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1:58

Rick Schenkman is a brilliant... students at

2:00

Bridgwood High School. At 17 he's

2:02

not a big party guy, not

2:04

at all actually. What

2:06

Rick loves is history and

2:09

politics. You know the old

2:12

television show starring Michael J.

2:14

Fox, Family Ties, it was

2:16

a family of liberals and then

2:18

Michael J. Fox was this conservative.

2:20

That was me and my family.

2:23

The only thing that can stop the

2:25

terrible tax monster is a Republican. Who

2:28

wants to be a Republican? Well

2:32

young Rick Schenkman definitely

2:34

does. And just like

2:36

the character Michael J. Fox plays on

2:38

the NBC show, he's very vocal about

2:40

it. While he's still

2:43

in high school, Rick openly

2:45

supports the 1972 campaign for

2:47

Richard Nixon's re-election and becomes

2:49

an ardent supporter of the

2:51

Republican candidate. But soon enough,

2:54

Nixon's administration is shaken to

2:56

the core, as CBS News

2:58

reports. Good

3:01

evening, the Nixon presidency is virtually

3:03

being overtaken by events tonight. Every

3:06

single day you'd open the paper it would just be one

3:09

more thing after another, after another, after another.

3:12

Between 1972 and 1974,

3:14

the political scandal of

3:16

Watergate unveils shocking accounts

3:18

of the abuse of

3:20

power and multiple cover-ups.

3:23

Slowly, the whole country is turning

3:25

its back on Richard Nixon. Except

3:29

Rick. The president himself admitted he has

3:31

not always given the public a straight

3:33

story on Watergate. I just

3:36

kept defending Richard Nixon. And it

3:38

didn't matter what the facts were.

3:44

In the face of all the

3:46

evidence, Rick's faith in Richard Nixon

3:49

will not be shaken. It

3:51

makes no sense even to him. I

3:54

was revering George Washington, the man

3:56

who couldn't tell a lie, at

3:59

the same time time I was every

4:01

day defending Richard Nixon, the man who

4:03

couldn't tell the truth. Well,

4:05

what the hell? I'm

4:16

Matthew Side and this is

4:18

Sideways, my show about the ideas

4:20

that shape our lives with stories

4:22

of seeing the world differently. In

4:35

this episode, we're navigating cognitive

4:37

dissonance. It's one of

4:40

the great mysteries of the human mind

4:43

and while it might sound a bit

4:45

abstract, it's a tendency that affects every

4:47

single one of us, often

4:49

without us even realising it. The

4:56

story I want to tell you is how strange

4:59

a kid I was at Vassar. 1972,

5:05

back in New Jersey. Rick

5:08

Shekman is about to turn 18 and

5:10

he starts a course in American

5:12

history at the notably liberal Vassar

5:15

College. Every

5:20

single day was a battle. I

5:22

was defending the Vietnam War or

5:24

I was defending Richard Nixon. It

5:26

didn't matter what facts they would

5:28

produce to try to discredit him.

5:31

I was able to say, oh,

5:33

you think that he actually knew about the

5:35

Watergate break and there's no evidence that he

5:37

knew about the Watergate break and you're just

5:40

a crazy liberal. Whatever it was that they

5:42

threw up, I of course had a reaction.

5:46

In the summer of 1972, America

5:49

is going through one of its

5:51

great political convulsions, Watergate.

5:56

It started with a break in of the

5:58

offices of the Democratic National committee during

6:00

the presidential election campaign. The

6:12

break-in was ultimately traced to

6:14

officials at the committee to

6:16

re-elect Nixon, leading to the

6:18

resignation of several high-ranking members

6:20

of the administration. Nixon

6:23

denied any involvement for a very

6:25

long time. When

6:27

he addressed the nation in 1973, he was adamant.

6:40

Nixon doubled down on his position

6:42

in a press conference only a

6:44

few months later, a speech that

6:47

would become infamous. It

6:52

meant absolutely nothing to me. I

7:04

joined the committee to say the presidency in

7:06

Bergen County because I felt

7:08

it was really unfair what

7:11

was happening to Richard Nixon. Every

7:13

day I'd wake up and I'd see these

7:15

headlines in the media, and of course it

7:17

was the liberal media and I demonized the

7:19

liberal media in my own mind, and I

7:21

thought, yeah, the president needs to be defended.

7:26

Now let me guess what you're thinking. How

7:29

on earth can somebody so

7:31

smart, so seemingly informed, remain

7:34

so adamant in their beliefs

7:36

in the face of compelling

7:39

evidence of Nixon's treachery? Well,

7:41

actually, it's pretty easy. It's

7:44

because Rick was experiencing cognitive

7:47

dissonance. This

8:00

dissonance manifests itself is when

8:02

evidence challenges a cherished beliefs.

8:05

just like him, Rick situation

8:07

doesn't feel good at all.

8:09

In fact, cognitive dissonance can

8:11

be deeply uncomfortable. Cognitive.

8:15

Dissonance is a negative

8:17

drive state like extreme

8:19

hunger or extreme First

8:21

except it takes place

8:23

in your head. Professor.

8:26

Elliott Aronson is an American

8:28

social psychologist who is attained

8:31

legendary status for his groundbreaking

8:33

research on cognitive dissonance. Professor.

8:36

Our son is now Ninety Two officially

8:38

retired in the nineteen Nineties, but he

8:40

remains the a reference figure in the

8:43

seals. For. Example: If you

8:45

smoke two or three is

8:48

packs of cigarettes a day

8:50

and you hear says cigarette

8:52

smoking causes lung cancer, those

8:55

two cognisance. Are. Really

8:57

doesn't and assuming you don't

8:59

wanna die a horrible early

9:01

deaths. The.

9:05

Tourist way to reduce nationals

9:07

as to stop smoking pot

9:09

A great many people have

9:11

found that solution difficult to

9:14

do so that when people

9:16

try to do is justify.

9:19

The. Fact. That they are

9:21

continuing to smoke by trying

9:23

to convince themselves. For example,

9:25

well, I'd rather lead a

9:27

short, exciting life like Humphrey

9:29

Bogart in the movies and

9:32

smoke. And that really is

9:34

the way I want to

9:36

lead my life and only

9:38

justified doing something really foolish.

9:41

You know the way Athens, don't you know?

9:43

you might get cancer? Well Luther if I

9:46

could get run over by bus tomorrow. The.

9:48

More challenging the evidence,

9:50

the more torturous the

9:53

justification. Time.

9:57

after time we up for what He

10:01

reduces the dissonance by changing his opinion

10:03

about the dullness of the test. Now

10:06

the psychologist who first developed

10:08

the theory of cognitive dissonance

10:10

was a brilliant academic called

10:12

Leon Festinger. Cognitive

10:15

dissonance theory leads to an exactly

10:18

opposite prediction. He knows the task

10:20

is dull, but he has two

10:22

describing thoughts. For him,

10:24

there is this. This

10:27

is Professor Festinger in 1954

10:29

as a young and bright researcher.

10:32

That video, filmed by his team, is

10:34

an extract from an experiment he led,

10:37

testing his willing guinea pigs with a

10:39

very boring task to observe their dissonance

10:41

when asked if they had enjoyed it.

10:45

At only 35, Festinger was

10:47

already considered the rising star

10:49

of social psychology thanks to

10:51

his pioneering work at Stanford

10:53

University. I

10:55

happened to go there the same

10:57

year that Leon Festinger went there,

10:59

and he had a reputation for

11:01

being a genius and

11:03

also a very difficult

11:05

person, very impatient.

11:08

And what I learned within a few weeks

11:10

is that everything I had

11:12

heard about him was true. When

11:16

Professor Aronson started at Stanford, Festinger

11:18

was about to publish a book

11:20

that sent shockwaves through the world

11:23

of psychology. It's called

11:25

When Prophecy Fails. In

11:31

1954, Festinger and

11:33

two of his colleagues infiltrated

11:35

a UFO cult in

11:37

Chicago. A

11:40

charismatic leader called Dorothy Martin,

11:43

in the book she's referred to under

11:45

her pseudonym Marion Keach, prophesied

11:47

an alien apocalypse that would

11:49

destroy the planet on a

11:51

specific date, the 21st of

11:53

December, 1954. A

11:58

Group of dedicated followers, Roka

12:00

homes some left their partners because

12:02

of that complete faith in the

12:05

leader and her prophecy. I also

12:07

believe that they would be safe

12:09

from the disaster by the alien

12:12

overlords to would fly them away

12:14

in a spaceship just before the

12:16

on salt. And

12:21

what Festinger predicted was.

12:24

That. Once fair Prophecy failed, once

12:26

the world did not come

12:28

to an end, that would

12:30

be extremely dissonant for them

12:32

so that they would come

12:34

up with a reason that

12:36

would make them feel good

12:38

about themselves. This.

12:43

Is a subtle but absolutely

12:45

crucial point. You might think

12:47

that on December the twenty first, when the

12:49

prophecy actually failed to the group would realize

12:51

that the lead a wasn't in fact a

12:54

profit after all. But this

12:56

on the estimates, the power of

12:58

cognitive dissonance. Think how mortifying it

13:00

would be to pull back to

13:03

their families admitting that been wrong

13:05

all along? that been duped. How

13:07

much easier to find a way

13:10

of rationalizing what has happened? Suddenly,

13:17

Mrs. Keach heard a message

13:20

in her head from outer

13:22

space. And

13:25

she was told that

13:27

because of the prayers.

13:30

The. Group that was going

13:32

to destroy the planet decided

13:34

not to do it. In

13:41

the days following that known apocalypse,

13:43

the members of the group actually

13:45

went out on the recruitment drive.

13:48

The failure of the prediction hadn't

13:50

destroyed their belief in their leader.

13:52

In fact, It had strengthened

13:54

it. See. What a

13:56

great group we are! We saved

13:58

the world from. The. Research

14:02

was the first scientific illustration

14:04

of the power of cognitive

14:06

dissonance in a group setting.

14:10

Cognitive dissonance. The thanks Each and every

14:12

one of us albeit enlist from as

14:15

a place. In fact, systems

14:17

theory suggests that human intelligence

14:19

is often deployed not to

14:21

long for new evidence. Buttery

14:23

frame. It. To. Edited to

14:26

reinterpreted in any way

14:28

to protect our prior

14:30

beliefs or judgments, particularly

14:32

if les trois self

14:34

image. I

14:41

ask for your help. And

14:44

reaffirming are dedication. To

14:46

the principles of decency. Honor.

14:49

And respect for the institutions

14:51

that have sustained our progress

14:53

through these past two centuries.

14:56

And. I ask for your

14:58

support. Over the course, nineteen

15:01

Seventy Three Sinks part of

15:03

Richard Nixon actually strengthens the

15:05

Watergate scandal unraveled. I.

15:07

Was just taking my nails and further and

15:10

further with every argument. The. Republican president

15:12

continue to protest his innocence and

15:14

speeches like the One You've Just

15:16

Heard and The Move Rick publicly

15:18

campaigned for Nixon. The. More

15:20

desperate he became to double down.

15:23

It's all just as a series

15:25

of cognitive dissonance put it, It

15:28

wasn't like it was Richard Nixon

15:30

who was under attack. It with

15:32

me was under attack by message.

15:34

A big commitment to on this

15:36

is the senior season. Five.

15:43

Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

15:47

And October Nineteen seventy three, the

15:49

evidence that next time to fire.

15:53

Special Prosecutor list was a

15:55

monumental rather lay some later

15:57

called the Saturday Night Mess.

16:00

It was one of those strange Saturdays here Dan.

16:04

It did give me pause. I

16:06

remember that very much. I was shaken. Even

16:09

though I was troubled, I was mostly

16:11

troubled, I did not abandon him yet.

16:20

As human beings, we don't

16:22

flourish in psychological discomfort. We

16:24

thrive on internal coherence and

16:27

harmony. So it's no wonder

16:29

that Rick looked for anything that could soothe

16:31

that pain. This

16:33

is a powerful psychological insight

16:35

into human motivation and

16:37

it can be used to influence us. Probably

16:42

the majority of advertisements you

16:44

see utilize some elements of

16:46

cognitive dissonance. It is

16:48

a very, very omniscient

16:50

power. Dr. Matt

16:53

Johnson is a consumer psychologist and

16:55

a professor at the Holt International

16:57

Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His

17:00

background is in neuroscience. For

17:02

the past 15 years, he's focused

17:04

on its application to marketing. Brands

17:07

are in the business of producing

17:10

beliefs in the mind of the

17:12

market. And so a brand will say,

17:14

if you don't buy this product,

17:16

you're not cool. And so that

17:18

sets up a potential business.

17:22

Whether we don't buy the product, in which

17:24

case our self-esteem is going to suffer, or

17:27

hopefully for the brand, we resolve

17:29

this dissonance by buying this product.

17:32

This is obviously highly manipulative,

17:34

but it is the core

17:36

insight of consumer psychology. Marketers

17:39

are constantly coming up with

17:41

ever more sophisticated ways to

17:44

play on dissonance. There's

17:46

definitely a bit around a slightly

17:49

different utilization of cognitive dissonance,

17:51

which is called the functional alibi.

17:54

And these functional alibis allow

17:56

us to justify purchases to

17:58

ourselves. specific

18:00

example, consider the Hummer. In

18:03

America, it's big, like tank like

18:05

car. People buy this because it's

18:07

American and it's big and it's

18:09

brash and it feels very masculine.

18:12

But when they advertise it,

18:14

they will put something on

18:16

it that says the safest

18:18

car or safer families or

18:20

some other thing about a

18:22

non hedonistic drive for the

18:24

Hummer. So this again relies

18:26

on cognitive distance because we

18:29

want to see ourselves as good rational

18:31

consumers that don't give into hedonic

18:33

urges that we buy things

18:35

for good reasons. It

18:38

may feel a tad disheartening to suppose

18:40

that we're all influenced by cunning adverts.

18:42

But there are two sides to every

18:44

coin. You see, cognitive distance can

18:46

also be used to advance the

18:48

greater good. I started

18:51

at Princeton in 2020. So it

18:53

was, you know, peak COVID. And

18:55

we were interested in doing some

18:57

kind of research project to see

19:00

if we could motivate people to

19:02

follow COVID-19 guidelines. Logan

19:06

Pierce is a graduate student in

19:09

social psychology at Princeton University in

19:11

the United States. In

19:13

collaboration with her advisor, Professor

19:15

Joel Cooper, Logan produced a

19:17

compelling research paper showing that

19:19

using dissonance could foster safer

19:22

behaviors during the pandemic. For

19:26

the research, they focused on individuals

19:28

whose actions didn't consistently align with

19:30

their stated beliefs. We

19:33

had people write a statement about

19:36

why it's important to follow

19:39

COVID guidelines. And

19:41

we told them that it

19:43

was to put on the World

19:45

Health Organization website. That

19:47

part wasn't true, but it was just to

19:49

get them to think that they're making some

19:51

public statement. And then we

19:54

had them Remember a

19:56

time when they did not follow

19:58

a COVID-19 guideline. In and

20:00

then they had. To write about why

20:02

they didn't follow the guidelines. Only

20:05

one group of participants out of three was

20:08

asked to write the statements. A

20:10

week later, participants who wrote the

20:13

statements were much more likely to

20:15

the sawtelle vaccination appointments them participants

20:17

who are not exposed to the

20:20

dissonance. They also reported

20:22

falling coalescing guidelines more than people

20:24

and other conditions. The.

20:27

Pivotal factor to change in

20:29

behavior was a public statement.

20:31

This method known as the

20:33

hypocrisy Paradigms was actually tested

20:35

for the first time by

20:38

Professor Aronson in Nineteen Ninety

20:40

One, a decade into the

20:42

devastating global Hiv Aids epidemic.

20:48

What? We tried to do. Was.

20:51

Convince people to use condoms.

20:54

What I found to be a

20:56

useful strategy is to get some

20:59

to convince other people to use

21:01

condoms cause they know it's good

21:03

for that other people. But then

21:06

when you're confronted with the fact

21:08

that you are behaving hypocritically, that.

21:11

Gets. People. To. Start

21:13

using condoms. Promoting

21:17

cognitive alignment in these kinds a

21:20

specific place can lead to ensuring

21:22

and transformers his changes in our

21:24

lives. I think it in the

21:27

way comforting to recognize the dissonance

21:29

can serve as a catalyst for

21:32

change rather than merely fostering inertia.

21:38

Throughout. The long and difficult period of

21:41

Watergate. I. Have felt that was

21:43

my duty to persevere. In the

21:45

summer with Nineteen Seventy Four, Nixon's

21:48

involvement in the Watergate Scandal became

21:50

undeniable. It has become evident to

21:52

me that I no longer have

21:55

a strong enough political base in

21:57

the Congress. On. The evening of the

21:59

eighth of. August 1974, on

22:02

every national TV and radio network

22:04

in the country, the

22:06

disgraced president finally threw in the

22:09

towel. Therefore, I

22:12

shall resign the presidency effective at noon

22:15

tomorrow. When he

22:17

was forced out, well, that

22:19

was like a come to Jesus

22:21

moment. Really,

22:23

it meant I had to reevaluate

22:25

all of my commitments. That was a

22:28

major undertaking. Rick's world

22:30

had been turned upside down.

22:32

But while a huge part of his identity

22:34

was being threatened, Rick was

22:37

struggling with another kind of crisis.

22:41

A different dissonance was having a profound

22:43

impact on his young self, one

22:45

that may even have contributed to his

22:48

unwavering support for Richard Nixon.

22:52

I had two big events in my youth. One

22:55

was supporting Richard Nixon, and

22:57

then finally figuring out that I didn't

22:59

support him anymore. And two,

23:02

figuring out that I was gay.

23:06

And how did those two things interact?

23:10

Well, here's what was going on. I

23:12

know I'm a good person, and I've

23:14

got this thing that society says is

23:17

bad, so the way I'm

23:19

going to deal with that dissonance is

23:21

I'm going to be the best little boy in

23:23

the world. That

23:25

phrase, the best little boy in

23:28

the world, is a well-known paradigm

23:30

for generations of gay men in

23:32

the USA. It refers

23:34

to the young, closeted man

23:36

who deflects attention from his

23:38

sexuality by over-investing his energy

23:40

somewhere else. I

23:43

plunged myself into studies. I

23:45

was going to be this really good student. I

23:48

wasn't going to go down this

23:50

alternative, deviant path. My

23:54

family, we were Democrats in

23:56

a town where there weren't very many

23:58

Democrats. For me being the best little

24:00

boy in the world in that world

24:03

was to be conservative. Again,

24:09

this is subtle, but isn't

24:11

it so very revealing of the human

24:13

mind? But while reducing

24:15

his dissonance, he was also

24:18

constructing an ever larger closet.

24:21

I used to dream that I could unlock

24:24

the closet door in my

24:26

bedroom. A boy would come out

24:28

of the closet door, we'd sleep together

24:30

for the night, and then in the morning I'd

24:32

put him back in the closet. It

24:35

was me who was in the closet. There's

24:40

a great deal that we would

24:42

do to preserve a positive image

24:44

of ourselves and thereby reduce any

24:47

dissonance. And it's also

24:49

crucial to remember that the process is

24:51

rarely conscious. You don't sit

24:53

down and say, well, I think I

24:55

might want to reduce a little dissonance

24:57

right now. It happened

24:59

to Leon Festinger and it happened to me.

25:02

We do it, no matter how well we

25:04

know the theory. Rick's

25:06

winding road to social acceptance

25:09

led him to conceal his

25:11

true self behind a protective

25:14

identity. It's only in

25:16

retrospect that he can now realize

25:18

the extent of his own denial.

25:21

I can remember in college when gay

25:24

guys did hit on me. I wasn't

25:26

conscious. I wasn't even

25:28

aware of what was

25:31

happening around me as I'm experiencing

25:33

it because if I

25:36

were to admit it, my whole

25:38

world would come crashing down. Rick's

25:44

insights today reflect years of

25:46

self-examination. In fact, he spent

25:49

the best part of his

25:51

adult life researching and sharing

25:53

explanations for his unwavering

25:55

support of Richard Nixon. I've

25:58

written seven books and all of them. to

26:00

one extent or another have been about

26:02

that issue. As

26:06

human beings, once we make

26:08

up our minds about something, we

26:10

stick with it. It becomes not a

26:12

question about whether Richard Nixon was a

26:14

crook or whether Donald Trump is a

26:16

crook. It's a question

26:19

about whether I as the voter

26:21

am a crook. Politics

26:23

is about us. Politics

26:26

is about stories, and politics is

26:28

about psychological mechanisms

26:30

that people use to

26:33

decide whether or not they're going to support

26:35

one candidate or another. It's

26:40

a great point, but even if

26:42

you understand the theory of cognitive

26:44

dissonance, it's very difficult to completely

26:47

thwart the subtle ways in which

26:49

it can hijack our beliefs and

26:51

behaviours. It

26:54

took me so many more years after

26:56

Watergate before I came to terms with

26:58

being gay. Not

27:00

until 1984, Watergate was 10 years earlier. In

27:07

1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter. In

27:09

1980, I actually voted for Ronald Reagan, something

27:11

that my husband of the last 25 years

27:14

has never forgiven me for. He

27:17

said it was almost a deal breaker when we met.

27:23

But that was like the last hurrah of

27:25

my conservatism. After that, I

27:27

started moving toward the liberal

27:29

spectrum. The

27:34

theory of cognitive dissonance is,

27:36

I think, the most powerful

27:38

single lens to understand the

27:40

world today. You

27:43

see it in politics, in the

27:46

office, on social media, even in

27:48

science. Because you

27:50

might think that if a scientist is

27:52

shown evidence that their particular theory is

27:54

wrong, they'll revise their theory. But

27:57

the evidence shows that many scientists

27:59

will... do almost anything to dispute

28:01

the evidence when it comes to

28:03

a cherished theory. Of

28:05

course not many of us live in UFO

28:07

cults these days, but lots of us

28:09

do live in well defined

28:12

groups on social media where

28:14

our self-concept is ever more bound

28:17

up with a political party or

28:20

ideological tribe. It's

28:22

increasingly where we gain our

28:24

identity. The

28:26

problem isn't dissonance itself. The

28:29

question is what do we do with it? If

28:33

cognitive dissonance causes us to double

28:35

down, it means that new

28:37

evidence won't lead us to moderate our

28:40

views, but to become more entrenched in

28:42

them. And if

28:44

all ideological tribes are doing the same

28:46

thing at the same time, it

28:49

leads to ever greater

28:51

polarisation. But perhaps

28:53

by recognising that this mental process happens

28:55

to all of us, it

28:57

can lead us to consider our positions more

28:59

rationally, more reasonably,

29:02

and self-examination in that context

29:05

might just bring us together.

29:20

Thanks to the producer of this

29:22

episode, Julian Managuerra-Petten, the

29:24

editor is Catherine Godfrey, sound

29:26

design and mix by Daniel

29:28

Kemsen, and our theme tune

29:30

is by Ioana Shillaru. Thanks

29:33

to Louisa Cardoza, Sideways is

29:35

produced by novel for BBC

29:37

Radio 4. and

30:01

how it's changed the way that

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search and rescue teams operate all

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over the world. We're

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looking at the mechanics and politics of birth,

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turning a light on our struggling

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maternity services and exploring how the

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impact of birth on a mother affects

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us all. Then we're going

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to look at the incredible feats of human

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growth and learning in the first 12 months

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of life. Whatever shapes

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the journey takes, this is a

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story that helps us know our world. Listen

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on BBC Sounds.