“Your best friend is having a beer bash tonight. Everyone you talk to indicated their positive intentions of going to the best beer bash of the millennium. However, you have a Psyc 135 final next morning that you haven't studied for. Your midterm scores have been low going into the final, but everyone claims that the final is easy every semester. Should you stay home and study for the final or go to this millennium beer bash and merrily consume alcohol?”
Above stated scenario raises several questions in my mind and lands me in a state of psychological tension. Having a choice of attending a social event or studying for the final exam puts me in a dilemma as to what to do next. Deciding to stay home and study for a test may very well anger my friends, but may also cause a terrible sense of well being of missing out on a social event. While deciding to go to the party instead, it leads me in a state of tension as the party time can be well spent on studying for the final exam next morning. This state of uneasiness or tension is easily understood as Cognitive Dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1957), is concerned with the relationships among cognitions (Festinger, 1957). In this context, cognition can be perceived as a piece of knowledge that may inscribe an element of an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, a value, and so on (Festinger, 1957). For example, the knowledge that you like the color blue is a cognition. People hold a multitude of cognitions simultaneously, and these cognitions form irrelevant, consonant or dissonant relationships with one another.
Cognitive Irrelevance probably describes the bulk of the relationships among a person’s cognitions. Irrelevance simply means that the two cognitions have nothing to do with each other. Two cognitions are consonant if one cognition fits with or is consistent with the other. People like consonance among their cognitions. We do not know whether this aspect is innate or is learned, but people do prefer cognitions that fit together to those that do not. It is this simple observation that gives the theory of cognitive dissonance its interesting form. And, two cognitions are said to be dissonant or incompatible if one cognition follows from the opposite of another (Festinger, 1957).
Continuing on with the scenario, having decided to attend the beer bash, it positions me in ano...
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...t with the other (O’Keefe, 1990). In addition, if two cognitions cause a certain magnitude of dissonance, that magnitude can be reduced by adding one or more consonant cognitions, thereby abating the dissonance. This often involves rationalizing or reassurance which reinforces an existing worldview. This is called "rationalizing" because the individual seeks out semi-logical conclusions using existing cognitions and newly created consistent cognitions in order to find a way to invalidate the inconsistent cognitions (O’Keefe, 1990). Also, it may be advantageous to alter the importance of the various cognitions to reduce the level of dissonance, since the discrepant and consonant cognitions must be weighed by importance.
References
Berkowitz, L. & Cotton, J. (1984). Cognitive Dissonance in Selective Exposure. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 357-373.
O’Keefe, Daniel J. (1990). Persuasion: Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California: Sage Press.
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Schacter, D. L., Gilbert, D. T., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Psychology. (2nd ed., p. 600). New York: Worth Pub.
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
Cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for people to accept conflicting new ideas. Conflicting beliefs create discomfort
Langer, Ellen J., Susan Fiske, Shelley E. Taylor, and Benzion Chanowitz. "Stigma, Staring, and Discomfort: A Novel-stimulus Hypothesis." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 12.5 (1976): 451-63. Web.
Watson, John B.; R Rayner, (March 2000) Conditioned emotional reactions, American Psychologist, Vol 55(3), 313-317.
Cognitive dissonance theory is the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. There are three methods that dissonance can be condensed. Individuals can modify one or more of the beliefs, attitude, behaviors, and more, this way the connection between the two elements are in agreement with one another. Another method is to gather new information that will compensate the dissonant beliefs. The third method is to decrease the importance of the beliefs, attitudes, behavior, and etc. Dissonance theory does not say that these methods will work; only people in the state of cognitive dissonance will use these methods to condense the degree of their dissonance. Cognitive dissonance theory
Cognitive dissonance can be described as the feeling of discomfort resulting from holding two conflicting beliefs. It can also be said to be the mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. A well-known psychologist Leon Festinger (1919–89), introduced this concept in the late 1950s where he proved that, when confronted with challenging new information; most people are observed to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists in one way or the other (Festinger, 04).
Decisions are the basis of human history, advancement, and modern society. Important decisions often cause a conflict within a person as he or she attempts to make a choice based on what he or she believes is right, as well as what he or she believes is wise. Throughout life and society, people find themselves at a crossroads of beliefs or thoughts with the justification of murder. This is due to the dissonance illustrated when they have mixed feelings with the idea that killing another human is wrong, although it seemingly appears unavoidable in certain situations. This inevitability is what justifies murder in the first place. These mixed feelings create a cognitive dissonance that impacts society in a detrimental manner because people in society care less about people being murdered due to the simple and common justification behind it.
According to Green (1959), “Festinger proposed a theory concerning cognitive dissonance…the present experiment was to design this derivation under controlled, laboratory conditions.” In this experiment, students at Standford University that were in psychology classes were the subjects. The subjects were instructed to perform a boring tedious task. Afterword, they were asked to tell the next subject that the task they did was fun. Some subjects were paid a dollar, and the rest of the subjects were paid twenty dollars to lie to the next subject. In this paper, which subjects experienced cognitive dissonance, how they experience cognitive dissonance, and personal examples of cognitive dissonance will be discussed.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.
Higgins, Tory. “Self-Discrepancy Theory: What Patterns of Self-Beliefs Cause People to Suffer?”(1989). Advances in Experimental Social psychology, Vol.22 (1989):93-136. Academic Press Inc.
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 7.6 million companion pets enter animal shelters across the United States each year, nearly evenly disrupted between dogs and cats . These animals are abandoned for reasons including families no longer being able to care for them (sickness/death of an owner), to families not wanting them (the novelty wearing of the animal wearing off), to the animals being born into puppy mills to finally animals that are loved being lost from their owners. These animals do not understand what is happening to them and rely on the kindness of humans to provide for them in shelters until their forever home can be found.
Watson, J. B. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. The American Psychologist, 55(3), 313-317. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/
...heavier friends. Also, since it takes my body about an hour to digest a drink, I should start to pace myself in order to assure that I do not drink deadly amounts. I have also had time to look within myself and truly reflect on my reasons for drinking. My self-evaluations led to the following conclusion: maybe I shouldn’t use alcohol as an escape from stress or depression because it doesn’t help, but rather it intensifies the feelings I am already experiencing. Alcohol is a drug and it’s surprising that it took an incident like this one for me to truly grasp the significance of making sure my drinking habits are at a level that is safe for my individualized body. Although this experience led to intervention with the ORL staff, in my case it was positive because I have gained the knowledge and self-realization that I needed to make healthier decisions in the future.
Weiner, I. Healy, A. Freedheim, D. Proctor,R.W., Schinka,J.A. (2003) Handbook of Psychology: Experimental psychology,18, pp 500