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RUNNING HEAD: COGNITIVE DIFFRENCES BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE GREEKS

Julian McGhee
Media 304
M. Borich

Intercultural Cognitive Dissonance Between Black and White Greek Organizations

Think about an incoming freshmen Caucasian male student watching the news and seeing

African American’s destroying neighborhoods, killing people, invading homes and selling drugs.

He has never been around any other race but his own his whole life growing up in a small

populated town. He believed that all African American’s were loud, obnoxious, dangerous, and

judgmental. When he comes to college he knows that he wants to join a fraternity, and on his

first day of classes he sees all of the Greek organizations passing out information. The BGO

(Black Greek organizations) attempt to approach him, and he decides to ignore them. Then he

proceeds to converse with the WGO (White Greek Organizations) on how to join their

organizations. His conclusion on not to be involved or interested with BGO because of his

deductive reasoning on African American’s lead to a great example of Cognitive Dissonance.

The Cognitive Dissonance theory was developed by Leon Festinger an American

Cognitive psychologist who was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1919 (Suls, J. 2018). While at

the University of Minnesota he read about a cult that believed that the end of the world was

coming. This group believed this phenomenon was coming because a woman said extraterrestrial

aliens told her that a great flood would come on a specific date. Festinger and a group of

colleagues decided to pose as these believers to see how they would react if their prophecy

failed. After the prophecy was confirmed to be a false prediction for the end of the world, the

behavior of the believers confirmed Festinger’s theory of Cognitive Dissonance. This theory is
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the information that is not consistent with a person’s already-held attitudes, values, and beliefs

that create physiological discomfort, or dissonance (Baran,S.J & Davis, D.K. 2015). If a person

believes strongly on an idea that they physically, or mentally affirm through personal experience

and shared information they are more likely to be firm in that belief regardless if it could not be

true.

Students who have religious and spiritual beliefs can go through things that may impact

their college education. Students who come from small town, that have high religious practices

and secular institutions are more likely to struggle to hold onto their religious beliefs while in

college. Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification and affiliation

with religious values and institutions toward nonreligious values and secular institutions. A case

study on college students from the Central Florida area was surveyed with measures of exploring

the likelihood of students experiencing tension between their religious, spiritual beliefs and

college experiences (Gaulden, S. 2013). The sample size consisted of college students through

online surveys for a university and paper surveys to a state school. The students were asked by

the professor or colleagues to complete the online survey, while the paper surveys were

distrusted during class. The questions asked about their college education, experience,

religion/spirituality and tension from college.

The hypothesis to focused on for this case was if students who reported higher levels of

religiosity and spirituality will report experiencing higher levels of cognitive dissonance from

their course material and college experience than those who report lower levels of spirituality

and religiosity. Jeremy Uecker, Mark Regenerus, and Margaret Vaaler study researched the

decline of student’s religious involvement and normative deviance in participating in

extracurricular and non-academic activities. This behavior can include partying and/or drinking,
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involvement in student organizations, fraternities, sororities and volunteering that could

contradict their own religious teachings (Uecker J, Regenerus M, Vaaler M. 2007). Some of

these behaviors support the cognitive dissonance theory for students who are aware that their

actions go against their salient religious beliefs and practices. The proposed hypothesis was

unsupported because there was no significant relationship found between student’s

religiosity/spirituality and experience tension with their college experience. There was a decrease

in cognitive dissonance with the increase of religious attendance between college experience and

religious/spiritual beliefs.

Another study on the effects of cognitive dissonance on college students by Matthew L.

Supple, explored the relationship between fraternity/sorority affiliation and SPT (Social

perspective taking). This is an ability to see how things look both cognitively and emotionally

from another’s point of view. The study explains the importance of developing SPT through

exposure of diverse peers, students that have to take in diverse perspectives within their first year

of school will resolve their cognitive dissonance (Supple, M. L. 2015). There were in six

different sought answers for this Study, the research question focused on said, are there

significant differences in social perspective taking scores for women vs. social sorority women

vs multicultural sorority women and for men vs. social fraternity men vs multicultural fraternity

men?

To gathering more information, in 2012 a MSL survey instrument containing eight scales

made up of six to nine questions each, was e-mailed to students to participate in for feedback.

The actual data used in the study was from the 2009 survey data because it was reported from the

University of Maryland and the 2012 survey wasn’t. The results from the study showed that

multicultural sorority women had higher SPT than non-sorority women but there wasn’t any
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significant difference. The data showed that Multicultural fraternity men had significantly higher

SPT scores than non-fraternity men, who had significantly higher SPT scores than social

fraternity men. The correlation of the results prove that cognitive dissonance was prevalent in the

WGO because they were not involved in diverse social environments because they are the

predominant race on campus. While in comparison to non-Greeks who only had low SPT scores

in diverse social environments. The BGO had higher SPT scores because they have more diverse

social environments, and diverse memberships that create a better perspective in diversity.

For my proposed research study, I would conduct a survey on four of the largest member

Greek chapters within the WGO and BGO on Missouri State campus. There would be one

sorority and fraternity from the WGO and the same from the BGO. The reason to choose this

particular group amount is because organizations with bigger numbers have more impact on

campus interaction and insight than smaller member Greek chapters. I would use an online 5-

point Likert-scale web survey consisting of 5 questions. There would be an e-mail sent out to the

selected four chapters that are participating and give them one day to complete the survey.

The objective of this survey would be to study the problems of cognitive dissonance with

Social interaction and support between the BGO and WGO on campus. Once I get the results of

the survey from participants, I would identify the main sources of the problem and report it to the

WGO and BGO advisors. The main purpose of this study is to help strengthen student perception

on black Greek life on campus. The potential outcome from this research study would be to

educate and advocate for both sides on how efforts on support and interaction can improve.

These efforts could increase non-Greek student involvement for both councils and remove the

cognitive dissonance that separates the two councils. This could decrease shaped perception of

non-Greek black students and black Greek students on campus, that would lower the cognitive
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dissonance college freshmen experience when they arrive to campus and take the time on

education practices on multicultural opportunities.

5-Point Likert scale for proposed research study

Strongly Somewhat Neither Somewhat Strongly

Agree Agree Agree Disagree

I was not aware of Black Greek

1 2 3 4 5
organizations on campus

I don’t like to attend other Greek

1 2 3 4 5
organizations than my own

I believe that there is a divide

1 2 3 4 5
between Greek councils

I notice that my organization

1 2 3 4 5
doesn’t support other Greek events

and I do nothing

I want to make a change, but don’t

1 2 3 4 5
know how to go about it.
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References
Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2015). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment, and

future. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Gaulden, S. (2013). Exploring Cognitive Dissonance between College Students’ Religious and

Spiritual Beliefs and Their Higher Education. THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL

FLORIDA UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL,6.2, 82-93.

Suls, J. (2018, May 06). Leon Festinger.

Supple, M. L. (2015). College impact on social perspective taking: Measuring the effect of

fraternity/sorority affiliation (Doctoral dissertation, Thesis / Dissertation ETD)

[Abstract].

Uecker J, Regenerus M, Vaaler M. (2007). “Losing My Religion: The Social Sources of

Religious Decline in Early Adulthood.” Social Forces 85(4): 1667-92.