Cognitive Dissonance: Theory, Examples & How to Reduce It

It proposes that inconsistencies in a person’s cognition cause mental stress because psychological inconsistency interferes with the person’s functioning in the real world. If the person changes the current attitude, after the dissonance occurs, they are then obligated to commit to that course of behavior. Dissonance-based interventions (DBIs) were developed based on Festinger’s well-known cognitive dissonance theory. 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. This underlying tension then motivates an individual to make an attitude change that would produce consistency between thoughts and behaviors. Research has shown that when an individual engages in behaviors that are inconsistent with their attitude or belief (e.g., arguing a counter-attitudinal position on a topic), a change in attitude is produced that is consistent in the direction of his or her behavior.

Emotion and control

The concept of dissonance is predominantly related to the post-decision or post-purchase situation (Oliver, 2009). The research on this phase commonly focused on the impacts of post-purchase touchpoints on product or service evaluation (Cohen & Goldberg, 1970), satisfaction (Engel, 1963) intention to repurchase (Hunt, 1970) and the back-out rate (Donnelly & Ivancevich, 1970) of customers. Negative emotion was another concept that has been closely invested with cognitive dissonance.

Induce effort

• In addition, some leaders keep believers so busy they have no time to think or check anything, let alone make outside relationships through which they might gather information about the world.
• It is known that emotions of cognitive dissonances often lead to an immediate elimination of the source of discomfort, which is a contradictory knowledge.
• Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) investigated if making people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behavior.
• In ethical therapy, the client is always encouraged to develop an internal locus of control within their authentic — or autonomous — personality.
• People acquire new information through social learning (Sect. 4.2) that encourages them to help (Berkowitz, Rushton, Staub) or to aggress (Bandura).
• Some of the ways people reduce discomfort from cognitive dissonance include seeking information that aligns with and supports current beliefs, reducing the conflicting belief’s importance, and changing beliefs to reduce the feelings of conflict.
• Second, the person could reduce the importance of the dissonant cognition by thinking that the risk of getting lung cancer from smoking is lesser than being in a car accident.

Festinger (Festinger, 1962) defined the ‘cognition’ as any piece of knowledge that an individual has about themself or their environment. The theory was based on the belief that people strive toward consistency within themselves and are driven to make changes to reduce or eliminate an inconsistency (Cooper, 2007). Cognitive dissonance theory began by postulating that pairs of cognitions can be either relevant or irrelevant to one another.

Communicator credibility and communication discrepancy as determinants of opinion change

The concept of cognition was relatively new at the time of the introduction of cognitive dissonance addiction. Before that, the relationship between human attitudes and behaviours was understood as a complex process that involved motivational, emotional, affective and perceptual factors (Krech, 2019; Rosenberg, 1966). Therefore, the theory was one of the breakthroughs for research in the psychology field as it revolutionised thinking about human psychological processes.

Internal and External Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others through CBT, this collection contains 17 validated positive CBT tools for practitioners. Use them to help others overcome unhelpful thoughts and feelings and develop more positive behaviors. It provides an introduction to the theory and covers the topics of cognitive dissonance following decisions, the effects of forced compliance, the impacts of voluntary and involuntary exposure to information, and the role of social support. In romantic relationships, important values represent hotspots for cognitive dissonance and typically center on big decisions, such as the wish to have children, lifestyle choices (e.g., buying a house vs. traveling the world), and issues related to family and friends. Therapists aim to help their patients by understanding and changing their attitudes, emotions, or behaviors.

The individuals are therefore motivated to reduce the conflict by justifying the decision they have made. The justification is typically achieved by changing their attitudes and beliefs so that the new attitudes and beliefs are consistent with and justify the decision that has been made. Notably, the resulting attitude change can be long lasting (Sharot, Fleming, Yu, Koster, & Dolan, 2012). By nature, then, we may be rationalizing beings, ready to justify what we have done after the fact.

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. We live in cognitive dissonances, in a sea of negative emotions created by them, “in much wisdom is much grief.” And if not music we would continuously suffer negative emotions related to knowledge. Cognitive dissonances extend from minor everyday choices, such as a choice of drink between coca-cola and water, to life disappointments familiar to everyone, unrequited love, betrayal by friends, and loved ones. We do not notice negative emotions related to minor everyday choices, because we have a lot of emotions to overcome them. Strong dissonances related to disappointments with friends and loved ones are a major topic of popular songs.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Understanding your beliefs and values behind the inconsistencies is an opportunity to develop deeper self-knowledge. In that sense, the experience of cognitive dissonance is an opportunity to learn and grow, as long as we deal with it constructively and respond in a way that we choose and is beneficial. The concept of cognitive dissonance is nicely explained in this YouTube video by social psychologist Andy Luttrell. According to Festinger, we can work to reduce the dissonance we feel in several different ways.

Eating meat

• In all conditions, they then heard a very boring discussion about sex in lower animals.
• If that same person believes the COVID-19 pandemic is real but refuses to wear a mask, their values and behaviors would contradict each other.
• The number of cognitive dissonances possibly is as large as the number of word combinations, practically infinite.
• Sometimes, the ways that people resolve cognitive dissonance contribute to unhealthy behaviors or poor decisions.

The two most studied phases of cognitive dissonance in the organisational context were the cognitive discrepancy and the discrepancy reduction phase. Application of this theory has yielded many surprising and nonintuitive predictions. For example, conventional wisdom suggests that behavior follows from attitudes; dissonance theory, however, identifies conditions under which just the opposite occurs. An early and often replicated experiment illustrates the power and counterintuitiveness of the theory. In what is now known as the induced compliance effect, Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) asked individuals to perform 30 minutes of a mind-numbingly tedious activity, and then to persuade a waiting participant that the activity was in fact quite interesting.