All posts by Gary C. Woodward

Putting a Grand Theory to the Test

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At the Oval Office meeting the President took the opposite position of the one urged by Marco Rubio. Rubio suddenly fell silent. As the Guardian reported, “The image of a sullen Rubio quickly went viral online, with one social media user dubbing him ‘the corpse on the couch.’”

These are challenging times. But for a student of persuasion, the events unfolding within the national government provide a flurry of opportunities to evaluate a core theory of persuasion. Events have conspired to force people to acknowledge the contradictory actions of their leader which, in theory, should force them to resolve the discrepancy. A researcher just needs to notice a person’s apparent discomfort with a world that is suddenly different from what they planned. What will change?

Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance theory hypothesizes that individuals will feel some mental stress if new information presents an apparent inconsistency between two firmly held beliefs, or a belief and a behavior. The theory assumes that the inconsistency will trigger an impulse to reduce or explain away the discrepancy. Although this old and grand theory offers something less than a certain “if-then” result, it is also premised on the familiar psychological motive to resolve apparent contradictions. For example, suppose that you found out that a close friend has been charged with theft of pages from artbooks taken from a local library. If the information disturbs you, would you change your attitude about your friend? A hypothesized result is a new realignment that resolves into more consonant attitudes: perhaps less regard for the friend and a thought that the crime was a small one.  The theory’s original author, Leon Festinger, proposed that cognitive dissonance is the tension that results when two thoughts seem incompatible.

There are many possible  refinements and variations on this model, but even in its simplest form it offers a theory of how our attitudes can change. Festinger was also wise enough to never underestimate our willingness to deny a contradiction.

Consider another example. Imagine that you discovered a distant ancestor in your family-owned slaves before the civil war. How would you feel? Writer Cynthia Carr remembers her shame when she learned that fact about an ancestor. She sought to resolve the resulting dissonance by telling an African American friend. For her, that comment reduced some of the dissonance. On the surface, at least, we want our mental life fit together in a more or less coherent whole.

And so we arrive at this moment in the nation’s fraught politics, considered in a few examples from the human dissonance machines in the White House. It appears that the admired business innovator Elon Musk may have a bit of a fascist streak, as demonstrated in his recent efforts to urge German voters to support a far-right party that has been more accepting of the nation’s Fascist past. Musk’s words were mostly an unwelcome intrusion into German and American politics, made even more so with Hitler-style arm salutes offered at Trump’s inauguration. What gives? The dynamic is the same if a person thought that reducing the costs of everyday goods would be Donald Trump’s top priority, as per the campaign. But his first big push has been to place tariffs on foreign goods coming into the country, which will likely raise prices for Americans. An unwelcome surprise? Similarly, if a person like Rubio thought Vladimir Putin is the true villain/aggressor of the Ukraine war, will they accept the President’s absurd judgment that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is to blame? In the traditional American view, Putin is the anti-Christ and Zelensky is the patriot.

These and other reversals should produce a flood of dissonance for Trump supporters. Should they feel dissonance and buyer’s remorse over owning what demonstrators against Elon Musk are calling Tesla “Swasticars?” Or changing topics, does a daughter’s recent dismissal from her dream job at NOAA increase his dislike of Musk and Trump, who initiated all the massive federal job cuts?

Some politicians can pivot on dime if they are asked to square a circle. Doublespeak is just second-nature. Ask them their favorite color and it is plaid. Marco Rubio entered the last Oval Office meeting as an avid foe of Vladimir Putin and a supporter of Ukraine. By the end of that meeting he sat in silence as the President more or less took the opposite position. And so the image of a sullen Rubio. The fact that a committed belief can be so easily discarded is one reason Congress as a whole is held in such low esteem.

Alternate Paths

As noted, Festinger was savvy and knew that humans could walk a crooked path out of an obvious contradiction. But one final example surprised me. A recent Associated Press report followed a young new hire in the Forest Service who had barely begun her work before she was fired: a result that devastating to her. As she was modeling her new uniform some of her relatives unhelpfully noted that the reduction was probably necessary. They thought she had too many co-workers. The worker was rightfully unprepared for the personal she experienced for privileging the faux urgency of job reductions over dismissal of her own achievement. Dissonance Theory is useful, but when a predicted outcome fails to materialize, it can also point to other factors, like how cruel American life has become.

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Portions of this essay are adapted from the Author's Persuasion and Influence in American Life, Eighth Edition.

 

Federal Workers on the Firing Line

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The trumped-up urge to cut the size of the federal workforce started as a whim that has been grotesquely distorted into a faux emergency. 

If there is evidence that the nation has lost its soul, it is found in the somewhat muted response to mass firings of federal employees who work in our behalf. News of instant dismissals is its own awful spectacle of humiliation, made worse by the fact that it comes from  self-satisfied billionaires who seem mostly indifferent to the pain they have created. Images of dismissed workers at USAID are searing. These folks funneled American aid from the American public to some of the poorest of the poor around the world. There is evident depravity in this president’s capacity for dismembering careers and whole government agencies.

The urge to cut the size of the federal workforce –including Veterans Affairs–is yet another whim turned by this administration into a fake emergency. It has gained surprising energy by feeding off of the rancid American habit of sneering at honest wage workers who make our civil society possible. Slow some of the bureaucracies may be. But that is a long way from suggesting that they are unnecessary.  We should have been smarter to keep both a felon and a reactionary away from the crown jewels of our best agencies.

 “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”  –Elon Musk

Our busy lives would not be possible without the millions who work in federal jobs that support the nation’s financial and physical infrastructure. In my own family the Army sort of taught me to swim. I had a grandfather who was a USDA meat inspector, and an uncle who played his part in building the mammoth Roberts Tunnel that carries water 23 miles under the continental divide to cities on the eastern side of the Rockies. He was especially proud of the huge working models of western dams at the Bureau of Reclamation’s labs at Denver’s Federal Center. We westerners were well aware that life itself was not sustainable without the many high desert water and power projects managed by the federal government.

Public employees work to sustain the nation’s fragile forests, national parks and vast tracts of land, often with backhanded asides about “lazy” federal workers. In the nation’s twisted values, we are supposed to honor the darlings of the American economy that flood us with useless things that they have imported from China. Many are kept watered and overfed in order to keep investors happy with our top-heavy consumer economy. By comparison, public employees should have our respect for laboring to do essential things like help keep the lights on.

When we step into an airplane to start a trip we rightly assume that the FAA has assured that we will safely step off at the other end, no worse for the experience. Similarly, we expect to be able to travel at freeway speeds because we benefit from carefully engineered highways. Like all cars, Musk’s overpriced Teslas require federally funded Geotech engineers that give cars their value. We also expect federal inspectors to notice unsafe bridges, accurately determine the airworthiness of airplanes and their pilots, and to coordinate electronic superhighways that are licensed to accommodate wireless messaging.

If you live long enough, you probably will owe your life to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates every major transportation accident, vowing that a known cause will only happen once. The learning curve of this federal board has helped to make flying safer than walking.

A federal worker has probably helped you get federally-backed insurance, or worked to insure your health through their research at the National Institutes of Health. We depend on others at NOAA, the Food and Drug Administration, and the many other federal agencies that have extended our lives. These folks do their work without seeking the spotlight: They usually don’t strut around in suits and ridiculous trucker’s hats to pretend they are from working world.

We should not be surprised to witness Donald Trump still treating working men and women badly. Readers may recall that decades ago he developed, furnished, and eventually bankrupted several Atlantic City casinos. In 1989 one small family-owned music store delivered new pianos to the Taj Mahal Casino worth $100,000, and was promptly stiffed. After signing a contract for the full amount, Trump claimed he could only pay $70,000, forcing Hightstown’s Mike Diehl to take a $30,000 loss. It was the first and only time in 30 years that Diehl had a client who abused his trust. In retrospect it was one of what has become a whole series of grifts, including four additional bankruptcies and 34 felony convictions, all signaling his misanthropy.