Participants Attitude Regarding The Education Process example essay topic

In our class discussions we have examined several wide concepts like: social cognition, self-justification, the relationship between attitudes and behaviors, the status of subjective well-being and also the methodological aspects in different studies, focused on quantifying these theoretical constructs. The attempt of identifying and subsequently measuring these broad concepts is highly exposed to theoretical and empirical biases or even confusions. Allowing for the degree of overlapping among these concepts, classifying them is rather an issue of different perspectives of the sense of self, its reflection particular behaviors and its extension in the social framework. In other words, how we decide to think about ourselves and about others is dependent on the surrounding context and on our individual setup.

The importance of the self-justification process in order to reduce cognitive dissonance is important because of its micro-level adaptive function and also, from a social perspective, of its implications in health campaigns, education, etc. Concluding from the few studies that we have discussed in class, I would like to focus on the self-justification process by using internal or external justifications as determinants in changing believes and behaviors. In Festinger-Carlsmith experiment, the authors investigated the tension reducing process of self-justification as the response to experimental created dissonance, based on the internal vs. external justification availability. Their results suggested that the lack of external justification will favor internal justification which will determine real changes in individual's believes, as an adaptive discomfort reducing process.

Even though the experimental method represents the best choice for controlled testing of causal process and assures a high internal validity, in this particular case the sample selection and size (seventy one male students in the introductory psychology course) and the instrumentation process constitute real threats to internal validity. The use of a standard questionnaire which was administered to all participants confers a greater reliability, but the actual question formulation is highly topic sensitive and therefore may lead to lesser face and construct validity. With regards of external validity, there is a possibility that the authors have measured the reactive effects of experimental arrangements, which would preclude generalization about the effect of the experimental variable upon persons being exposed to it in non-experimental settings. Since alternative explanations for cognitive dissonance began to appear shortly after Festinger and Carlsmith's study like: self-perception theory, self-affirmation theory and the aversive-consequences revision, future studies designed as secondary analysis might support these initial findings. The phenomenon of cognitive distortion as a function of available external justification, used as emotions explanatory process, can be seen in Schachter-Singer experimental design. The authors experimentally induced a state of physiological arousal in participants by administering epinephrine in order to examine different types of responses function of the provided external justifications: proper, misleading or no explanation about the effects of epinephrine (adequate information about the sympathetic system activation - physiological arousal), or the creation of situations from which explanatory cognition's can be derived (the presence of a stooge who acted in a happy and angry manner respectively).

In concordance with the dissonance theory, the misinformed and ignorant groups changed their attitudes function of the social setting, in order to reduce the dissonance. Same issues of validity and, in this case also reliability (with regards of the self reported scales and indexes that were used) stand for the interference of confounding variables and therefore for inconclusiveness of the results. Based on the high applicability potential of all these theoretical constructs, further studying would probably suggest solutions to current social matters. Still, the process of self-justification is extremely complex, and the subsequent attitudes and behaviors are more than a function of external - internal justification manipulation. Thus, even though the cited studies strictly focus on the impact of internal justification in attitudes changing, the authors disregard the role of individual characteristics play in the process of self-justification. Since problems as drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, resistance to education still exist, it is apparent that individual's behavior is multi-determined and therefore rather uncontrollable.

Hence, an ambivalent approach would seem suitable, and would include the manipulation of external justification availability, combined with personalized interventions. Therefore, a new study that would simultaneously investigate the macro and the micro-level variables might identify and subsequently quantify the relationship between these parameters, as behavioral determinants, and also suggest targeted interventions. Considering that one way of reducing dissonance is "denial", the successful attempt of breaking into this process would probably influence the attitude of teenagers toward the importance of education. As it can be seen in "saying is believing" experiment, individuals that are asked to advocate a point of view that runs counter to their own attitude or behavior will arouse dissonance, which will be consequently reduced by changing their attitude to bring it more into line with the position they advocated. If this first objective was attained, it may be strengthened by additional individual psychological intervention, with regards of different personality types. More specifically, by using an experimental design, different hypothesis can be tested, like: the degree of attitude and behavioral changes as a result of public promoting the importance of education and learning, by students with GPA lower than 2.5; the relationship between the personality variables and the induced attitude / behavior changing; the constancy of the attitudes / behavioral changes in time.

Since teenagers with GPAs lower than 2.5 constitute a small subset in population, the appropriate method of sampling would be the purposive sampling, as a subtype of non-probability sampling, which wouldn't be representative for populations, but would be representative for the targeted subgroup and it would serve the purpose of the study; a random selection of participants within this particular subgroup of the population can be used. In an initial phase, all participants would be asked to complete personality and ability questionnaires. An additional questionnaire can be created in order to investigate the participants attitude regarding the education process. Thus, the pre-testing condition would include these obtained data, and the initial GPAs of the participants. Than, in order to create dissonance, students would be asked to either write essays, either make speeches about the importance of education, about how rewarding the learning process can be, about the advantages that education confers, in general, and its impact on the quality of life, etc. Thus, three conditions can be generated: control, written essays, speeches, which can be maintained during one semester.

The post-testing evaluation of the dependent variables - GPA and attitude changing (evaluated by re-administering the questionnaire) function of the experimental stimuli, can be based on statistical tests as: independent t test analysis, for the comparison between conditions, dependent t test for the same condition comparison, at different times, ANOVA / M ANOVA if the tests are repeated over time. Correlational tests can be used in order to investigate the relationship between the personality and abilities variables and the dissonance reducing process. The results might be or not in concordance with the dissonance theory, considering that this is a hypothetical study and the issues that would appear in a real world setting are rather unpredictable. Therefore, the main limitation of such a study, even if designed as an experiment, refers to the interference of the confounding variables as threats to internal validity. On the other hand, assuming that the results were conclusive, they might constitute a step ahead in clarifying the phenomenon of education resistance among teenagers.

Bibliography

1. Aronson, Elliot (2003).
The Social Animal. New York: Worth Publishers. 2. Coats, E.J., Feldman, R.S. (1998).