Cognitive Dissonance in University

Contents

1.0: Understanding of the concept of Cognitive Dissonance 1

2.0: Contributors to the problem of cognitive dissonance on a university campus 2

2.1: Course of study 2

2.2: Lack of freedom and respect 2

2.3: Accommodation 3

2.4: Lack of disposable free time 3

2.5: Academically challenging 3

2.6: Facilities 4

2.7: Transportation and car parking issue 4

2.8: Administration 4

2.9: Safety 5

3.0: Reasons on why UTAR should concern with the presence of cognitive dissonance 5

4.0: Suggestion on how to address the presence of cognitive dissonance 7

4.1: Students' self-compromising 7

4.2: Understanding the mindset of new generation 8

4.3: Encouraging active learning environment 8

4.4: Decrease the idealistic view of rivals 9

5.0: Implementations of short term plans by UTAR 9

5.1: Provides comprehensive academic support and career services 9

5.2: Time management program 10

5.3: Management by walking around 10

6.0: Executive summary 11

7.0: Reference 12

1.0: Understanding of the concept of Cognitive Dissonance

The early research of cognitive dissonance is started by Festinger (1957): "A kind of psychological tension resulting from perceived inconsistencies in cognitions". This theory treats cognition as a piece of knowledge. The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, behavior, a value, and so on.

Hasty and Reardon (1997) believe that when people recognize inconsistency between their values or opinions and their behaviour, they tend to feel an inner tension or anxiety called cognitive dissonance (postpurchase doubt). They will be driven to reduce this state of tension and will take action to reduce this state of tension and will take action to return to consonance (the opposite of dissonance).

Etzel, Walker and Stanton (2001)state that cognitive dissonance is a state of anxiety brought on by the difficulty of choosing from among alternatives. A tertiary education is considered a high involvement investment because it may change the life of a student in his/her future. It just as important as the decision of buying house or car, engage in marriage, family planning.

The marketers started to apply cognitive dissonance in consumer post purchase behavior. Hence, cognitive dissonance in the discipline of marketing is also known as post purchase dissonance.

Fill (2002)suggests that consumers experience tension following a difficult decision and may behave in some strange ways in an effort to reduce the dissonance.

Some marketers might think that cognitive dissonance is: "Discomfort of dissonance occurs when a consumer holds conflicting thoughts about a belief or an attitude object." (Schiffman, 2008)

In tertiary educations, we can view an institution as a company that offers education service to the undergraduates and the undergraduates would be the customers of the institution. Hence, the definition cognitive dissonance in term of marketing is the most appropriate to analyze the post purchase behavior of students.

Given the level of involvement of the institutional decision, some students may experience psychological discomfort at some point in their academic careers. The challenge of UTAR is to deal effectively with this phenomenon in order to achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

2.0: Contributors to the problem of cognitive dissonance on a university campus

When freshmen enter into the UTAR campus, they may encounter many problems during the study such as facilities, administration, accommodation, courses of study and etc.

2.1: Course of study

The course of study is the most significance contributor to the problem of cognitive dissonance. A lot of students do not really engage in the courses that can pursue their ambitions or dreams. Maybe it is due to their parents' decisions, financial limitation, the vacancies of the courses or even they are in between two minds, and hold a wait and see attitude. For example, A student may want to study Art, but his parents wanted him to study Accounting, he has to obey to his parents order.

2.2: Lack of freedom and respect

The requirement of 80% attendance during lecture and tutorial class has always been an issue among students. Some argue that the 80 percent attendance it too strict and it should be lower down. Some also argue that students have to right either to attend the class or not.

The phenomenon of signing for peers' attendant has happen long time ago, but the school authority is just turn a blind eye on this issue. Many students complaint that it is not fair to whom follow the rules. It also such a primitive and inefficient way to pass the attendance list around to sign the attendance.

2.3: Accommodation

One of the disputed issues of accommodation among students is no hostel provided in the campus. This has forced students to find accommodation out of the campus compound, which directly caused the increase of rental price of housing area nearby campus. One of the examples is 'Danish House' residential area, the average rental fee of a single room is not less than RM250. The market price is over than the price in the secondary city like Ipoh, and it may catch up the price in metropolitan city like Kuala Lumpur. According to the news report of Merdekareview, UTAR has neglected a donation amounted to thirty million for the purpose of building hostel. (UTAR neglected on 30mil donation, 2010) Since UTAR is a non-profit organization, it has raised a lot of dispute in the society.

2.4: Lack of disposable free time

Many students complaint that they are having insufficient time to relax and socialize. For every semester, the most freely time the first three weeks, and after that, the time of students will be fulled with mid-term exams and assignments, and the last