Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds
two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time
It is Incompatibility that an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between
behavior and attitude.
This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes,
beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
Example:
1.When someone tells a lie and feels uncomfortable about it because he fundamentally sees
himself as an honest person, he may be experiencing cognitive dissonance. That is, there
is mental discord related to a contradiction between one thought (in this case, knowing he did
something wrong) and another (thinking that he is honest).
2.When people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they
are in a state of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance theory
Social psychologist Leon Festinger developed the cognitive dissonance theory. Cognitive
dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in
harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive
consistency.
According to Festinger, we hold many cognitions about the world and ourselves; when they
clash, a discrepancy is evoked, resulting in a state of tension known as cognitive dissonance.
As the experience of dissonance is unpleasant, we are motivated to reduce or eliminate it, and
achieve consonance (i.e. agreement).
What causes cognitive dissonance?
Forced Compliance Behavior,
Decision Making,
Effort.
Forced Compliance Behavior
When someone is forced to do (publicly) something they (privately) really don't want to do,
dissonance is created between their cognition (I didn't want to do this) and their behavior (I did
it).
Forced compliance occurs when an individual performs an action that is inconsistent with his or
her beliefs. The behavior can't be changed, since it was already in the past, so dissonance will
need to be reduced by re-evaluating their attitude to what they have done.
Decision Making
Life is filled with decisions, and decisions (as a general rule) arouse dissonance.
Example:
Suppose you had to decide whether to accept a job in an absolutely beautiful area of the country,
or turn down the job so you could be near your friends and family. Either way, you would
experience dissonance. If you took the job you would miss your loved ones; if you turned the job
down, you would pine for the beautiful streams, mountains, and valleys.
Both alternatives have their good points and bad points. The rub is that making a decision cuts
off the possibility that you can enjoy the advantages of the unchosen alternative, yet it assures
you that you must accept the disadvantages of the chosen alternative.
Effort
It also seems to be the case that we value most highly those goals or items which have required
considerable effort to achieve.
This is probably because dissonance would be caused if we spent a great effort to achieve
something and then evaluated it negatively. We could, of course, spend years of effort into
achieving something which turns out to be a load of rubbish and then, in order to avoid the
dissonance that produces, try to convince ourselves that we didn't really spend years of effort, or
that the effort was really quite enjoyable, or that it wasn't really a lot of effort.
In fact, though, it seems we find it easier to persuade ourselves that what we have achieved is
worthwhile and that's what most of us do, evaluating highly something whose achievement has
cost us dear - whether other people think it's much cop or not! This method of reducing
dissonance is known as 'effort justification.'
If we put effort into a task which we have chosen to carry out, and the task turns out badly, we
experience dissonance. To reduce this dissonance, we are motivated to try to think that the task
turned out well.
How is cognitive dissonance resolved?
Dissonance can be reduced in one of three ways:
a) changing existing beliefs.
b) adding new beliefs.
c) reducing the importance of the beliefs.
a) Changing existing beliefs:
When one of the dissonant elements is a behavior, the individual can change or eliminate the
behavior.
However, this mode of dissonance reduction frequently presents problems for people, as it is
often difficult for people to change well-learned behavioral responses (e.g., giving up smoking).
b) Adding new beliefs:
For example:
thinking smoking causes lung cancer will cause dissonance if a person smokes.
However, new information such as “research has not proved definitely that smoking causes lung
cancer” may reduce the dissonance.
c) Reducing the importance of the beliefs:
A person could convince them self that it is better to "live for today" than to "save for
tomorrow."
In other words, he could tell himself that a short life filled with smoking and sensual pleasures is
better than a long life devoid of such joys. In this way, he would be decreasing the importance of
the dissonant cognition (smoking is bad for one's health).
