Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two
conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their
attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes unpleasant feelings of unease or
discomfort.

The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates
them to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort. People
attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining
away, or avoiding new information.

The psychologist Leon Festinger came up with the concept in 1957. In his book A
Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger proposed that two ideas can be
consonant or dissonant. Consonant ideas logically flow from one another, while
dissonant ideas oppose one another.

For example, a person who wishes to protect other people and who believes that
the COVID-19 pandemic is real might wear a mask in public. This is consonance.

If that same person believed the COVID-19 pandemic was real but refused to wear
a mask, their values and behaviors would contradict each other. This is dissonance.

The dissonance between two contradictory ideas, or between an idea and a

behavior, creates discomfort. Festinger argued that cognitive dissonance is more
intense when a person holds many dissonant views, and those views are important
to them.

Signs of cognitive dissonance

It is not possible to observe dissonance, as it is something a person feels internally.
As such, there is no set of external signs that can reliably indicate a person is
experiencing cognitive dissonance.

However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve
cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes. This can prompt people to
adopt certain defense mechanisms when they have to confront it.

These defense mechanisms fall into three categories:

 Avoiding: This involves avoiding or ignoring the dissonance. A person may

avoid people or situations that remind them of it, discourage people from
talking about it, or distract themselves from it with consuming tasks.
 Delegitimizing: This involves undermining evidence of the dissonance. A
person may do this by discrediting the person, group, or situation that
highlighted the dissonance. For example, they might say it is untrustworthy
or biased.
 Limiting impact: This involves limiting the discomfort of cognitive
dissonance by belittling its importance. A person may do this by claiming
the behavior is rare or a one-off event, or by providing rational arguments to
convince themselves or others that the behavior is OK.

Examples of cognitive dissonance

Some examples of cognitive dissonance include:

 Smoking: Many people smoke even though they know it is harmful to their
health. The magnitude of the dissonance will be higher in people who highly
value their health.
  Eating meat: Some people who view themselves as animal lovers eat meat
and may feel discomfort when they think about where their meat comes
from. Some researchers refer to this as the “meat paradox.”
 Doing household chores: A male might believe in equality of the sexes but
then consciously or unconsciously expect their female partner to do most of
the household labor or childrearing.

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 toward what they have done. This prediction has been tested
experimentally:

In an intriguing experiment, Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) asked participants to

perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). As
you can imagine, participant’s attitudes toward this task were highly negative.
Aim

Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) investigated if making people perform a dull task
would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behavior.

Method

In their laboratory experiment, they used 71 male students as participants to

perform a series of dull tasks.

They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant (a confederate)
that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk
into the waiting room and persuade the confederate that the boring experiment
would be fun.

Results

When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who
were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the
participants who were paid $20 to lie.

Conclusion

Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid
$1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that dissonance by coming
to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20
provides a reason for turning pegs, and there is, therefore, no dissonance.

Decision Making

Life is filled with decisions, and decisions (as a general rule) arouse dissonance.
For 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.

Example of Cognitive Dissonance

Brehm (1956) was the first to investigate the relationship between dissonance and
decision-making.

Method

Female participants were informed they would be helping out in a study funded by
several manufacturers. Participants were also told that they would receive one of
the products at the end of the experiment to compensate for their time and effort.

The women then rated the desirability of eight household products that ranged in
price from $15 to $30. The products included an automatic coffee maker, an
electric sandwich grill, an automatic toaster, and a portable radio.

Participants in the control group were simply given one of the products. Because
these participants did not make a decision, they did not have any dissonance to
reduce. Individuals in the low-dissonance group chose between a desirable product
and one rated 3 points lower on an 8-point scale.

Participants in the high-dissonance condition chose between a highly desirable

product and one rated just 1 point lower on the 8-point scale. After reading the
reports about the various products, individuals rated the products again.

Findings

Participants in the high-dissonance condition spread apart the alternatives

significantly more than the participants in the other two conditions.

In other words, they were more likely than participants in the other two conditions
to increase the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and to decrease the
attractiveness of the unchosen 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 that 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.

Example of Cognitive Dissonance

A classic dissonance experiment by Aronson and Mills (1959) demonstrates the

basic idea.

Aim

To investigate the relationship between dissonance and effort.

Method

Female students volunteered to take part in a discussion on the psychology of sex.

In the “mild embarrassment” condition, participants read aloud to a male
experimenter a list of sex-related words like “virgin” and “prostitute.”

In the “severe embarrassment” condition, they had to read aloud obscene words
and a very explicit sexual passage.

In the control condition, they went straight into the main study. In all conditions,
they then heard a very boring discussion about sex in lower animals. They were
asked to rate how interesting they had found the discussion and how interesting
they had found the people involved in it.

Results

Participants in the “severe embarrassment” condition gave the most positive rating.

Conclusion

If a voluntary experience that has cost a lot of effort turns out badly, the dissonance
is reduced by redefining the experience as interesting. This justifies the effort
made.

Effects of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance can affect people in a wide range of ways. The effects may
relate to the discomfort of the dissonance itself or the defense mechanisms a person
adopts to deal with it.

The internal discomfort and tension of cognitive dissonance could contribute to

stress or unhappiness. People who experience dissonance but have no way to
resolve it may also feel powerless or guilty.

Avoiding, delegitimizing, and limiting the impact of cognitive dissonance may

result in a person not acknowledging their behavior and thus not taking steps to
resolve the dissonance. In some cases, this could cause harm to themselves or
others.
However, cognitive dissonance can also be a tool for personal and social change.
Drawing a person’s attention to the dissonance between their behavior and their
values may increase their awareness of the inconsistency and empower them to act.

For example, a 2019 study notes that dissonance-based interventions may be

helpful for people with eating disorders. This approach works by encouraging
patients to say things or role-play behaviors that contradict their beliefs about food
and body image. This creates dissonance.

The theory behind this approach is that in order to resolve the dissonance, a
person’s implicit beliefs about their body and thinness will change, reducing their
desire to limit their food intake.

How to resolve cognitive dissonance

The most effective way to resolve cognitive dissonance is for a person to ensure
that their actions are consistent with their values, or vice versa.

A person can achieve this by:

 Changing their actions: This involves changing behavior so it matches a

person’s beliefs. Where a full change is not possible, a person could make
compromises. For instance, a person who cares about the environment but
works for a company that pollutes might advocate for change at work, if
they cannot leave their job.
 Changing their thoughts: If a person often behaves in a way that
contradicts their beliefs, they may come to question how important that
belief is or find that they no longer believe it. Alternatively, they might add
new beliefs that bring their actions more closely in line with their thinking.
 Changing their perception of the action: If a person cannot or does not
want to change the behavior or beliefs that cause dissonance, they may view
the behavior differently instead. For example, a person who cannot afford to
buy from sustainable brands might forgive themselves for this and
acknowledge that they are doing the best they can.