Dissonance can be reduced by removing dissonant cognitions, adding new consonant cognitions, reducing the importance of dissonant cognitions, or increasing the importance of consonant cognitions. The likelihood that a particular cognition will change to reduce dissonance is determined by the resistance to change of the cognition. Cognitions that are less resistant to change will change more readily than cognitions that are more resistant to change. Resistance to change is based on the responsiveness of the cognition to reality and on the extent to which the cognition is consonant with many other cognitions. Resistance to change of a behavioral cognitive element depends on the extent of pain or loss that must be endured and the satisfaction obtained from the behavior. An example used by Festinger (1957) may assist in illustrating the theory. A habitual smoker who learns smoking is bad for his or her health will experience dissonance because the knowledge that smoking is bad for his or her health is dissonant with the cognition that he continues to smoke. He can reduce the dissonance by changing his behavior. That is, he could stop smoking, which would be consonant with the cognition that smoking is bad for health. Alternatively, the smoker could reduce dissonance by changing his cognition about the effect of smoking on health and believe that smoking does not have a harmful effect on health (eliminating the dissonant cognition). He might look for positive effects of smoking and believe that smoking reduces tension and keeps him from gaining weight (adding consonant cognitions). Or he might believe that the risk to health from smoking is negligible compared with the danger of automobile accidents (reducing the importance of the dissonant cognition). In addition, he might consider the enjoyment he gets from smoking to be a very important part of his life (increasing the importance of consonant cognitions).

If you are an attorney practicing law, or one looking for a position, when you are not grateful and are continually looking for negativity, you will usually find it. In fact, you will almost always find it. In 2001 and 2002, the market was catastrophically bad for corporate attorneys (especially junior corporate attorneys in the United States). Most corporate attorneys knew how bad the market was, and they were very aware of the complete lack of opportunities. Many corporate attorneys faced with such dire prospects and knowledge about the market simply gave up. I saw many enormously capable attorneys walk away from the practice of law completely. In terms of cognitive dissonance, these attorneys were simply looking for information that supported their belief system, which asserted the market was bad. Everywhere they turned they saw evidence to support their belief the market was horrible. This ultimately led many of them to leave the practice of law. However, I saw many other attorneys keep going, despite the slow market. In fact, these attorneys seemed grateful they had a chance to look at new opportunities in the market. Some of these attorneys said things like, “Well, I am not sure if I want to work in Hong Kong or in New York. I’m going to have to think about this.” I remember thinking to myself while listening to these attorneys, “Are these people insane? They think they have a choice?” Looking back, though, I realize there was something very powerful in the psychology of these attorneys. They believed they would consistently have good and exciting careers, and they looked for information in their environment to support this belief. What ended up happening, of course, is they consistently found good positions and their careers actually improved during an otherwise horrible time. In order to be happier, to do better in your current position, and to find new positions effectively, it is essential you learn to be grateful. Gratitude has to do with the sort of emotional energy on which you choose to focus. People who focus on negative emotions and are ungrateful will likely attract more unsatisfactory outcomes. Whether you feel you do not make enough money, resent others, or are dissatisfied with your work, negative emotions will not take you forward. In fact, these emotions will build upon themselves as they attract more of the same negativity over and over again. Cognitive dissonance theory says if you are upset with the world and your job, you will look for evidence that supports your views. Is this what you do? If so, you should immediately begin focusing on something positive. Like attracts like. People who do well are able to focus on positive emotions and are generally grateful. As you begin to focus on what you are grateful for, you will be amazed at how much there is to continually be grateful for. If you are an attorney, you should be grateful you have come as far as you have. You should be grateful for the opportunity to work on other people’s problems. The process of being grateful and looking for the positive is never-ending. Being happy with what you have and who you are is a very powerful feeling that will enable you to consistently improve and advance. When you view the world and your job positively, others will feel good when they are around you. Your employer or potential employer will feel appreciated. You will be excited about your work and will look to make a difference. Clients will pick up on your enthusiasm and gratitude and will want to give you more work. The more you focus on being excited and charged up about your work, the better your work will look to you. Instead of focusing on what you do not have, focus on what you do have and what is positive about your career. Your career has tons of potential, and so do you. Make lists of what is right about your career and what you are doing well. Make lists of what is good about your employer and why. Make lists of colleagues you like and why you like them. By focusing on the positive you will draw more positive elements into your life. In addition, focusing on the positive will improve your outlook and how you feel about the world and your life. While I have always been interested in studies that focus on the reasons attorneys supposedly have so many difficulties, I also know they wouldn’t experience most of them if they kept their focus on being grateful. Being grateful for what you have now will lead you to enjoy success and fulfillment in your career and life. THE LESSON In order for you to be effective in your position and successfully obtain new ones, you must express gratitude, and appreciate both what you have achieved and what you are becoming. Believe in positive things. Your career has great potential and so do you, and only by realizing this can you perceive the world around you as supporting your belief system.

“Choose the highest motive to which you think your audience will respond. If the speaker feels it necessary to appeal to motives not of the highest grades he should see to it that before he closes he makes them lead into higher motives.” Professor Barker illustrates with Beecher’s Speech at Liverpool, in which the orator during our Civil War was struggling with a very hostile audience of Englishmen. He argued that if slavery were abolished in the South, England would find a better market there for her goods, but “he connected this appear with the far higher motives of mere justice and the good of humanity … What gives its significant to [this] suggestion … is that few men are willing to admit that they have acted from motives considered low or mean. Even if they suspect this to be the case, they endeavor to convince themselves that it is not true. In an audience each man knows those about him see what moves him in a speaker’s words and therefore he yields most readily to a motive which he knows is generally commended–religious feelings, charity, devotion to one’s country, etc. . . . Since, then, men yield more willingly to motives generally commended, and since unanimity of action is more easily gained when the highest motives are addressed, this corollary to the suggestion last made may be formulated: The larger the audience, the higher the motives to which an appeal may be made.”

Similarly, in James Winans’ 1911 book Public Speaking, Principles and Practice, he writes:

While motives are frequently mixed, we need not cynically attribute right actions to selfishness, ambition or fear of public opinion. The average man really intends to do the right thing once his sense of responsibility is aroused. While most of us let down a bit when not under observation, we have certain principles of conduct, duty, honesty, honor, courage and generosity, in accordance with which we must live if we are to retain our self-respect. … The moral is: Do not fear to appeal to the best sentiments in your hearers. Assume they are better rather than worse than they are. They may respond to lower motives, but may also rise gladly to a higher plane.

When you are interviewing with companies it is always important that you ascribe good motives to the hiring of you. One of the most common hires that I make is in the legal recruiting industry. The legal recruiting industry, like all industries, is an industry where people can either make a lot of money or not much money. Since recruiting is somewhat of a sales-type position, many people applying to the work believe that what they are doing is all about sales, “closing” and making money. In terms of the way that I think about legal recruiting this could not be further from the truth. When I was younger I remember running an asphalt business and hiring people in drug rehabilitation centers in Detroit and teaching them about work and how to work for a company. Many of these people had grown up on the streets and had never worked in their lives. It is a real source of pride that I was able to make an impact, no matter how small, in the lives of these people. This is something I feel good about to this day because using my spirit and the energy inside me I felt like I was able to bring light into the lives of many of these people. When I became a legal recruiter I believed that I was also helping people. I felt that I was helping the people who had played by society’s rules make the most of themselves and that they deserved to have the best possible recruiter working for them. I felt that the work I was doing held a higher purpose and that I could positively impact the world by insuring that the attorneys with the most talent and soul ended up getting the best jobs. This is how I thought about my job and it is still how I think about my job today. Now that I run job boards and other career services I believe that I am creating opportunity and work for millions of people. I feel very good about what I am doing. I justify my actions and my life in terms of what I consider a higher purpose. This is why when people come in to speak with me for recruiting positions, for example, they demean me when they ascribe to me ideas such as they will make a lot of money in recruiting. When people cut corners in recruiting I feel the same way about their actions. If people are just focused on making money and so forth they typically do not do well in our organization. I believe people need to be working for higher motives. I do not consider myself special or all that unusual. When it comes right down to it, most employers will tell you that whatever they are doing there is some sort of noble purpose in what they are doing. A corporate attorney may tell you he prevents companies from being taken advantage of. A gas station mechanic will tell you he fixes cars so people can spend time traveling with their families. A stock broker will tell you he helps people invest money so they can retire. There is likely some noble and higher purpose to whatever any company or organization is doing. My challenge to you is to always think in terms of what the employer you are interviewing with or working for is doing that serves a higher purpose. When you understand this higher purpose, speak in terms of these in interviews and in your daily work. This will set you apart from most people and will put you on a higher and different plane than others. It will also make you appear to be a better choice in most instances for hiring and promotion. Everyone wants to be associated with what is good and noble. Being this person will have tremendous rewards for you in your career. THE LESSON Like everyone else, your employer wants to believe that he or she is a good person who stands for something positive in the world. Therefore, work to ascribe positive motives to your employer when in interviews, and think of in terms of how their work serves a higher purpose. Speaking about your and your employer’s work in these terms will put you on a higher plane than others, and will associate both of you with good and noble qualities.