Cognitive dissonance: Definition, effects, and examples

Although many studies have focused on a single dissonance reduction strategy (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959; Aronson & Mills, 1959; Brehm, 1956), it is important to note that people may simultaneously adopt multiple strategies to counter the dissonance. For example, a recent study (Mahapatra & Mishra, 2021) showed that customers who faced post-consumption cognitive dissonance took multiple actions to negate the experienced psychological discomfort. They sought support from like-minded people and mentally disconnected from the negative situation to reduce the negative emotions. This article appeared in the first edition of the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioural Sciences (2001). Since then cognitive dissonance continues to interest social psychologists and to feed research on different fields such as health attitudes (smoking, eating habits), political attitudes (voting behavior, opinion polls, and election campaigns), and marketing. Dissonance theory also fed theories about system justification (see also Kay et al., 2002; Jost et al., 2003).

Social behavior

• The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism’s active drive for reducing prediction error.
• Finally, many of the studies supporting the theory of cognitive dissonance have low ecological validity.
• By examining the importance of the pieces of evidence that contributed to the overall integration of the evidence, namely the participant’s decision on guilt, the influence of a single piece of evidence may have been prevented.
• Another two conditions consisted of contradicting evidence between Time 2 and Time 3.

However, despite using different criteria to create distinctions between human and animal mentality, SD and TM show similarities in that they likely depend upon the same belief formation processes. By contrast, ST and anthropomorphism are designed to develop criteria for detecting similarities between humans and animals. In recent years, psychologists have pointed out that many psychology studies recruit participants from Western countries (North America and Europe) and that doing so neglects the experience of people who live in non-Western cultures. In fact, psychologists who study cultural psychology have found that many phenomena that were once assumed to be universal may cognitive dissonance theory actually be unique to Western countries. However, participants who were only paid $1 had more trouble justifying their actions to themselves—they didn’t want to admit to themselves that they told a lie over such a small amount of money.

10.3.2 Theories of Persuasion

They found that the dissonance-induction techniques did indeed produce significant reductions in thin-ideal internalization and bulimic pathology that were equivalent to those produced in the full intervention. Stice and colleagues found that reductions in thin-ideal internalization often preceded reductions in the negative outcome variables (i.e., body dissatisfaction, eating pathology) but only in the DBI group. From these results, we can conclude that DBIs work by changing thin-ideal internalization and that it is the change in internalization that leads to reductions in the other outcome variables. These results are significant because they provide support for the tripartite influence model in which internalization is a necessary component for the development of body dissatisfaction and subsequent bulimic pathology.

Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Brain Mapping

• However, if two cognitions are relevant, but conflicting, the existence of dissonance would cause psychological discomfort and motivate the individual to act upon this.
• Participants in this study were first presented with a summary description of a homicide case, in which a suspect had been arrested.
• Importantly, the hostile attitudes may persist even after the violence itself declines (Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen, 2015).
• In summary, Cognitive Dissonance theory has contributed to the concept of consistency in several ways.
• The literature that is based on cognitive dissonance theory has broadly covered four phases of the process, namely, cognitive discrepancy, dissonance, motivation and discrepancy reduction (Hinojosa et al., 2017).

Steele’s self-affirmation theory (1988) proposed that dissonance emerged from threats to the overarching self-system, and that dissonance reduction relied on re-establishing the integrity of the global self-concept. Cooper and Fazio’s ‘New Look’ model (1984) proposed that dissonance resulted from creating unwanted aversive consequences and did not require cognitive inconsistency. A recent synthesis discussed by Cooper (1999) and Stone (1999) suggests that dissonance is caused by a discrepancy between the outcome of a behavioral act and the standard to which it is compared. According to this self-standards model, contextual variables determine the comparison standard, and it is this standard that determines which dissonance process is most likely to be operative. Cognitive dissonance theory has become popular among social psychology and social science researchers since its early days, due to its few tenets that are able to explain the complex process of dissonance.

Meat-eating

Their thesis is that when a person expends major effort and spends quite a bit of money on therapy, therapeutic success will be facilitated. The study used a 6 (evidence order) × 3 (time) mixed factorial design, with time as within-participants factor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the six evidence order conditions specified in Table 1. In two of the conditions, participants received a mix of incriminating and exonerating evidence at both Time 2 and Time 3.

Reduction

This treatment made it possible for scholars to understand the psychological process as a whole. Secondly, Festinger viewed people’s mental states in a social environment from an intellectual tradition, which was influenced by Kurt Lewin, rather than a Gestalt tradition as Heider did (Cooper, 2007). This intellectual tradition proposed that people navigated the world by motivational pushes and pulls, and therefore our behaviours were driven by psychological forces. Based on this intellectual tradition, Festinger was able to predict the magnitude of dissonance in different situations. One of the features that distinguished cognitive dissonance theory from other consistency theories was the concept of dissonance magnitude.

• The types of evidence used in this study included hair, CCTV, shoeprints and witness evidence, thereby also extending previous research that used a limited number of evidence types.
• The preference for supporting information in response to cognitive dissonance is akin to confirmation bias (Jonas et al., 2001).
• The cognitive dissonance ratings also did not seem to be affected by the order in which the evidence was presented.
• The formal application of cognitive dissonance theory to clinical intervention has been proposed by Cooper and colleagues (Cooper & Axsom, 1982).
• In his book “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” Festinger proposed that two ideas can be consonant or dissonant.

If they feel normal emotions, for instance, sexual attraction, they are made to feel evil and sinful, or led to believe that Satan is tempting them. Likewise, jealousy, greed or envy are labeled as negative, and members are taught to suppress and deny them. Sometimes, members are coerced into repenting publicly and confessing these negative emotions. The group can try to make them feel guilty for their religion of origin, race, country, or some aspect of their personal history.

In This Article Expand or collapse the “in this article” section Cognitive Dissonance Theory

There is an almost uncountable infinity, virtually a continuum of aesthetic emotions. We feel this continuum of emotions (not just many separate emotions) when listening to music. We feel this continuum in Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, The Beatles, and Lady Gaga … (and certainly this mechanism is not limited to western cultures). It is proposed in this chapter that musical emotions have evolved for the synthesis of differentiated consciousness, for reconciling the contradictions that are entailed at every step of differentiation, and for creating a unity of differentiated Self. Common methods to (re)achieve consistency between one’s attitudes and/or behavior include changing or justifying one or both of them, adding new parts to the cognition, or entirely distorting one’s perception and information about the world (Festinger, 1962). Eating meat does not psychologically fit together with not wanting to hurt animals, and together they cause an internal conflict.

• The theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) states that inconsistency between beliefs or behaviors creates an aversive motivational state akin to hunger or thirst.
• The recency effect did not extend to the decision whether or not to convict the suspect, and also did not influence the perceived importance of the evidence.
• The elaboration likelihood model is one of the most influential approaches in the history of work on attitude change and persuasion.
• For example, DBI also includes behavioral exposure and positive body affirmations, components of Cash’s cognitive behavioral therapy for body image disturbance, in addition to counter-attitudinal dissonance techniques.

Festinger and Carlsmith wanted to create a feeling of dissonance in participants—in this https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/heroin-addiction-treatment-full-recovery-is-possible/ case, their belief (that lying should be avoided) is at odds with their action (they just lied to someone). Focusing on understanding via deliberate control, far from gestalt perspectives, two subjective expected utility models predict attitude–behavior relations. Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of reasoned action posits that behavior results from intention, which in turn results from attitudes toward a behavior (evaluating the behavior’s consequences, weighted by likelihood) and from subjective norms. Ajzen’s updated theory of planned behavior adds a third component to predict intentions, namely perceived behavioral control. Deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions must be reported to leadership, otherwise, the member will be in trouble too.

Psychology

In one condition, participants were given a monetary incentive to do this, but there was no such incentive provided in the other condition. This monetary incentive was intended to prevent cognitive dissonance by giving the participant external justification for behavior that was inconsistent with his or her beliefs (saying that the task was enjoyable when it was not). On the other hand, the condition with no monetary incentive was meant to cause a discrepancy between belief and behavior, thus inducing cognitive dissonance in the subjects. 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.