Investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cognitive dissonance of adolescents

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on adolescent mental health, leading to the formation of distinct perspectives on the pandemic. These perspectives often give rise to internal conflict within individuals. In this study, we aimed to examine the variability and complexity of these perspectives through the lens of cognitive dissonance, the psychological discomfort one feels when their external behaviors do not align with their internal beliefs. We collected the data through self-reported surveys, which assessed participant (teenagers aged 13-18) agreement with various opinions and statements related to the pandemic. The survey encompassed five main categories, or “batteries”: general COVID-19, vaccination, masking, government/authority, and school. We had three primary hypotheses: 1) adolescents would experience dissonance, 2) adolescents would consider different aspects of the pandemic independently from each other and hence cross-battery scores would be statistically different, and 3) both gender and vaccination status would have an effect on dissonance levels. Our results corroborated the conjecture that study participants experienced dissonance, as three out of the five batteries displayed mean scores indicative of dissonance. Furthermore, as evidenced by the absence of significant correlation (no r constant was greater than 0.341) and the presence of statistically significant differences between individual batteries (with seven out of nine comparisons having p-values <0.05), we proved our second hypothesis true. Lastly, through a linear regression test, we identified gender, albeit not vaccination status, to have a considerable effect on adolescents' dissonance scores.