Scenario number one: You’re walking across your front lawn when you hear the clatter of falling objects. You turn to see your neighbor, whose bag of groceries has just split open, watching mournfully as oranges and soup cans roll away in all directions. You take a step forward to offer your help, then remember how the night before she ignored your request to turn down the music at her pool party.

Do you go over to help her gather her groceries, or do you smile inwardly at the beauty of karma?

Scenario number two: You spot a coworker struggling to operate the new copy machine. Your first impulse is to show him how it works. But last week, when he saw you hurrying to catch the elevator, he let the doors close in your face.

Do you help him with the copier, or do you tell yourself he needs to learn what happens when you’re not a team player?

In either of these situations, you probably feel fully justified in withholding your assistance from the person who withheld theirs from you. You aren’t taking revenge, exactly. You simply don’t feel motivated to put yourself out.

But what impact does not controlling your actions and indulging this kind of tit for tat have on a culture, a community, or a workplace? Is the momentary pleasure of feeling like an agent of justice worth the cost of contributing to a cold, indifferent, or even hostile environment?

The first and most dangerous enemy of ethics is rationalization. It’s one thing we’re all really good at, which makes resisting it an ongoing challenge in our efforts to live ethical lives.

On some level, we know we should change our attitudes to improve our behavior and control our actions. But that’s usually a losing battle. Far more effective is committing ourselves to modify our behavior to transform our attitudes.

There’s a name for what makes this work. And it’s this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

cognitive dissonance (cog·?ni·?tive dis·so·nance/ kog-ni-tiv dis-uh-nuhns) noun

The psychological discomfort felt when behavior does not conform with values, feelings, or beliefs

When actions and feelings fail to align, the resulting tension impels the subconscious mind to eliminate our discomfort by altering one or the other. We could choose to act differently and thereby affirm our feelings. But when we persist in the behavior, we may soon discover that our feelings seem to change on their own.

What’s truly fascinating is that thousands of years before psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term in 1957, ancient Jewish wisdom taught us the identical principle. In Exodus 23 we read:

If you see your enemy’s donkey buckling under its load, will you pass by? Surely, you will stop to help him.

This raises a couple of questions: Why only my enemy’s donkey? And why emphasize helping him rather than helping the donkey?

It comes down to a lesson in human psychology. Often, we brand others as “enemies” merely because they’ve committed minor trespasses against us, or because of some mildly unpleasant encounter. Over time, minor aversion inflates to feelings of acute dislike that lack any rational basis.

However, when we cooperate to attain a common goal, a sense of camaraderie automatically takes hold. By sharing a collective purpose, those unfounded feelings of animosity give way to mutual respect, which might then blossom into cordiality or even friendship. A little cognitive dissonance helps control our actions and goes a long way.

But that’s not its only application. Sometimes, we don’t need ill will to rationalize indifference to the suffering of others. In those situations as well, cognitive dissonance can come to our aid.

Back in the 1970s, behavioral scientists John Darley and Daniel Batson staged an experiment among students at Princeton University’s Theological Seminary. Subjects were told they were needed on very short notice as substitute teachers. The topic of the lecture was the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan who stopped to help an injured robbery victim by the side of the road while other passersby offered no assistance.

Some of the subjects were told that the class was scheduled to start right that minute across campus, so they were already late and needed to hustle to salvage even a portion of the lecture. As they hurried on their way, each subject “happened upon” an injured person lying on the sidewalk. This was an acting student in league with the experimenters.

Despite being headed to teach a parable about helping strangers in distress, only 10% of the students stopped to offer assistance. Among those subjects told they had plenty of time to get to the lecture, 63% stopped to help. That’s a big improvement, but more than one in three still failed to stop.

In this case, the culprit wasn’t animosity but distraction. The seminary students were so fixated on teaching the lesson that they failed to recognize when a practical application of that very lesson appeared right before their eyes.

The seemingly injured person on the sidewalk was not their enemy and didn’t have a donkey. Nevertheless, the pressure they felt to deliver the lecture created the same kind of disconnect between their values and their behavior. In all likelihood, they barely noticed the person lying on the ground.  

Imagine if, as they set off to give the lecture, the theology students had said to themselves: “I’m going as fast as I can, and I know the subject as well as I’m able to. I can’t get there faster, and I can’t know the topic better, so there’s no reason for me to feel pressured.” By remaining psychologically at ease even while making haste, the students might have retained the presence of mind to pause long enough to contemplate the choice before them.

By remaining composed, we notice more of what’s right in front of us. By noticing, we stop to consider our options. That’s where cognitive dissonance comes in. 

The subconscious mind asks itself: If I’m in a rush, why have I stopped? I should be hurrying to take care of business.

The subconscious answers itself: Maybe there’s a higher priority here. Maybe helping an injured person is more important than standing in for an absent lecturer.

The same principle applies when facing any ethical dilemma: pause, notice, question, consider.

We can’t control our feelings. But we can control our actions and our inactions. By taking responsibility for our behavior, we can bring our attitudes and emotions into line. And that will influence those around us to be more accountable for their actions as well, contributing to healthier and happier communities.