Cognitive Dissonance: Not Used In Mass Advertising

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,

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,

Cognitive Dissonance strategy is use to enforce our feelings about a situation. In the Montana campaign against meth they use this strategy by the Fear and Drive reduction and shock tactics getting people to feel uncomfortable with the shocking graphics and fear. Repeated exposure of these and according to mere exposure the more we are expose to this ad we favor not to try meth at all. You become scared straight to never try meth not even once.

In this short commercial, it demonstrates the shift in attitude can overcome cognitive dissonance. Living in a society with a strong belief that men are dominantly strong with low pain tolerance. Can shift men attitude towards any pain they experience to avoid cognitive dissonance. In the commercial you can see the male’s negative behavior towards the pain, but they changed their attitude to meet society beliefs.

Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith (1959) were interested in the cognitive dissonance, which can influence a person decision to choose one action or thought over another. The researchers were also interested in forced compliance, where authority can force individuals to say or act in a way that is conflicting to one’s own private opinion, whereas, the individual's attitude is altered through persuasion and authority. “Force” was operationally defined as the amount of reward offered for lying and cognitive dissonance experienced from the participant’s rated enjoyment of the tasks. Therefore, the researchers investigated if cognitive dissonance could be created through forced compliance behavior. Furthermore, Festinger and Carlsmith hypothesized

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, and ideas. (Akert, 2013) Cognitively based attitudes are based on thoughts and beliefs one has about an object, and this attitude provides pros and cons of an object, so we can decide if we want to be associated with it or not. Affectively based attitudes are based more on people’s feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object. (Akert, 2013) The elaboration likelihood model is the umbrella for this topic, because it explains the two ways in which persuasion can change someone attitude. The two ways are persuasion through the central route and the persuasion through the peripheral route. The elaboration likelihood model refers to processing the message which is related to the cognitively based attitudes. Persuasive communication is most successful in changing attitudes when going through the central route because the audience is motivated, whereas with the peripheral route the audience is not motivated. Now I am going to discuss the routes of persuasion through advertisements in detail.

The show, ChoreoProject, was presented by sjDanceco and presented various types of dance performances from classical to contemporary works. The piece that I enjoyed from this show was Cognitive Dissonance. In this dance piece, Erwin Columbus both choreographed and was the dancer. Erwin Columbus used music from Kerry Muzzey for his piece. In Cognitive Dissonance, he told a story of himself having negative, inconsistent thoughts and his journey of fighting off those thoughts from his mind. With fast and dramatic movements along with intense music, Columbus was able to grasp my attention and teach me how it feels to have negative, inconsistent thoughts that can negatively control one's body.

In the article “Advertising and Behavior Control” there were many arguments for and against advertising. The first and the biggest problem Robert L. Arrington has against advertising is “puffery.” The reason/reasons why Arrington has a problem with puffery is due to the fact that the seller makes exaggerated, or suggestive claims about a product. His overall argument on puffery is that it isn’t just “bragging” but it is bragging that is designed to persuade you to want the item or product being sold. The bragging goes so far as they convince the viewer (of the advertisement) they need the product. Puffery ultimately leads to manipulation, exploitation, and control over what people think of the product. Although Arrington has reasons

Cognitive Dissonance Overview the topic and define relevant terms in your own words.   When someone makes a decision or takes an action that goes against their personal beliefs, they experience a sense of discomfort; this discomfort felt is due to cognitive dissonance. People may values and beliefs that they live by. A person who believes that smoking cigarettes are bad is unlikely to smoke a cigarette; if they do smoke a cigarette than they will experience some discomfort. The action of smoking is conflicting with their idea that smoking is bad; this creates cognitive dissonance.

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

Taylor Wood COM-201 Response Paper 1: Cognitive Dissonance Theory Life is full of uncomfortable situations. Whether it’s 12:01 on December 21, 2012 or seconds before a drop on a rollercoaster, we rationalize the situation to create a sense of equilibrium. Cognitive Dissonance Theory explains why we experience the mental discomfort called dissonance that arises from “inconsistent attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors” and how we take action or change our thinking to alleviate the discomfort (West & Turner, 2014, pp. 110-111).

INTRODUCTION Cognitive dissonance is the stress experienced by an individual while holding two or more conflicting beliefs or attitudes (Aronson, 2012). The theory of cognitive dissonance was developed by Leon Festinger (McLeod, S.2014), who suggested that it is human nature to seek harmony in our attitudes and behavior. According to Festinger (1957), the desire for consistency causes individuals to seek ways of reducing dissonance when it occurs (McLeod, S.2014). This theory has been tested in many areas over time, and research has repeatedly pointed out the validity of the theory. For example, when a smoker is introduced to the fact that smoking causes lung cancer, he may or may not quit smoking.

Leon Festinger created the cognitive dissonance theory as an attempt to explain why people desire to have consistency between their behaviors and actions. Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state people feel when they find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold (Festinger, 1957; as cited in Griffin, 2009). Thus, people are motivated to change either their behavior or their belief when feelings of dissonance arise.

Put simply, the theory of cognitive dissonance put forth by Festinger (1954) holds that when an individual holds two ideas, or elements that are in disagreement with one another the person will find ways or reconciling the contradictory ideas. Holding these conflicting attitudes causes physical or psychological discomfort, motivating the attempt to reconcile the ideas. This concept can be attributed to behavior as well, as in some cases behavior may not match up with attitudes. This can be done in a variety of ways, from changing or abandoning an attitude or behavior to seeking alternative information in order to reduce this dissonance.

There was a time when advertisement were made only to market and sell the products but now dramatic changes have taken place in this field (Shead and Dobson 01). Today companies not only want to sell their products but also aim to create emotional attachment with the customers for which they do emotional or subliminal advertising.