My favourite lesson from 1st year psychology was the one about “cognitive dissonance”, which means the incompatibility between 2 cognitions. Basically the tensions that exist between 2 opposing thoughts. In psychology the term can also refer to the driving force of the mind to change or harmonize our ideas to eliminate cognitive dissonance. An experiment to demonstrate this involved 2 neighbourhoods, one was left alone while the other had someone go door to door asking people to sign a very vague petition supporting the environment. People seldom dispute the environment as a good thing worth supporting and the personal cost of signing a petition is about nil so it was very successful. Two weeks later campaigners went to both neighbourhoods asking if they could install huge ugly signs on their lawns for an environmental campaign. In the untouched neighbourhood most people refused, as the benefit to the environment from ugly lawn signs is small but the personal cost of having to see them every time you come home is great. In the 2nd neighbourhood the campaigner would say “Hello, we got your name from a list of supporters of the environment who signed a petition and were wondering if you would...” These homeowners suddenly experienced cognitive dissonance, they might actually have been apathetic about the environment but such a self-image was at tension with the fact that they had signed the petition. Now when confronted by someone who externally identified them as “environmentalists” the rest of their thoughts were forced to harmonize with that image. Maybe the sign isn’t that ugly, maybe it really will help the cause, maybe its my duty to have an ugly lawn sign, etc. The result is that when compared to the control group, there was a very significant increase in the number of people willing to install the signs.
I’m a paid intern, which is almost a contradiction in terms and certainly an exception to the rule. I’ve been placed at NATO by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who give me a fairly generous stipend, under a now axed programme that the government has deemed “redundant”. Most of the NATO interns are paid zip, zero, natta. However few interns would consider their time to be worth nothing, and so cognitive dissonance leads them to focus on the non-monetary rewards of their work (experience, contacts, etc). Meeting the Secretary-General of NATO is one of those rewards, and so I think the interns (myself included) might have expected a little more in exchange of their free labour.
In fairness there are a lot of goddamn interns here. With 26 member countries it would only take 2 from each to make 52. In practice though some countries have lots (US, Canada, Germany) others have none (Latvia, Turkey got 1 recently). When the SG finally shows up for his photo the photographer has to keep taking back steps to fit all the interns into the frame. Snap snap snap, he takes the new shots for the NATO newsletter. We head inside a conference room, one of the older ones with wood panels that reminds you that the HQ was built in the 1970’s. We get a brief and unexciting Q&A with the SG and that’s it. Most of us would not have wanted too much more, a handshake, a prepared speech, maybe a cup of coffee…well as momentous as it all was I’m sure the interns are now much more eager to receive their first pay cheques, a stipend of 600 euros a month in exchange of their service to international peace and security.
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