Cognitive Dissonance

Executive Summary

Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), established under the UTAR Education Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, was officially launched on 13 August 2002. The establishment was timely with the recognition of the private education industry by the Government of Malaysia as a vital engine in stimulating and sustaining the growth of intellectual capital to meet the complex needs of an increasingly knowledge-based and innovation-driven economy. Especially Perak branch, the campus houses five faculties, namely as Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FAS), (FBF), (FEGT), (FICT), and (FSC). (CFS) and (ICS) is also located in this campus.(About UTAR, 2011, June 30) it offers a conducive, environment-friendly and community-fostering setting that enhances and fulfils the learning, teaching, research, and social needs of students and staff. This modern and aesthetically pleasing campus features state-of-the-art educational facilities, and provides students with access to some of the latest learning technologies and research innovations.

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Introduction

Cognitive dissonance can be defined as uncomfortable feeling causing by holding conflicting ideas at the same time. The concept of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their actions, beliefs and attitudes. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

On other meaning, cognitive dissonance can be summarized as a clash between two sets of conflicting beliefs, thus causing worried and discomfort. It is very hard to hold on to two separate and contrasting beliefs at the same time and when this happens a person try to automatically make changes in order to reduce or eliminate the feelings of discord and dissonance. ("The theory of cognitive dissonance," 2010)

According to Investopedia New and Articles (2011), unpleasant emotions will occurs when person believe two conflicting things at the same time. The study of cognitive dissonance is one of the most widely followed fields in social psychology. Cognitive dissonance can lead to irrational decision making as a person tries to reconcile his conflicting beliefs.

Next, cognitive dissonance can be described as State of psychological tension arising from incompatibility among a person's attitudes, behaviour, beliefs, and or knowledge, or when a choice has to be made between equally attractive or repulsive alternatives. One example is 'buyer's remorse,' a feeling of guilt associated with doubts about the advisability of a purchase decision that on experiences after making an expensive purchase. Marketers try to manage these doubts with supportive information such as testimonials, money-back guaranties, and after-sales service. ("Business Dictionary," 2011)

Our group consider that cognitive dissonance is a state of discomfort or tension in the individual when the individual feels himself to have an idea or notion that is inconsistent with others. When the emergence of this conflict situation, one would try to reduce the amount of tension or discomfort by altering their beliefs or change their opinion.

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Factors of cognitive dissonance

Management

Factors that lead to undergraduates experience cognitive dissonance in term of management problems at the university. This is due to the lack of systematic management in UTAR. Procedure university application system is very difficult. To study at this university, undergraduates must go through several steps to apply that in an online application or an application by mail. The replies will be sent to the universities in Petaling Jaya for processing. Their management processes are slow and less efficient. Some of undergraduates fail to receive the acceptance letter and some of them did not receive the letter at all. This incident will cause them fail to report within the prescribed time while the studies period has begun.

In addition, the rules and regulations of Department Examination were so strict. Undergraduates must take a particular subject again after their failure in the final examination. Indeed, they must attend all the lecture and tutorial classes. For instance, undergraduate who obtains a grade F must retake the subject that he or she failed. For its requirement, undergraduates must pay the examination fee in order to retake it. Other the other hand, undergraduates only retake the exam paper if we compare with the requirement of public universities like University of Utara Malaysia (UUM), University of Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) and others. Furthermore, undergraduates no need to attend all the lecture and tutorial classes.

Next, the management problems of Department Security that occur still unsolved. They did not concern about the invasion of wild animals such as cow and buffalo. Based on the universities rules and regulations, no wild animal can enter the universities area. This may caused the undergraduates safety is compromised. The risk of infringe the wild animal will faced by undergraduates during the night because they unable to see the condition of road clearly. Besides that, the lack of training for permanent security guard on safety knowledge is one of the management problems of Dep. Security.

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Facilities

There are some aspects of the undergraduate experience which contribute to the problem of cognitive dissonance on University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) Perak Campus. Since UTAR Perak Campus becomes main campus in Kampar, the number of students is increasing year by year. First of all, facilities in UTAR generally acknowledged one of the problems of cognitive dissonance.

For example, the number of car park in UTAR are less and insufficient. Because of the causes of this problem, UTAR implement the car sticker or motor sticker to solve the problem. However, those students who unsuccessful in registration for vehicle parking balloting and fail to get a vehicle sticker, they have to walk to campus or park their vehicle outside the campus and attend their class by foot. Besides that, the successful of vehicle parking balloting based on good luck and randomly picked. Consequently, the students who fail get the vehicle sticker feel unfair on this situation and the cognitive dissonance is happened.

Moreover, the location of building makes the students in troubled especially those students who unsuccessful in registration