not the right thing.

b. People were tired of the deaths and Bush's indifference towards it but still most of them were supporting Bush. The resolution can be done by either changing their belief that the war is for good,it'll help some people or changing the course of their action by standing against Bush and stopping the war by withdrawing the support from Bush.

c. People were against war but they didn't firmly stand up to withdraw troops from Iraq so that the war will stop. If they could have changed the their action and stood firmly to withdraw troops from Iraq then the conflict between their thought and action would have resolved.

3. They have changed their actions in order to support their belief structure, this took care of the conflict. This coping strategy was used in 2c.