Dissoance and Relationships
Life, Musings, World May 3rd, 2007There’s this online blog of a family friend that I occasionally read, though without the blogger’s notice. She’s a few years older than me and graduating from Psychology this year I think. The most interesting thing is that in almost every single entry, she’d talk about men. Not in admiration though, the vast majority of it was about how she’s so critical of the relationships her friends go through when they complain to her about their relationship problems. She’d almost always talk about a guy, then about how unattractive he is, or generalise about men and the perceived flaws they all have. Now the interesting thing is, she’s never dated before. She’d usually accompany said criticism with statements such as “I’m so glad I’m not dating” or “I never want to date, men are stupid, I might as well be a lesbian lol”.
And that just strikes me as being such a remarkably concrete example of cognitive dissonance. It’s just my theory here, but the way she is so preoccupied with men might be because she actually is just insecure about never being a relationship before and she feels she should be. So she might be putting down actual relationships and the other sex so to make her position seem justified. She’s also constantly putting down her own appearance (in a kind of “yeah, I know I’m ugly lol” kinda way) too. If I knew her at all I’d try to somehow convince her that she doesn’t need to dislike half the population, it’s simply perfectly okay to be single and doing your own thing, especially when so young and with years and years in front of her to persue her happiness.
She’s a psychology student so she must know what cognitive dissonance is… I wonder if she’s able to pick up on her behaviour? Which makes me a little paranoid… do I, unbeknownst to myself, behave in a certain way that belie what my true (though unconscious) feelings may be, but which might be really obvious to other people?
While I’m on the topic of relationships, here are two links that I absolutely ADORE and need to be linked for future reference:
- Hating Stuff to Make Yourself Look Interesting Is Not Interesting - I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture. It’s a spot-on response to the ubiquitous “boys are stupid throw rocks at them” image. It’s just… wow, the Natalie Dee parody is so clever and zing-ful on so many levels that… I don’t think I have the words to describe how awesome it is.
- No More Mr. Nice Guy - Dee linked this on Snark and even though it’s a long entry, I thought it’s quite insightful. The writer makes a distinction between nice guys and Nice Guys that I’ve never considered before. I think most people kinda know of this on an intuitive level, but without it articulated, might lump nice guys with the more bitter/defensive ones. Now we know better!
8 Responses to “Dissoance and Relationships”
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Something to ponder. Thanks for the links, as well! I’m reading the No More Mr. Nice Guy one now and I can tell it’ll be insightful…
Oh, holy baby Jesus. As usual, my dear Belinda, I completely agree with you. Whenever I see people complaining about men ALL THE TIME, it really feels like they secretly desire for men to desire them.
I read the Nice Guy article and I think I agree, although I don’t think I’ve ever met a Nice Guy like the ones that she discusses in the article, although I have heard of them. Most of the guys that I’ve met legitimately want to be my friend, so I suppose I’m fortunate.
Actually, come to think of it, I think I do know one. But he’s my friend. He just screws other girls because he knows I won’t take that kind of crap.
But yes. I really hate it when women blame the entire gender of men for one failed relationship. I also hate it when men blame the entire gender of women, also. But women tend to be worse about this.
I have two comments to make.
Belinda, as a psych student with lots of psych friends, I’d say that one of the first things you do is diagnose yourself with every single problem or issue you read about. The second thing you do is deny that any of them really apply to you (for the most part because your professors drill it in your head not to). Your family friend may be somewhat aware of her tendency to disavow men, but at the same time, may be ignoring it on purpose, causing greater anxiety. In the same vein, she may also not feel physically attracted to men, and trying to compensate by putting down the gender. It’s hard to tell.
In that vein, Kudarania, I want to just note that derogating an entire group of peoples (gender, race, etc.) has been shown to boost one’s own self-image — and everyone (gender, race, etc.) does it (e.g. Fein & Spencer, 1997). While I agree that she may be trying to boost her self-esteem by wailing on men, I don’t think generalizing that action to all women is fair. Furthermore, women and men both occasionally say, “I hate men” or “I hate women,” after a break-up or falling out, but the actual belief doesn’t really extend 24/7/365… It’s a coping mechanism for people to deal with rejection or frustration — most of the time, they fix whatever the problem is.
And I definitely don’t think women are worse. Practically all my friends are male, and they blame women for a lot of things (until I set them straight). In many respects, the way our society is set up (with distinctive stereotypes of men and women) encourages generalization to the whole. Think about the “man law” beer commercials, or other images that tell men women are nagging bitches or tell women that men are inconsiderate assholes.
Lol, those were some long-winded comments. I just really wanted to say that it’s a fallacy to think we can generalize what we personally encounter in a couple individuals to a problem with an entire group. The problem is much more complex, stemming from personal history, society’s values, etc.
I’ve gotta agree with the post above me. As a Psych student she knows she shouldn’t self diagnose, so while she may have thought it or noticed it, she knows she shouldn’t be doing it and now ignores it. It’s much easier to get a clearer view of someone’s psychological tendencies when it’s an outside perspective rather then doing it yourself.
I’ve read that Nice Guy and nice guy post before and I agree with it 100%. It’s just so awesome and true. That picture is also awesome, hadn’t seen it before :P.
o_O O_O Cognitive Dissonance… you know, after learning about it in two Psych classes, that’s one concept I never can remember specifically until I look at an in my Psych journal.
… Actually, I think this just went over and beyond my understanding of the subject. XD
Hmm, while I’m incapable of maintaining any kid of relationship (both friendly, and other) I do not blame anyone but myself. Sure there are some members of the opposite sex that I could quite easily hit but then there are members of my own gender too that suffer from ‘idiotic’ syndrome.
I won’t condemn all men for one or two idiots amongst them. Instead I’ll just drool over the hot ones, the cute ones, the nerdy ones, and adore the ‘nice guys’.
(Love that graphic, by the way.)
To Eileen: I don’t think that self-diagnosis of a psychological phenomena is a bad thing. Cognitive dissoance is not a disorder that has a particular set of criteria best tested by a professional. Cognitive dissoance is just a certain type of behave that can be explained by an underlying motive, that’s no different from noting one’s one biases etc. It just requires more self-awareness. There’s a good chance that she already knows what I picked up and there’s a good chance I’m wrong because I’m making a conclusion purely from what she writes. But from her writing alone, it strikes me as showing lots of cognitive dissoance.
I too agree that men do make generalisations about women as a whole. There are few people who do hate men/women 24/7 as you say however many people carry lasting stereotypes of a whole gender for the entirety of their lives. If in an argument, a woman might exclaim “how can you understand how I feel, you’re a man!” or a man might say “stop overanalysing me, sheesh you’re such a woman” or something along those lines. While it might MAKE one feel better, I think that’s only due to ignorance. If one KNOWS and is constantly aware that women and men are all very different people, and on an ability to emote or make mistakes, not all that different, then I don’t see how one can bring oneself to generalise frustration to an entire gender. Of course, I’m lucky to have had a psychology education so I was taught this, but I’d like to hope that people who didn’t have a psychology degree can intuitively figure out that it’s stupid to generalise anything across gender.
To Angela: As I said in the reply to Eileen, I don’t see a problem with being aware of cognitive dissoance. It’s not a disorder, it’s just a psychological phenomena that everyone goes through to cope with every day situations. But I do agree with what you said that it’s easier for outsides to gauge your actions than yourself. That’s why I’m paranoid about what my actions inadvertently say about me that I don’t even notice. :P
How are you to know if you’re behaviour has blatant psychological inconsistencies in it? It’s not like you spend a lot of time around a psychologist or anything!