Book Reading #20 - Opening Skinner's Box

Author: Lauren Slator

Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind

Summary:

In this chapter, author Lauren Slater talks about Leon Festinger's theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance can be defined as the phenomenon in which people alter their thoughts and actions to match their surroundings and circumstances. The author mentions some of the Festinger's experiments in which people believed that a massive flood would come on December 21, 1954. In another experiment, he had people lie for $1 and for $20.

Major part of this chapter talks about a woman named Linda Santo who claims that her daughter is a saint. She claimed that her daughter was a victim soul and was born to take the pains for others' sins. Interviews with Linda Santo give more information and raise some questions about cognitive dissonance.

Discussion:

I thought that some of questions raised and facts stated in this chapter were unclear and ambiguous as compared to the other chapters. However, the topic of cognitive dissonance presented by the author was extremely fascinating. I believe that the area has not received much attention and more experiments need to be conducted to better understand the concept of Cognitive Dissonance.