Cognitive Dissonance

In the 1950s, Stanford psychologist Leon Festinger famously used the term "cognitive dissonance" to describe the discomfort we feel when our behaviors don't align with our beliefs. Festinger found that people will go to great lengths to reduce dissonance. In one well-known experiment, those who had been asked to falsely claim that a boring task - placing spools on a tray, for instance - was fun were later found to have persuaded themselves that the task really was fun. They had crossed over from hypocrisy to something more pathetic: self-deception.

On the other hand one could argue that this same group of people found out creative ways to entertain the bored mind over the repetitive (and simple) task. Now that would possibly account for how much the mind attunes itself to the predicament in question and how much it assumes this state of repetitive activity would continue on. To explain that last statement better lets take the case of punishment by imprisonment. After the initial few days of 'aclimatizing' with the jailed surroundings, the time that a prisoner potentially takes to get attuned to the place and other inmates is inversely proportional to the period of stay. That is to say a prisoner with a few years of judgement under his/her belt is likely to find creative ways to entertain himself / herself in imprisonment versus one handed down the capital imprisonment.

Having stated that, I do understand that one could potentially argue the opposite too and present a mounting evidence to support that case. I do not have anything other than the tremendous possbilities of the human mind to expand and adapt to situations and people to offer as a plausible excuse to such a trend!

In this light, is getting married, having kids and so advancing conservatism in life, a heartfelt, doomed effort to change sexuality, or just a hypocritical ploy by the clouded mind?