For example, a person who wishes to protect other people and who believes that the COVID-19 pandemic is real might wear a mask in public. In his book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger proposed that two ideas can be consonant or dissonant. Consonant ideas logically flow from one another, while dissonant ideas oppose one another. If you want something more grounded, try a non-spiritual practice, and it’s not evolutionary psychology.

• Those with this distorted way of thinking may not even realize that they have a problem, or if they do, they ignore it.
• When you smoke, you may feel guilt because you know smoking can cause cancer and that you should stop.
• That’s why we often respond to cognitive dissonance by doing mental gymnastics to feel like things make sense again.
• Note that this demonstration is simply meant for the above-mentioned purpose (and thereby illustrating the feasibility of the emotion-regulation perspective)–not as a test of the model presented earlier.
• You may think this is a high ratio, but when we take the extremely rapid change of our aesthetic preferences into consideration, it is in fact shockingly low.

That is, changing their cognition that smoking is dangerous—through mental gymnastics like denial—or changing their behavior so that it’s consonant with the rational belief that smoking is hazardous would both reduce cognitive dissonance. You might decide that your choice is OK in comparison to your beliefs or you might minimize the negative aspects of your decision to feel better. In more severe cases, unresolved cognitive dissonance may lead to blaming and avoiding behaviors.

Cognitive dissonance

A man who learns that his eating habits raise his risk of illness feels the tension between his preferred behavior and the idea that he could be in danger. He might ease this feeling by telling himself that the health warning is exaggerated or, more productively, by deciding to take action to change his behavior. If a woman reads that her favorite politician has done something immoral, she could conclude that the charges have been invented by his enemies—or, instead, rethink her support.

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. 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. 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). They tend to modify their thought processes to support their cravings and addictive behavior, in order for them to feel or assure themselves that their choices or how they are acting is more favorable than it actually is.

How to reduce cognitive dissonance

Indeed, research has shown that when put in a situation in which a person with racist attitudes works cooperatively with a member of the race they disdain, after a while, their racist attitudes tend to weaken. One of the most effective psychological therapies is called “Cognitive Therapy” (CT), and it aims to alleviate psychosocial problems by changing people’s thoughts from negative or self-defeating attitudes to more positive beliefs. Ironically, despite extensive research and clinical experience that would seem to validate CT’s effectiveness, simply combating irrational beliefs and replacing them with more rational ideas rarely does the job.

Your behavior contradicts not just the beliefs you have about the world, but also the beliefs that you have about yourself. The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates them to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort. People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information. There are a variety of ways people are thought to resolve the sense of dissonance when cognitions don’t seem to fit together. They may include denying or compartmentalizing unwelcome thoughts, seeking to explain away a thought that doesn’t comport with others, or changing what one believes or one’s behavior. 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.

Looking for health + wellness advice?

There are also individual differences in whether or not people act as this theory predicts. Many people seem able to cope with considerable dissonance and not experience the tensions the theory predicts. It is a theory with very broad applications, showing that we aim for consistency between attitudes and behaviors and may not use very rational methods to achieve it. It has the advantage of being testable by scientific means (i.e., experiments). If we put effort into a task that we have chosen to carry out, and the task turns out badly, we experience dissonance.

• In addition to the questions you’ve prepared ahead of time, don’t hesitate to ask your health care provider to clarify anything you don’t understand.
• “If you believe in the power of recycling but you don’t have access to a recycling program in your community, this can cause you distress or discomfort because you have this value that’s important to you but you’re not participating in it,” says Dr. Prewitt.
• You didn’t think about it much before, but if you continue to make the same clothing choices, you’ll feel some cognitive dissonance.
• Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort felt when two pieces of information contradict each other or when your behavior goes against the truth of a situation.
• The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism’s active drive for reducing prediction error.

Thus, the recursive nature of the dissonance-reduction process alters the subsequent emotional experience in relation to the dissonant situation–which depends on how the individual reduces dissonance in that particular situation (see next section). In the secondary reduction stage (see right-hand side of Figure cognitive dissonance treatment 1), the individual has moved past the initial negative arousal and engages in more elaborate thinking about the situation. Some goals are long term (e.g., having a good relationship with family members), while other goals are short term (e.g., standing up for oneself in a disagreement with a stranger).

Understanding what caused the dissonance can help you figure out the best way to address it. Cognitive bias is the tendency to process information in the light of our own experiences. Our brains rely on patterns, past experiences, and mental shortcuts to process information quickly. That means that when we take in new information, we don’t interpret it objectively.

When you’re stressed or anxious, you could affect your overall mental, emotional and physical health. Changing the conflicting cognition is one of the most effective ways of dealing with dissonance but it is also one of the most difficult—particularly in the case of deeply held values and beliefs, such as religious or political leanings. Cognitive dissonance can even influence how people feel about and view themselves, leading to negative feelings of self-esteem and self-worth. This is particularly true if the disparity between their beliefs and behaviors involves something that is central to their sense of self. There are a number of different situations that can create conflicts that lead to cognitive dissonance.