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. The expectation of shared beliefs, values, and attitudes from family members can additionally influence romantic relationships. If these don’t align, we might consider justifying our relationship or breaking up. 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. Only scant research has investigated multiple dissonance reduction strategies simultaneously (McGrath, 2017).
Receiving only one dollar did not seem to justify lying to the confederate and compelled subjects in the one-dollar group to internalize the “interesting task” mental attitude. The subjects convinced themselves that the tasks were somewhat interesting to rectify the dissonance due to inconsistency between believing the tasks were boring but telling someone they were interesting. A review of https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/cognitive-dissonance-treatment-in-sober-living/ at the organisation level was also conducted to integrate the relevant knowledge that was published from 2000 to 2016 (Hinojosa et al., 2017). The review revealed that most of the related studies focused on a specific stage rather than the whole process of cognitive dissonance, with the least coverage on the motivation phase. The two most studied phases of cognitive dissonance in the organisational context were the cognitive discrepancy and the discrepancy reduction phase.
Cognitive Dissonance
Therefore, the theory was one of the breakthroughs for research in the psychology field as it revolutionised thinking about human psychological processes. More specifically, the theory explains how rewards affect attitudes and behaviours and how behaviours and motivations affect cognitions and perceptions (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007). Although the concepts of harmony and conflict were not new and had been proposed earlier by Heider (Heider, 1946), Cognitive Dissonance theory made a major contribution to the concept of consistency (Cooper, 2007). 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.
When they act inconsistently with their attitude, we feel the same discomfort as if we had acted inconsistently with our attitude ourselves (Cooper, 2016). Discrepancy between an attitude and a behavior – eating a doughnut while thinking of reducing calorie intake – leads to psychological discomfort called cognitive dissonance (Harmon-Jones, 2019). 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. Learn to bridge the gap between values and actions to combat cognitive dissonance.
Changing the Environment
In this type of situation, people can change their beliefs, their attitudes, or their behaviors. He has signed on to the military for four years, and he cannot legally leave. A person who feels defensive or unhappy might consider the role cognitive dissonance might play in these feelings. If they are part of a wider problem that is causing distress, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ people may benefit from speaking with a therapist. 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. The internal discomfort and tension of cognitive dissonance could contribute to stress or unhappiness.
- As the number of cognitions that are inconsistent with each other increases, the amount of dissonance also increases.
- However, if two cognitions are relevant, but conflicting, the existence of dissonance would cause psychological discomfort and motivate the individual to act upon this.
- There are a number of different situations that can create conflicts that lead to cognitive dissonance.
- In the Pro-attitudinal condition, participants could freely choose to write either in favour or opposing an increase.
- Mismatches between your beliefs and actions can lead to feelings of discomfort (and, sometimes, coping choices that have negative impacts), but such feelings can also sometimes lead to change and growth.
The two thoughts – ‘sunbathing can cause cancer’ and ‘I am sunbathing’ – will cause the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. That slight feeling of discomfort we perceive when noticing this mismatch is called cognitive dissonance. It has been used to explain and predict the motivational nature of dissonance that led to attitude and behaviour changes at both the individual and organisational level. As studies on dissonance reduction have grown, specific reduction strategies have been explored. A review has summarised and classified those strategies into seven categories (McGrath, 2017).
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Another example to note is how people mostly consume media that aligns with their political views. In a study done in 2015, participants were shown “attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically balanced online news.” Results showed that the participants trusted attitude-consistent news the most out of all the others, regardless of the source. It is evident that the participants actively selected media that aligns with their beliefs rather than opposing media. In The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group (1956), to qualify for admission to listen in on a discussion, two groups of people underwent an embarrassing initiation of varied psychological severity. The “strong initiation” group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words considered obscene.
- However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes.
- Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance).
- Participants in the “severe embarrassment” condition gave the most positive rating.
- However, the theory proposed that higher levels of dissonance can forcefully motivate a person to promptly address the psychological discomforts, while small levels of dissonance may not be as effective in encouraging the person to take an immediate action.
- Life is filled with decisions, and decisions (as a general rule) arouse dissonance.
- The degree of punishment was insufficiently strong to resolve their cognitive dissonance; the children had to convince themselves that playing with the forbidden toy was not worth the effort.