Cognitive Dissonance: Theory, Examples & How to Reduce It

That’s why we often respond to cognitive dissonance by doing mental gymnastics to feel like things make sense again. 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). Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other.

Thus, a smoker might “seek out and avidly read any material critical of the research which purported to show that smoking was bad for one’s health” (ibid.). CDT is an old and respectable theory, but at the same time is still under construction. One can acknowledge the impressive contribution of this theory to psychology, but one cannot avoid recognizing that many critical questions remain https://ecosoberhouse.com/ and many methodological deficiencies are obviously present. We think therefore that the field would benefit from increased standardization. This standardization of the induction would rely on both a better operational definition of the manipulated variables, as we mentioned above, and also on the report of variables that are likely to influence the CDS, and thus its regulation.

Prompts About Cognitive Dissonance:

Another way of resolving cognitive dissonance is to change the perception of action. Changing the way you see, remember, or perceive your conduct is a more complicated approach to resolution. In other words, one reframes their thought or context cognitive dissonance theory around their behavior so that it no longer appears to conflict with it. For example, you could change the way smoking is perceived by others, but this is difficult because the person would still know that smoking has harmful effects.

• Cognitive dissonance theory postulates that an underlying psychological tension is created when an individual’s behavior is inconsistent with his or her thoughts and beliefs.
• In reality, they were listening to a recorded discussion about animal sexual behavior, which the researchers designed to be dull and banal.
• There are three ways to reduce cognitive dissonance, including a change of beliefs, a change of action, and a change in how one perceives one’s action.
• But if deep down you still resent that behavior, that tension can lead to more problems over time.

This phenomenon is known as alternative spreading, and the experimental paradigm is known as the free-choice paradigm. Rather than trying to reduce dissonance after it occurs, we may attempt to avoid dissonance through selective exposure. In other words, consumers select attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will render cognitive dissonance.

Consumer behavior

An extreme example of the negative consequences of cognitive dissonance is when we justify our partner’s harmful behavior toward us and get stuck in a toxic relationship. Dissonance occurs when a person engages in an unpleasant activity to achieve a good goal. It follows from the cognition that the action is unpleasant and that one would not engage in it; the cognition that the activity is unpleasant is discordant with engaging in it. The more the dissonance, the greater the uncomfortable effort necessary to get the desired result. Dissonance can be decreased by increasing the outcome’s attractiveness, which increases consonant cognitions.

• From the PP perspective dissonance can occur at different hierarchical (or lateral) levels in the multi-level predictive hierarchy.
• The arrows indicate the level of pre-trial expectation in the information condition.
• Providing the space and time to understand their new behavior and justifying it can help to reduce the dissonance.

We do not recommend investing resources in large scale replication projects of earlier studies. Indeed, as we stressed previously, these studies have methodological flaws that limit their interpretation. Instead of replicating the errors made in the past, resources should be devoted to developing reliable, smart, and well-powered tests of the theory and of its hypotheses.

Introduction to Psychology

Because it is difficult to predict which strategy will be used, it seems unreliable to postulate the existence of CDS and its magnitude on the sole basis of the use of a regulation strategy. Inconsistencies between beliefs and actions, or between two beliefs or values, happen all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re enjoyable. “When a person is holding themselves in contradictory stances, attempting to hold opposing viewpoints, they have to expend mental energy to block out their own hypocrisy,” Curry says. An alternative approach, known as self-perception theory, suggests that all individuals analyze their own behaviour much as an outside observer might and, as a result of these observations, make judgments about why they are motivated to do what they do. Thus, in the example above, self-perception theory would argue that the person, in observing his own behaviour, assesses the effort involved and decides that the initiation was endured because he really wanted to be a member of this group. Dissonance theory and self-perception theory are not necessarily mutually exclusive; several studies suggest that both processes can and do occur but under different conditions.

Festinger worked on this and proposed that there should be consonance between two attitudes and that there are ways to resolve this mental conflict. The attitude, the way the person perceives the issue, or the action can be changed. Applying either of these options can help a person resolve that mental conflict.