Cognitive dissonance and university education in Venezuelan migration time

Abstract

Cognitive dissonance (CD) represents a fairly common psychological element in society. People, regardless of age or social status and much less levels of education, often fall permanently in this game of ideas between values ​​and realities. This means that the moral and ethical development of a society is often marred by circumstances that directly affect the own and common good. Cognitive dissonance, based on the symbolic representations of each social actor, can be studied from the university field, seen as a space in which individuals meet based on free thinking and where the construction and deconstruction of ideas and that complicates the individual's own reality which makes an impact on his environment. Cognitive dissonance, in a Venezuelan reality where migration has caused desolation in universities, becomes part of the dialogic discussions of the teaching staff and occupies the attention of numerous researchers, politicians and economists in the country. In this paper, the objective is to reveal the symbolic representations of student and teacher thinking in consideration of cognitive dissonance and the issue of Venezuelan migration. Their ideas, their opinions and their feelings are exposed as a form of expression about their internal worlds as participants belonging to a society with their own characteristics. The method is hermeneutics based on qualitative methodology. The interview was used as the main information gathering technique. Conclusion: the Venezuelan social environment is surrounded by a crisis of analysis, personality and values, which they present thanks to the great cognitive dissonance (and self-deception that it entails) in almost all aspects of daily life, thus becoming in a sad nation, contemptuous and little compromised.