Cognitive Dissonance and Gender Discrimination

Abstract

Cognitive dissonance is a positive model of what will happen if individuals are able to adjust their beliefs to reduce their pain or anxiety (Akerlof and Dickens 1982). Women in many gender-discriminating societies are torn between standing up for their rights and conforming to discriminating practices. Cognitive dissonance represents conflicting desires that create the unpleasant tension that women in these societies face. The cognitive dissonance theory proposes that people are motivated to reduce this tension and may do so either by reducing their self-interest behavior, by engaging in self-deception, or by some combination of the two (Konow 2000). For example, people do not choose to work in an unsafe place. However, if they do continue to work in dangerous jobs, they try to reject the cognition that the job is dangerous. Similarly, women who do not have other viable alternatives typically believe that their situation is normal or less dire, and acclimate to it. They may believe they are being treated fairly according to the prevailing discriminating norms and codes of conduct (Akerlof and Dickens 1982). This behavior is crucial to understanding gender discrimination and violence since women’s measurement of victimization has been corrupted.¹