As hard as I tried to avoid falling into the zombie craze, it didn't work. When I found out my grandfather was into The Walking Dead...I knew I had no choice but to see what the hype was all about. It happened. After just ONE WEEK of Netflix binge-watching, I am caught up to its current season and officially a die-hard Walking Dead obsessed fan. For those of you unfamiliar with The Walking Dead (and I'd assume there aren't many) is an American horror drama television series that follows a group of survivors who work together to confront an post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. It takes a while to get used to the gory slayings of over 100 zombies per episode but what is even more mind bending is that it does not matter if the zombie is man, woman or child, it must go because no matter what, it is a threat to the living. It's pretty disgusting...see for yourself:
Viewing The Walking Dead, the survivors justify these brutal killings because they consider how the zombies are just a mass of violent, hungry, crazed, half-dead people that they no longer consider humans. The survivors quickly and unconsciously rearrange their moral beliefs to make themselves comfortable with these horrible actions. As the show evolves, viewers themselves can see the initial discomfort each survivor had when they first took the initiative of killing to protect themselves and their group.
Hypocrisy is another case of cognitive dissonance. In 1991, Aronson, Fried and Stone conducted an experiment to see what occurs when a person adopts the role of a safe-sex educator but does not practice it themselves. They asked sexually-active undergraduate students to prepare a short speech on the importance of safe sex. They have two groups, a high mindful and a low mindful. Mindful insinuating whether they were cautious and practiced safe sex. At the end, participants were all offered the ability to purchase condoms. Over 80% of the members in the low mindful group ended up purchasing condoms, as opposed to those in the high (30-50%). This goes to show that those in the low group experienced more of a cognitive dissonance because they weren't "practicing what they were preaching". They were more likely to purchase condoms to reduce this dissonance and hope to change their sexual behavior.
Cognitive dissonance is practically unavoidable but there are ways to reduce the mental conflict. It helps us make valuable decisions and judgments. Many times, we do this unconsciously because we automatically seek consistency between our thoughts and behaviors. Whether it's finding the justification to kill hundreds of zombies or changing your habits, dissonance reduction is possible and very powerful.
Ashley Portorreal
Aronson, E., Fried, C., & Stone, J. (1991). Overcoming denial and increasing the intention to use condoms through the induction of hypocrisy. American Journal of Public Health, 81, 1636-1638.
Kelly, J. A., McAuliffe, T. L., Sikkema, K. J., Murphy, D. A., Somlai, A. M., Mulry, G., Miller, J. G., Stevenson, L. Y., & Fernandez, M. I. (1997). Reduction in risk behavior among adults with severe mental illness who learned to advocate for HIV prevention. Psychiatric Services, 48(10), 1283-1288.
I am also a die hard Walking Dead fan so I love that you did your blog on this! I think the recent episode on Morgan is a great example of cognitive dissonance. I did not even really realize that it was cognitive dissonance until I read your post. Thinking back on it, it is really easy to see all the internal struggles the characters have with killing but then see how quickly they come up with reasons to justify it. Like last week when Carol tried to kill the man in the basement because "she had to" because it was necessary for the "safety" of the group. It's weird that even though we have been talking about it I didn't even notice it in one of my favorite shows. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI am in the same position as Alliyah. I never realized how prominent cognitive dissonance was in The Walking Dead. Now that I am thinking about it more nearly all of the main characters have changed drastically since the first season. Viewers can see how Rick, Carol, Glenn, and especially Carl has changed in their morals and values. Carol and Carl had never held a gun before let alone kill someone. However, by the end of this new season we can see how their personality and attitudes have changed. At first they felt remorse and sadness when they had to leave someone they loved to die. But later on, after that they became strong and independent characters that were able to protect themselves and kill others easily. They had cognitive dissonance and rearranged their beliefs to fit their new lifestyles. This was a great post! I'm glad I can now connect The Walking Dead to social psychology! - Minh Nguyen
ReplyDeleteI am in the same position as Alliyah. I never realized how prominent cognitive dissonance was in The Walking Dead. Now that I am thinking about it more nearly all of the main characters have changed drastically since the first season. Viewers can see how Rick, Carol, Glenn, and especially Carl has changed in their morals and values. Carol and Carl had never held a gun before let alone kill someone. However, by the end of this new season we can see how their personality and attitudes have changed. At first they felt remorse and sadness when they had to leave someone they loved to die. But later on, after that they became strong and independent characters that were able to protect themselves and kill others easily. They had cognitive dissonance and rearranged their beliefs to fit their new lifestyles. This was a great post! I'm glad I can now connect The Walking Dead to social psychology! - Minh Nguyen
ReplyDeleteLove the show, so good! I was wondering when someone would analyze the social psychological applications behind the this show. Very well done, just thinking of having to kill a zombie that was once human is chilling and cognitive dissonance is truly seen throughout the show, especially when characters have to kill their zombified loved ones. Great job!
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