Cognitive Dissonance Theory Paper

Decisions are the basis of human history, advancement, and modern society. Important decisions often cause a conflict within a person as he or she attempts to make a choice based on what he or she believes is right, as well as what he or she believes is wise. Throughout life and society, people find themselves at a crossroads of beliefs or thoughts with the justification of murder. This is due to the dissonance illustrated when they have mixed feelings with the idea that killing another human is wrong, although it seemingly appears unavoidable in certain situations. This inevitability is what justifies murder in the first place. These mixed feelings create a cognitive dissonance that impacts society in a detrimental

After reading chapter five I noticed cognitive dissonance throughout a large portion of the book. Cognitive dissonance was described in class as being a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. A good example of this was found on page 182 where the author writes about how we all tell our self that African Americans “deserve” all of this even though we know, but do not want to acknowledge that white Americans are less likely to be convicted of the same crime done by blacks. Cognitive dissonance applies here because we know that this mass incarceration is not fair or morally right to do, however, our behavior does not try to stop it from happening. Instead of doing what our beliefs say is right we try to convince ourselves that it is the African Americans fault that they are

Leon Festinger shared his brilliance with the world when he, opposing all previous psychological behaviorist work, created the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. In his own words, he quickly sums up this quite complex theory: "If you change a person’s behavior, his thoughts and feelings will change to minimize the dissonance" (Groenveld, 1999, p.1). In order to decode this dense statement, we must first be aware that Festinger held to be true that humans have a deep abiding need in their psyche to be consistent in our attitudes and behaviors; we want to feel in agreement and unified in thought and action. Inner harmony sounds good to everyone, and so it was Festinger’s view that when we feel a disharmony, or

No one enjoys being told what they are doing is wrong, and in this specific case that they are stealing. Peter explains to Joanna that his business has been rounding certain amounts to take “fractions of a penny” from compounded interests and then they placed the “dropped remainder” in an account they own. By using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, I will analyze this artifact and incorporate how this theory is intertwined within the conversation between the characters Joanna and Peter. I will show how Peter uses selective exposure, post-decision dissonance, and two of the three parts of the state-of-the-art revisions to reduce his dissonance.

     The theory of Cognitive Dissonance states that when individuals are presented with information that implies we act in a way that contradicts our moral standards, we experience discomfort (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1998, P. 191). This is considered Cognitive Dissonance,

Cognitive Dissonance is a tense discomfort that we get when we realize that we have made a mistake or have committed hypocrisy. There are several different ways that we get rid of cognitive dissonance, some of them include a change in behavior, denial, and excuse making. In this essay I will discuss cognitive dissonance, its consequences, and how to solve the problem of excuse making in our society.

“Cognitive dissonance plays a key role in people’s behavior when choosing between alternatives, because the selection of an alternative is based in the fact it is more desirable” (Alvarado, Ramirez, 2014). Humans are often faced with the challenge of choosing between two alternatives, and are often faced with discomfort or regret afterwards. When faced with this regret, people often try to justify or rationalize the decision they made, wanting to reduce this feeling of dissonance. “No matter how smart they are, people who are in the midst of reducing dissonance are so involved with convincing themselves that they are right that they frequently end up behaving irrationally and maladaptively (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, & Sommers, 2016). People do not like to admit they are

Cognitive dissonance can perpetuate a conflict and in Alice’s situation, it did. Alice, by definition, is an honest, hardworking adult with morals and values. However, she encountered a personal situation with her boyfriend that caused her to have dissonant cognitions. She knew it was wrong to call her employer and inform them she was ill and unable to go to work. Calling her employer and lying about her state of health caused discomfort (that is what dissonance does) and to justify lying, she tries to convince herself she did the right thing. This justification comes

Hailed as a signature piece of social psychology, this determination of cognitive dissonance helps to explain an individual's response when faced with a conflicting view. In full, their hypothesis reads, “If you believe ‘X’ but publically state ‘not X’ you will experience the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. However, if you know that the reason of rewards, or threats of punishment, then your dissonans will be reduced or eliminated. Therefore, the more you view your inconsistent behavior to be of your own choosing, the greater will be your dissonance”(Hock 184). In layman's terms, they wished to see how people act when made to stand against their own

. 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.

It is regarded as a counterintuitive social theory as it implied that actions influenced attitudes as opposed to the alternative notion, once seen as the more reasonable, (Miller J. L., 2012). His theory of cognitive dissonance is still referenced today in numerous credible and published work either in support of the theory or to suggest revisions, (Dember & Jenkins, 1970) cited from “Cognitive Dissonance Theory” (n.d.), revealing a lasting impact.

Cognitive dissonance is believing in one thing, but the opposite is true or proven. This will cause psychological stress. We will change our way of thinking to support a more consistent consonance. In the example given in class aliens were coming to take them away before the flood. When there were no aliens they had cognitive dissonance. To bring harmony back; they were given a new purpose and told to invite more members for social support. Another example would be: You are trying to eat healthy. Potato chips are your favorite snack. But you know that potato chips are not a healthy snack. This is cognitive dissonance. To reduce the cognitive dissonance, you could distort your way of thinking by making excuses. You could tell yourself

The cognitive dissonance theory specifies that inconsistencies in an individual’s thoughts and actions lead to mental tension, dissonance, and cause us to take actions to reduce this dissonance. Actions include either changing the way you think about something or the way you action. The amount of dissonance can vary depending on justification; an unjustifiable causes more dissonance in comparison to acting with a good enough reason, depends how the individual’s morals. In Festinger and Carlsmith’s study, individuals were either given $1 or $20 to state opinions that weren’t consistent with there own. Individuals who were paid $1 had less justification for the inconsistency which lead to higher levels of dissonance. As a result, they were more

Everyone has gotten sick or will get sick more once in their life. When employees fall ill, it is very likely that will take time away from work until they recover. Of course, this is a good idea, but what some may not realize is how much businesses lose when they constantly have employees taking off work to tend to their sickness. To fully understand just how much germs

The main point in this article is to show that people don’t change their behavior because they aware of the consequences of what are doing, regardless of the risk that their behavior can involve, the choose not to change their behavior as is explain in the Cognitive Dissonance theory .