mi u Ottawa L’Universitt' canadienne Canada’s university Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES K S S I FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES UOttawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L’Univorsild canadiennc Canada’s university Shaunna Burke Ph.D. (Education) Faculty o f Education FACULTiTlCOLETD^^^ Learning Through Narratives of Experience: Exploring Mount Everest Climbers’ Cognitive Dissonance from an Ethnomethodological Perspective TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Raymond Leblanc EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRICES) DE LA THESE / THESIS EXAMINERS Celine Blanchard Pierre Trudel James Denison Judith Robertson Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Facuite des Atudes supirieures et postdodorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Learning Through Narratives of Experience: Exploring Mount Everest Climbers’ Cognitive Dissonance From an Ethnomethodological Perspective by Shaunna Burke Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Post doctoral Studies of the University of Ottawa in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education Ottawa, Canada, 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © Shaunna Burke, Ottawa, Canada, 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For Ben Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract The purpose o f the present study was to explore how Mount Everest climbers experienced cognitive dissonance in their natural setting. This study also set out to explore the role of self- concept and feelings in Mount Everest climbers’ experiences with the phenomenon. Guided by the ethnomethodological (Garfinkel, 1967) school of thought, Aronson’s (1968, 1992) self- consistency revision of Festinger’s (1957) original cognitive dissonance theory and the Resonance Performance Model (Newburg, Kimiecik, Durand-Bush, & Doell, 2002) were used as conceptual guides. The research methodology included a narrative (Sparkes, 2002) multicase study (Stake, 1995) approach involving multiple in-depth interviews captured on video and participant observation captured by field notes. Six climbers attempting to scale Mount Everest comprised the case studies; five men and one woman. Data were collected over an entire climbing season and one month after the participants returned home from the mountain. Guided by Gergen and Gergen’s (1983) strategy for analyzing the structure and content of narratives, data analysis occurred on three levels. First, for each participant the researcher developed a background profile. Second, a narrative case study analysis was performed to explore how the participants experienced cognitive dissonance. The third level of data analysis entailed a cross­ case study analysis to explore the patterns of similarity and difference between narratives or themes expressed. Cognitive dissonance was routinely experienced by all six of the participants to socially organize behavior and produce a sense of order from within the Mount Everest culture. That is, whenever the participants interpreted a discrepancy between their behavior and their own standards for competence and morality, which derive from the conventional morals and prevailing values of the society to which they belonged, they experienced feelings of psychological discomfort which lead them to try and reduce or eliminate it through a process of self-justification. Specifically, this process of reducing cognitive dissonance involved the climbers reconstructing the past in such a way that restored their pre-formed notion o f self. Through language and reasoning, which were part and parcel with the situated activities of climbing the mountain, the climbers arrived at an interpretation of their day-to-day activities that not only appeared normal, natural, and real, but also felt good to them. The climbers’ experiences with cognitive dissonance, which were defined by an ongoing reconstruction of meaning, allowed them to make sense o f self-discrepant acts as they strived to achieve not only a sense of cognitive and affective self-consistency but also shared knowledge. The findings in the present study provide support for Aronson’s (1968, 1992) self-consistency perspective of cognitive dissonance. More importantly, the study’s most notable contribution to the existing body of work on cognitive dissonance is not the empirically based confirmation that Mount Everest climbers do indeed experience dissonance when their self-concept is involved, but an explanation of how the processes underlying the phenomenon are experienced in the minds of these climbers when under extreme physical and psychological duress. Using an ethnomethodological narrative case study approach, this study afforded a unique way of understanding how cognitive dissonance is internalized in the subjective consciousness of climbers. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people who have supported me in various ways throughout this journey. To all of the climbers who put aside the time to share their personal stories climbing the mountain with me. I am grateful for your willingness and courage to speak openly about your experiences climbing Mount Everest. To Daphne Ducharme for sharing your expertise in ethnomethodology and helping me make sense o f difficult concepts. To my committee members, Dr. Pierre Trudel, Dr. Judith Robertson, and Dr. Celine Blanchard, thank you for your continued support and insight. Your feedback has helped me immensely in ensuring the quality of this study and has encouraged me to step outside of my comfort zone and expand my intellectual capabilities. To my thesis supervisors, Dr. Raymond Leblanc and Dr. Natalie Durand-Bush, thank you for believing in me. Dr. Leblanc’s love of learning, generous spirit, and expertise has been invaluable in the completion of this study. I could have never asked for a better supervisor. For Dr. Durand-Bush, thank you for the encouragement you provided throughout this process and for your meticulous attention to detail. This dissertation would not have been possible without your help. To my family, thank you for your love and unending support. You have always been there for me as I follow my dreams. A special thank you goes to Ben, my partner, for walking the steps with me along this journey. I would not be where I am today without the doors that you have opened to help me fulfill my goals. For this I am eternally grateful. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Description of the Problem 1 Leon Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance 3 Aronson’s Self-Consistency Perspective 7 Resonance Performance Model 8 Emergence of the Problem 9 A Story of Cognitive Dissonance 10 Purpose of the Study 16 Chapter 2: Review of Relevant Discourses 17 High Altitude Mountaineering Background 17 Definition of High Altitude Mountaineering 18 Styles of Climbing 22 Types of Mountaineering Expeditions 24 Typical High Altitude Mountaineering Objectives 27 Mount Everest History