From there, a unitary, discipline-straddling account of inconsistency compensation can uncover the true boundaries of this phenomenon, as well as compensation behaviors that have yet to find a disciplinary label. To deal with the feelings of discomfort then, they cognitive dissonance addiction might find some way of rationalizing the conflicting cognition. For instance, they may justify their sedentary behavior by saying that their other healthy behaviors—like eating sensibly and occasionally exercising—make up for their largely sedentary lifestyle.
Emotional Development in Childhood: 3 Theories Explained
An unethical group or individual uses outright, indefensible lies, withholding vital information, or distorting information to make it appear more acceptable and often all three of these tactics. Scientology staff are trained in telling “shore stories” along with “training routine lying” [10,11]. According to Festinger, there are a few ways that a person might resolve this dissonance. For example, thinking smoking causes lung cancer will cause dissonance if a person smokes. This is often very difficult, as people frequently employ a variety of mental maneuvers.
Download 3 Free Positive CBT Exercises (PDF)
- This intellectual tradition proposed that people navigated the world by motivational pushes and pulls, and therefore our behaviours were driven by psychological forces.
- Cognitive dissonance theory proposes that people seek psychological consistency between their expectations of life and the existential reality of the world.
- According to Festinger, we can work to reduce the dissonance we feel in several different ways.
In the vegetarian example, you can modify your belief system (by saying you’re not a vegetarian) or you can modify the action. It occurs in all of us frequently, not just when planning to diet and justifying a doughnut with a delayed diet start. These 17 Positive CBT & Cognitive Therapy Exercises [PDF] include our top-rated, ready-made templates for helping others develop more helpful thoughts and behaviors in response to challenges, while broadening the scope of traditional CBT. This offers opportunities to discuss the discrepancies, deepen the relationship, and re-align values.
Cognitive Dissonance Is Part of Decision-Making
] and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater. Once a choice has been made, however, people need to find a way to reduce these feelings of discomfort. We accomplish this by justifying why our choice was the best option so we can believe that we made the right decision. There is also some ambiguity (i.e., vagueness) about the term “dissonance” itself.
The theory is different compared to other consistency theories as it defines dissonance and consonance in relation to a specific cognition, which usually is related to a behaviour (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007). Hence, the theory received good attention from scholars in its early days, due to its few fundamental and uncomplicated principles, which could make novel and non-obvious predictions. Cognitive dissonance theory was first presented by Leon Festinger in 1957 in order to explain the relationships between the motivation, perceptions and cognitions of an individual (Festinger, 1962). It clarified the conditions that motivate individuals to change their opinions, attitudes, beliefs or behaviours. 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).
Social behavior
- Secondly, the self-affirmation model (Berkowitz, 1988) focused on the overall self-image of moral and adaptive adequacy as an alternative explanation for attitude change.
- The two most studied phases of cognitive dissonance in the organisational context were the cognitive discrepancy and the discrepancy reduction phase.
- You’ll naturally want to reduce the tension to return to — or close to, anyway — a happy place where things align in harmony.
- The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism’s active drive for reducing prediction error.
- Cognitive dissonance can be caused by feeling forced to do something, learning new information, or when faced with a decision between two similar choices.
Only scant research has investigated multiple dissonance reduction strategies simultaneously (McGrath, 2017). However, in general, the likelihood that a particular cognition will change is determined by its resistance to change, which is based on its responsiveness to reality and the extent to which it is consonant with other cognitions (Harmon-Jones & Mills, 2019). Therefore, changes are more likely to happen in an element that is less resistant or less important (Cooper, 2007).
Leon Festinger first proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance, centered on how people try to reach internal consistency. He suggested that people have an inner need to ensure that their beliefs and behaviors are consistent. Inconsistent or conflicting beliefs lead to disharmony, which people strive to avoid. 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.
- A more severe example is when a person in an abusive relationship rationalizes, justifies, or makes excuses to make the behavior of an abusive partner seem okay, Leikam says.
- Self-concepts may be more or less elaborate, resulting in respectively more stable and moderate or volatile and extreme self-evaluations (Linville’s complexity–extremity theory).
- Members are indoctrinated into spying on all around, including family and friends.
- The twenty-dollar group had external justification for their inconsistency–money motivated them to lie to the confederate about the task being interesting when it was actually boring.
- Eyes-closed visualizations and “guided meditation” techniques can heighten suggestibility, making it easier to insert thoughts and beliefs into members.