Cognitive dissonance is defined by Gilovich et all’s textbook as “ A theory that maintains the inconsistencies among a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions create an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency”. While this definition is true it also quite confusing. To understand this first the words that make up the term need to be understood. Cognition is a mental action, it involves gaining knowledge and understanding through use of thoughts, senses, and experiences. This cognition can produce a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition. Dissonance is simply a discrepancy among two things. In the case of cognitive dissonance this discrepancy is between any two of the following; an idea, …show more content…
There are four distinct ways to reduce cognitive dissonance; Change the behavior or cognition, justify the behavior or cognition by changing conflicting cognition, justify the behavior or cognition by adding new cognitions, or ignore or deny any information that conflicts with one 's existing beliefs.
Cognitive dissonance was created by Leon Festinger in 1957. While it is just a theory is widely regarded as fact. Festinger created this theory when he was doing an observational study on a cult that believed the world was to be destroyed by a flood and the cult members would be spared by aliens. Cult members sold or gave away their positions, including their homes, and their jobs and then waited to be rescued by aliens. The aliens never came and the earth was obviously not destroyed. Festinger noticed a trend where the extremely committed members of the cult believed that the earth was spared due to the members extreme faith. The less committed members chocked it up to a bad mistake on their part or a worthwhile experience and ceased believing in the cult. This is a classic example of cognitive dissonance, the members with the highest commitment and faith changed their beliefs to think that their faith had spared the earth. The members who hadn 't given up their homes and jobs, lost faith in the cult. The two separate belief changes by the two groups were both ways to relieve the cognitive dissonance created when the aliens never
His theory asserts people have different views about the world around them; however, when these cognitions clash, an inconsistency arises which results in a state known as cognitive dissonance. People are then motivated to reduce the disharmony by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors or justify and rationalize them. His theory continues to be essential in psychology, communication, and other areas of theoretical study. Cognitive dissonance addresses the inescapable human propensity to rationalize contradictory thoughts. The theory indicates a state of mind involving an individual’s conflicting attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Dissonance creates a feeling of disharmony possibly leading to a change in an individual’s attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors in order to decrease the disharmony and restore a balance of harmony. Therefore, people have an internal drive to keep their attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in harmony in order to keep from experiencing
If one is trying to pull a thought or feeling in closer, or push it away, they may be attempting to manipulate their cognitive dissonance. If one knows that they are not happy with their actions, they can dilute that feeling of cognitive dissonance by decreasing the negative or enhancing the positive attitudes about it (Smith & Mackie, n.d.). One might be a smoker for instance, and know that smoking is bad for them, but continue smoking anyway. A perception of a clash of unsuitable elements is a way to describe the way one feels when their actions and beliefs are at odds (McLeod, 2014). So, if one is unhappy about the things they do because they do not match what they think they should do, they will be said to be experiencing cognitive dissonance.
In the podcast titled Cognitive Dissonance (2011), Dr. Carol Tavris, the author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, discusses the relationship between psychology and neuroscience, in addition to discussing cognitive dissonance. As Dr. Tavris explains, cognitive dissonance theory is the mental discomfort we feel whenever two ideas are conflicted with one another, causing discomfort that we attempt to reduce cognitively (Campbell & Tavris, 2011). Moreover, dissonance can increase dependent upon, how important the decision is, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our ability to rationalize and justify the conflict (Cognitive dissonance, 2016). As a future psychologist,
The theory of cognitive dissonance illustrates the mental state or kind of tension that experienced by an individual who holds at least two beliefs and ideas which is contradiction to each other at the same time. Also, this can be caused when an individual confronted by the new encountered information that conflicts with his prior beliefs and ideas. When these two cognitions are inconsistent, then it would bring uncomfortable
According to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), individuals feel uncomfortable when they gain information which does not match the existing pattern or inconsistent. West & Turner (2010) explained that the dissonance as inconsistent between
In “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” (1957) social psychologist Leon Festinger proposes that all humans share an inherent drive to keep behaviors and principles in harmony and avoid disharmony between opposing attitudes. When a person feels a clash of their views they attempt to counteract or explain away their discomfort. In more severe cases of misalignments of an individual’s beliefs they may behave irrationally or maladaptively due to the instinctive urge to rebalance themselves. Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state caused by people’s awareness of inconsistency among important beliefs, attitudes, or actions.
A psychological term used to describe mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information; arouses unease or tension; relieved by one of several defensive maneuvers: rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information; persuading self that no conflict really exists; reconciling differences; or resorting to any other defensive means of preserving stability or order in conception of world and of
According to College for America (2015) confirmation bias make people tend to read information that confirms what they believe to be true. While cognitive dissonance is described as the human inability to tolerate evidence which shows the opposite of what they believe to be true.
When it comes to cognitive dissonance and how it creates attitude change it all comes about because of cognitive dissonance having a lot to do with emotional turbulences, with this it causes people to change their attitudes. This happens because people change their attitudes just to get over the conflict that results from cognitive dissonance. The fact of the matter is that if someone has a negative attitude about something, his or her attitude about the given situation and sometime even feels that he or she enjoys it just so they can feel good. At the end of the day cognitive dissonance is a very powerful motivation tool and in turn it can be used to change someone attitude. It is not used in mass advertising because cognitive dissonance can
Cognitive dissonance impacts attitudes and behavior negatively in the workplace in a variety of ways depending on the position you are employed. Being in management as an administrator you are faced with many challenges and situations that cause cognitive dissonance. For example, if my director asks me to perform a task and the way in which he wants me to perform the task, goes against my beliefs, I am forced to decide whether to follow his directives or risk termination for insubordination. The stress factor is making the correct decision. I can remember an instructor sending a student to me for conduct issues and wanted the student terminated from her program. The documentation that she provided to me was not sufficient to suspend the student,
Sometimes the greatest test of a theory is its longevity. Over time, some theories will be disproved, some will be modified, and some will become the basis for a whole new group of theories. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance has stood up to challenge for over forty years, and is considered by many to be the single most important theory of social psychology. Though there have been modifications to the theory after many recreations and simulations of the original 1957 experiment, few have been able to really disqualify Festinger’s findings. It would be safe to say that many people don’t even have a full grasp of the incredible
. In social psychology, cognitive dissonance is when a person experiences discomfort caused by stress brought on by the simultaneously holding of inconsistent attitudes and thoughts. People have a tendency to try and maintain consistency in their cognition. When there is dissonance in a person’s behavior and their attitudes, the person must change something in order to alleviate the dissonance.. Research has shown when a person’s behaviors are not in line with his/her beliefs at the time cognitive dissonance is created.
Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when people either hold two inconsistent thoughts or a cognition and a behavior that psychologically inconsistent. This was exactly what I felt when I was doing this experiment. The material explained that we can change the cognitions or behaviors to be more compatible, or we can add information to bridge the gap. I told myself that I was doing this for my assignment, and that this was logical.
she is a jerk, but we cannot be sure whether there is an emergency as taking his pregnant wife to the hospital or is in hurry to catch a flight. Cognitive dissonance is the procedure we use to justify our experiences so that they are meaningful to us. A classical example of cognitive dissonance is one of the most famous Aesopian myths the story of the fox and the sour grapes. The fox, however diligent, was unable to reach the grapes.
The principal assumption of the theory regarding to Hogg and Vaughan (2011, p.214) “is that cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state of psychological tension generated when a person has two or more cognitions (bits of information) that are inconsistent or do not fit together. So if people at the same time hold those two cognitions (thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, states of awareness of behaviour), which are psychologically inconsistent, then we experience dissonance. The theory also accounts for discrepancies between behaviour and attitudes. For instance, when people act in a manner that is inconsistent with their attitudes, then they experience tension. And how people can reduce this tension? Festinger (1957) suggested people have to do it by changing their attitudes so that they are in line with their behavior. The main way of reducing dissonance is attitude change. The theory propose that when we are dealing with two conflicting beliefs then we experience tension or an aversive state and a good example is military training. The military teaches and telling soldiers that when they kill the enemy its nothing wrong and killing them is a good thing but those same soldiers have a deeply natural and inborn belief that “thou shalt not kill”(Sturman, 2012) . Another example is about person who smokes cigarettes. Regarding to Stone and Cooper (2001) most people