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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Tough choices are
justified to reinforce
positive self-imageThe hiring committee at an import-export firm narrowed the candidates for a managerial position to two people: Steve Kim and Andrea Tanaka. Both had excellent qualifications including advanced university degrees, enthusiastic letters of recommendation and relevant job experience. But the committee could select only one person. One member joked that he held their resumes up to a light so see if he could assess the quality of the paper on which the two candidates had printed their resumes. The committee members finally settled on Andrea. Right after the final polling of the committee, members felt relieved that they had made the right decision. Andrea was clearly the better candidate, and they wondered why they considered Steve for such a long time.
The committee members may be justifying their difficult decision through a process called "post-decision spreading of alternatives." This process is part of cognitive dissonance theory. When people make important decisions, they need to justify them to reinforce their own positive self-images and to communicate to others that they are good decision-makers. They can achieve these goals by thinking of reasons that justify their decision. This elaborate thinking is especially important when people have more than one alternative about which they have to decide. Once they decide on one alternative, there is cognitive dissonance since they might be making a mistake. Perhaps the other alternative was better, and I will look like a fool for making the wrong choice!
The decision whether to smoke is a good example. People may say to themselves, "I smoke, but it would improve my health if I decided to stop smoking." The people will be in a state of cognitive dissonance if they consider that their decision to smoke may be hazardous to their health. So they must justify their decision to maintain a favorable view of themselves. They can do so by dismissing the research linking smoking to health difficulties. Or, they can point to self-perceived benefits of smoking, such as weight control or stress reduction.
In the hiring case, dissonance arises from the possibility that the committee made the wrong choice between two attractive candidates. One way for committee members to reduce the dissonance is to spread the alternatives. The positive points of Andrea's background are emphasized, and the negative aspects of Steve's resume and experience are highlighted. If they engage in this elaborate thinking, committee members may feel much more confident when they make their recommendation to the firm's executives. Since the executives will see only the post-dissonance rationale for the recommendation, they are likely to read about Andrea's successes and Steve's shortcomings. This decision-making process can work against the firm in the long run. If executives recognize the reality of dissonance reduction, they may offer the job to Andrea but will not dismiss Steve from their minds. Rather, they will keep in contact with him in case there is a future job opening for a highly qualified candidate.
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The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
