Cigarettes and my attitude

As a cancer prevention advocate, it won’t surprise you to find out that I have a very negative attitude toward smoking. I know smoking has a strong relationship to lung cancer and that any amount of carcinogenic nicotine inhaled, causes some minor damage to my organs. (To clarify, I said smoking, not smokers. . .remember from my PO Blog, I love to love ALL equally!) It may shock you to learn that a year ago, I bought a pack of Marlboro Lights. With this purchase of 20 cigarettes, I lacked consistency between my attitude toward smoking and tobacco products and my behavior. This attitude-discrepant behavior created cognitive dissonance, a concept proposed by Leon Festinger (1957). Festinger proposed that because of our need for consistency, when our attitudes and behaviors are not consistent, we allow our behavior to change our attitudes so as to find consistency.

I purchased a pack of Marlboro Lights. . .and smoked several cigarettes throughout the year. (I still have several left in the pack. . .do cigarettes expire?!) I can’t deny my actions, so I found a way to cope with my behavior and realign my attitude with my behavior to reduce my dissonance. I used several techniques to reduce my dissonance. As Mckimmie et al. (2003) outlined, I changed my perception of the behavior and rationalized it with phrases along the lines of “I didn’t smoke that many cigarettes.” I also reduced my perceived choice, “I had no choice, I needed to know what it is like, so I can better understand those who smoke.” Granted, my attitude did change slightly, but my behavior also changed (I stopped smoking). All in all, I altered both my attitude and my behavior in order to be find consistency.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

McKimmie, B.M., Terry, D.J., Hogg, M.A., Manstead, A.S.R., Spears,R., & Doosje, B. (2003). I’m a hypocrite, but so is everyone else: Group support and the reduction of congivitive dissonance. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, 214-224.