Cognitive Dissonance in the Crucible Essay Example

Imagine it’s the 1600s, and there is a rumor going around your strictly religious town that there are people who are practicing witchcraft. Women are constantly being arrested and accused for the crime of witchcraft, children didn’t have it easier either, they were expected to just stay completely obedient and quiet, while having to memorize the Bible back-to-back. This was the situation in the play of The Crucible, Arthur Miller gives the audience an insight of the lives of the people in the town of Salem, during the midst of the Salem witch trials. The psychological phenomenon of cognitive dissonance can lead to people tricking themselves to believe these made up myths that they have created in order to avoid the uncomfortable feeling when the consistency in their thoughts and beliefs are interrupted.

As a highly-respected judge in the town of Salem, Danforth has successfully executed over 200 people for the crime of witchcraft. When a life is taken away, we cannot just have it back whenever we desire to. In this case, countless people have been accused and executed by Danforth’s convictions. Proctor has tried to talk some sense into Danforth by calling out the lies that Abigail and Mary Warren committed as an attempt to save his wife, Elizabeth Proctor.  This threatened Danforth’s reputation as the most powerful judge in town since he had ordered the execution of over 200 people for the crime of witchcraft. When people, especially Proctor, started to question his validity as a judge of the witches’ executions, Danforth was caught in a conflicted situation where he has also started to question his own validity but at the same time, his own signature has taken many people away from their lives. As a result, Danforth has chosen to make false assumptions about Proctor to ease the uncomfortable tension now that there are two beliefs conflicting with each other : “Then your purpose is somewhat larger” (Miller 635).  People desire to be a good person and have a purpose in life, so was Danforth, he wanted to be known as a fair judge and bring justice to the town of Salem. In Leghann Lord’s article “Cognitive Dissonance and the Pandemic: A Conversation with Carol Tavris: Social psychologist Carol Tavris talks about how and why we deceive ourselves to fit our beliefs and to keep peace with ourselves-and what that means during a pandemic and for our democracy in these divided times.”, she claims that “Our problems stem from good people who justify the bad things they do to preserve their belief that they're good people”. Danforth justified his poor executions by making assumptions about other people in order to save himself from the uneasiness of being wrong as a highly-respected judge. As a person who holds the power to decide someone’s life or death, Danforth has failed to maintain justice and peace to everyone in Salem. Likewise, Trump has come up with many excuses to not settle national as well as international affairs. In Jennifer Rubin’s article “Trump has no excuse for mistreatment of children”, Trump “as usual refuses to accept responsibility” for his administration’s cruel actions. Instead, he blamed the situation on the Obama administration. Being a president of a country is a huge responsibility, but Trump seemed to have come up with more excuses than solutions to the problems that the nation faced.

Experiencing lack of comfort when faced with harsh reality can lead a person to make up good things about themselves so that they can reduce the uncomfortable feeling. Elizabeth experienced cognitive dissonance as she chooses to make up good things about her husband so she will not have to face the infuriating things that he did: “My husband is a goodly man, sir” (650).  When encountering a situation where she has to either lie to save her husband, or stay true to her religion, Elizabet has chosen to lie as an attempt to save her husband from being exposed for his lecherous crime. However, her effort has gone to waste because Judge Danforth has been made aware of the truth. Not only that she went against her religious morals, it did not save her husband and people now will see her as a deceiving liar. Similarly, John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor’s husband, was exposed for his adultery crime with Abigail, he denied that they have ever shared any romantic feelings or relations: “We never touched, Abby” (578).  Leighenn Lord in her Skeptical Inquirer article “Cognitive Dissonance and the Pandemic: A Conversation with Carol Tavris: Social psychologist Carol Tavris talks about how and why we deceive ourselves to “ fit our beliefs and to keep peace with ourselves-and what that means during a pandemic and for our democracy in these divided times”. Like the Proctors, the more that we “invest in something--a belief, program, friendship, relationship, marriage-- the harder it is going to be for us to say, ‘Time to rethink this'”. Therefore, opening our mind to others’ beliefs, and admitting our faults. For that reason, many people struggle with  jumping head first into the beliefs that we shut out any evidence that could conflict our beliefs. For example, there was a woman who refused to put on her masks and follow the guidelines in a supermarket that she put on a huge fuss just to get her way. The woman was screaming at employees because she had been “aligning with Trump’s belief”(Lord), and because she couldn’t justify her beliefs so now she resorted to the “When in Doubt, Shout”. This is a technique which includes shouting people down until they shut up and then she doesn’t have to justify her beliefs. 

Cognitive dissonance can also be an influence to a group of people. In the beginning of the pandemic, even though masks were recommended as one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of coronavirus, Trump would always counter these scientists because he simply didn’t believe in what they proved to be true. Despite being a leader of a large nation, Trump failed as a leader to guide America through the devastating time by not listening to these policies supported by the top scientists who were specialized in pandemics. As a result, by the time that the pandemic was spiraling out of control, many of Trump’s followers have already engraved these beliefs that they didn’t need a mask because they don’t work anyways. It led to a huge problem where a large group of Trump’s supporters refused to wear a mask because masks “interrupt my freedom; they don’t work anyway, and I don’t need them” (Lord). Case numbers quickly rose due to the lack of protection, and not only that is dangerous for the Trumpies, it is also harmful for other people because they are now more vulnerable to catching Covid-19. Similarly, Abigail would make up lies about Mary Warren bewitching the court, and the girls in her group would follow suit with her lies even though they knew that she was making up these accusations. The reason that the other girls would also join in is because they were exposed to making up lies and accusing many people, and a majority of their victims have been executed. They had two choices, either to confess the truth and admit they weren’t up to no good, or they would have to make up something that would continue for them and other people to perceive these girls as “good” people who are bringing justice to Salem. Additionally, now that these girls have started this whole frenzy about witchcraft, more and more people are joining in the accusing party, to either save themselves or to get vengeance on their foes. Because witchcraft was so commonly used as an excuse to get rid of people to settle personal affairs, other people felt that it is completely normal to accuse innocent people and have their life taken away. “Most people, to protect their positive self-concepts, won’t reduce dissonance by admitting they were wrong, harmed another person, or held an opinion that should have been relegated to the trash bin in 1987. They will keep doing what they were doing -- and justifying it all the more fervently as being right, moral, and appropriate”. Abigail used cognitive dissonance as a mechanism to preserve her beliefs about our personal values, she did not admit that she was wrong nor did she stop her wicked actions, instead she tried to justify her actions by blaming the fault on other people. By making herself a victim, Abigail would get the faults off her name and at the time, put it on other people that she did not quite fancy: “I have naught to change sir. She lies” (642).

While commitment is one of the essential parts to maintaining our beliefs, it would be a big obstacle when we start to question ourselves because in order to reduce the uneasy feeling that doubting has caused, we would rather create something else such as a false reality for us to believe in instead of having to accommodate our beliefs. During the process of creating another reality to feel better about ourselves, we often neglect the responsibilities that come with our actions and lead to thosee4 responsibilities being transferred onto another individual. Everyone has experienced cognitive dissonance at least once in their lives, the only difference is whether we face our responsibilities or do we invalidate our actions.