The Cognitive Dissonance theory says that we rationalize or create reasons for our behavior afterward in order to fit our actions into self perceived notions of who we are. This helps explain a lot of behaviors that leave you scratching your head. Cognitive dissonance is very popular in many ways one being fraternities and sororities in college
People have manipulated cognitive dissonance in all sorts of ways and in college the most popular way is hazing. Hazing is a cognitive dissonance that is being put to work in many ways. Fraternities haze people. When people enter the group they humiliate them, they torture them, they cause them different forms of pain and fear. It's shown to be very successful at getting somebody to like the group. If I join a fraternity and they say, "Hey, welcome to the fraternity, glad to have you, have some tea" and then everything is fine and we go on and enjoy ourselves. My thought process is "cool, sounds like a fun thing to do". On the other hand if I join a fraternity and they tape me up to a goal post and paint my nails black and watch while laughing I then think "I went through a lot of stuff to get into this fraternity it must be great" In fact, hazing through cognitive dissonance draws the inference that this is extremely valuable and this is why it exists.
We don't like being wrong so we try to cover things up in the process
We don’t like to believe that we may be wrong so we limit our intake of new information or thinking about things in ways that don’t fit within our pre existing beliefs. We also don’t like to second guess our choices. Even if later they are proven wrong or seem to have made a big mistake. By second guessing ourselves, we start to think we may not be as wise or as right as we’ve led ourselves to believe. This may lead us to focus in on a particular course of action and become insensitive to others judgment and reject what's right and often better courses that come to the light. That’s why many people seek to avoid or minimize regret in their lives, and seek “closure” imposing a definitive end to an event or relationship. It reduces the possibility of future cognitive dissonance.
