Easier said than done Ted. I'm not particularly willing to uproot my entire life and move to a new city away from all my friends and family. That's why sometimes I think it would have been easier i I had been born in Melbourne where the property prices are far cheaper.
And Kef, of course I'm going to get critisised for complaining about the housing prices in Sydney when there are people worse off than me, but by that logic I guess none of us have the right to complain about anything.

Haha - I know I sound like I'm being an ass. In Australia we call them "marshmellows".

That definition of cognitive dissonance is not entirely accurate (I think we all know the limitations of info from Wiki). A more accurate definition would be the feeling of discomfort we experience when there are inconsistencies between our attitudes and behaviour. But according to Festinger's (who also coined the term) theory of cognitive dissonance, that feeling of conflict is a motivational state which causes us to try to resolve it. Research shows that the most common way that people resolve this conflict is by changing our attutudes to make them consistant with this unlikely behaviour. For example;

Unlikely behaviour: eating something we think looks disgusting in the absence of any external motivation (e.g. being paid or dared to eat it).
Conflict: "Why the hell would I eat something that's so obviously disgusting. What was I thinking? I wouldn't normally do this."
Change of attitude to resolve conflict: "Perhaps it's not so bad after all."

Of course if you didn't know in advance that these "Fries" would actually be made of marshmellows (what we call them in Australia), and upon tasting them they were unexpectedly sweet, that would be a shock, and probably cause you to be disgusted, but "cognitive dissonance" is not an entirely accurate way to describe that experience. It would be more of an inconsistency between visual and taste/olfactory stimuli.
I'm not trying to correct you to be a snob. I just think it's a fascinating theory that can be applied to so many aspects of our lives and that can explain a lot.
Read the rest of the Wiki page for more information or further research it. I think you'll find the theory fascinating. I remember there was an post on Neatorama a while ago about it too - something about tribes and their unlikely ideas about what is attractive.

Terry,
First of all, it’s constructivism, not “constructionism”, and it is a theory, and not at all one that is incompatible with psychology. Check out the work of Piaget and Vygotsky
(particularly his “zone of proximal development”), two very famous psychologists who were heavily influenced by social constructivism, and whose work is taught to today’s budding psychologists.
Also, social constructivism was originally proposed by sociologists (one of the first being Berger, who had no qualms about the field of psychology). Sociology and psychology both come under the umbrella of the social sciences and are very similar. Sociology is particularly entwined with relationship psychology (which is what the above study is about), and researchers in those fields will often use work by those in the other field as references for their research.
Indeed normality (or should I say abnormality) is a construct, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real and shouldn’t be researched or defined. Emotions are constructs too. So what? All that means is that they can’t be directly measured, but they can be indirectly measured. Personality and memory are also constructs, but that doesn’t discredit their existence in any way and we are still developing means to indirectly measure them.
There is indeed truth to the theory of constructivism, as there is to many theories. If you would open your mind to alternate theories, like psychological evolutionary theory for example, you could say that gender roles are influenced by both our physical differences (men are stronger, women almost invariably will have a closer bond to her infants), as well as what we are taught as we are growing up is acceptable for each gender. Gender roles are also influenced by hormones and hormones are not a construct, so it is ignorant so close minded as to assert that gender roles are entirely a social construct and nothing else. Many other theories come into play here too, psychoanalytic, social learning, learning theory etc... Why ignore them all?
An example of evidence that gender roles are not entirely defined by social constructs comes in the form of children who are born with the exterior genitalia of a female, and so are assumed to be female, and raised as little girls, but are eventually discovered to be genetic males (they have a y chromosome, undescended testes, and no uterus or ovaries). A number of studies have been conducted on the behaviours of these children when their condition is discovered early but they are still raised as little girls. These girls were found to have significantly more “tomboyish” behaviours than normal girls. They showed more of an interest in rough and tumble play, “boy toys”, such as trucks, and had drawing styles more typical of boys (drawing from an aerial view, subject matters such as planes rather than dogs and people). They also held a marked dislike of girls’ toys and clothes. When they grew up, around 50% became lesbians (compared to approx. 2% in the general population). Now if these children have been raised as little girls and believe they are little girls, why do they behave so much like little boys?
If you’re referring to Foucalt’s "Mental Illness and Psychology", he later changed his opinions on the matter and disclaimed any responsibility or association for the work.
Your line of reasoning is philosophical, but also illogical. Without jails there would be no criminals? What about the criminal who never goes to jail? No, without jails there would be no prisoners, but there would be criminals. Using your warped sense of logic one could also state that without hospitals and doctors there would be no sickness.
I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but I think I can safely assume that I have far more education and have done far more research in the field of psychology than you (having a degree in psychology), and I ask that you don’t take such a brutal and negative stance on an industry that is there to look after people’s health and wellbeing. To be mentally sound is just as important to your health as exercising and eating correctly. And it’s not about the money either. As I said, in Australia, the majority of psychologists work in public health care and get paid very little. I also dedicate a lot of my time to unpaid, volunteered counselling, as do many of my peers.

Um, we haven't cured cancer yet.
There is an immunisation against a particular sexually transmitted virus that is the main cause of cervical cancer, but that's hardly a cure.

"That's my girlfriend..."?!?! What a PATHETIC loser! He needs to get his priorities straight!