Cognitive Dissonance Introduction to Psychology

Cognitive dissonance plays a role in many value judgments, decisions, and evaluations. Becoming aware of how conflicting beliefs impact the decision-making process is a great way to improve your ability to make faster and more accurate choices. Once a choice has been made, however, people need to find a way to reduce these feelings https://g-markets.net/sober-living/facts-about-aging-and-alcohol-national-institute/ of discomfort. We accomplish this by justifying why our choice was the best option so we can believe that we made the right decision. Anyone can experience this uneasiness when their feelings don’t align with their actions, says Rachelle Scott, M.D., a psychiatrist and ​​medical director of Mental Health at Eden Health in New York.

• 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.
• Stockholm syndrome happens when a person becomes emotionally attached or loyal to the person holding them captive or abusing them.
• A common symptom of the disordered thinking of addiction is an extreme form of rationalization, which is our strongly ingrained nature to substantiate our behavior with plausible reasons, even if these reasons are distorted and untrue.
• We will also illustrate the feasibility of the emotion regulation perspective by re-analyzing data from a typical dissonance study.
• Sometimes I shudder to think what Tel Aviv would look like nowadays without the Iron Dome.

We first describe dissonance theory and review some of the major views on dissonance reduction. Later, we outline our theoretical account of dissonance reduction (based on Festinger’s original formulation from 1957) and show how past ideas of dissonance reduction can be understood under a broader model of emotion regulation. Thereafter, we offer some ideas for the potential correspondence between specific emotions and dissonance-reduction strategies. We will also illustrate the feasibility of the emotion regulation perspective by re-analyzing data from a typical dissonance study. Lastly, we offer an outlook for the continued theoretical development of the dissonance-reduction process.

Teaching Strategies

As established, dissonance is a lack of agreement between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. She needs to change her thinking to line up with reality, place more value on health and moderation, improve her base of self-worth, and let go of perfectionistic standards that are keeping her sick and miserable. When she changes her thinking to line up with a healthier set of behaviors (like exercising 60 minutes a day), then she can feel more peace with her thoughts and actions. Discussion could be generated concerning why the Aronson et al. study obtained results for self-reported past risk that were contradictory to the predictions of cognitive dissonance theory. Two types of studies have been conducted to test the hypothesis that this state of cognitive dissonance may lead to increased condom use or to altered perceptions of past behavior on the part of the educator in order to reduce the dissonance. In one study, Elliot Aronson and colleagues (Aronson, Fried, and Stone, 1991) asked sexually-active undergraduate volunteers to develop a speech promoting condom use from a set of facts.

The “strong initiation” group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words considered obscene. The “mild initiation” group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words not considered obscene. After reading the list of words, participants were given headphones to listen in on an animal-sexuality discussion that they were told was occurring in the next room. In reality, they were listening to a recorded discussion about animal sexual behavior, which the researchers designed to be dull and banal. In the Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance (1959), the investigators asked students to spend an hour doing tedious tasks; e.g. turning pegs a quarter-turn, at fixed intervals.

Reduce the importance of the cognitions (i.e., beliefs, attitudes).

But because we want the benefits of presenting ourselves a certain way, we don’t mind the inconsistency in our behavior. Facing truths or changing an unhealthy habit https://trading-market.org/how-alcohol-impacts-life-expectancy-alcoholic-life/ might be uncomfortable, but resolving this discomfort can create positive changes. Also, speaking up for another person could improve a group or culture overall.

Good tests for MCI do exist, and if a patient arrives with concerns about mental impairment, a physician might administer the simplest one, which takes about 15 minutes to conduct and score. While 15 minutes might not seem like a lot, it’s just a few shy of the average 19 minutes that primary care physicians spend with their patients. “Then of course, that’s tough for the primary care doctor, because if you start that conversation that takes about half an hour and that upsets your entire day,” he says.

Magnitude of dissonance

The dissonance between two contradictory ideas, or between an idea and a behavior, creates discomfort. Festinger argued that cognitive dissonance is more intense when a person holds many dissonant views, How to Stop Drinking Out of Boredom: Tips and Advice for a Sober Life in 2023 Lantana Recovery: Addiction Treatment Rehab Center and those views are important to them. American psychologist Leon Festinger first developed the concept in the 1950s. It can occur when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

More broadly, it has been suggested that dissonance reduction works as an exclusive switch (Simon et al., 1995), meaning that people will engage in only one dissonance-reduction strategy at a time, choosing whichever alternative is made available to them. For instance, when the cognitive conflict is made highly salient, or self-affirmation is readily available, trivialization will be more likely. Past accounts of dissonance reduction have identified several different factors influencing dissonance reduction (e.g., the type of cognitions in conflict, situational circumstances, influence of other people, individual differences, personal goals, etc.). To illustrate, assuming that dissonance emerges when self-integrity is threatened, and the subsequent reduction strategies assist in restoring the self-concept, the reduction process would be based on an emotional reaction to a perceived threat to the self. Similarly, if dissonance reduction is used as a rationalization of past behavior, or to lessen aversive consequences, it is the emotional reaction to the cognitive conflict that initiates these processes. Thus, with an emotion-regulation approach for understanding dissonance reduction, different notions and ideas on specific motives and strategies can be covered within a single model.