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Description

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels when their behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs. It can also occur when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It is the discomfort one feels when confronted with one’s own inconsistency, such as between one’s attitudes and behaviours. For example, acting against one’s own ideals should cause dissonance. Among ways to reduce dissonance, one might soften one’s ideals or trivialize one’s actions.
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.
For example, a person who wishes to protect other people and who believes that there are germs in the air that might cause infections will consider wearing a mask in public. This is consonance.
If that same person believes that there are germs in the air but refuses to wear a mask because it can trigger a panic attack their values and behaviours would contradict each other. This is dissonance.
Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes. This can prompt people to adopt certain defence mechanisms when they have to confront it.
Depression and cognitive dissonance
Depressed individuals are more prone to dissonance effects based on the following observations:
· Compared to nondepressed individuals, depressed individuals generally experience greater negative affect, and dissonance is essentially a negative affective response to an aversive event. More specifically, depressed individuals are more likely to feel threats to ego, which for many dissonance theorists are central to the experience of dissonance.
· Depressed individuals are more prone to feel guilt, which mimics dissonance in several respects, particularly in that both guilt and dissonance involve feelings of personal responsibility for negative behaviour.
· Depressed individuals are also more likely to feel indecisive, and indecisiveness predicts greater dissonance-induced attitude change.
· Depressed individuals anticipate greater post-decisional regret which is a classic indicator of dissonance.
· Another connection between depression and dissonance theory involves trivialization. Trivialization is a primary mode of dissonance reduction. Upon feeling dissonance, if one can downplay the importance of a dissonant element, then the dissonance should reduce. However, depressed individuals seem less able to trivialize, in that they tend to perceive greater importance in negative events. With less access to this mode of dissonance reduction, depressed individuals would generally be more susceptible to dissonance effects.
Strategies to reduce cognitive dissonance
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.
In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance in the following ways:
· Change the behaviour or the cognition (“I’ll eat no more of this doughnut.”)
· Justify the behaviour or the cognition, by changing the conflicting cognition (“I’m allowed to cheat my diet every once in a while.”)
· Justify the behaviour or the cognition by adding new behaviour s or cognitions (“I’ll spend thirty extra minutes at the gymnasium to work off the doughnut.”)
· Ignore or deny information that conflicts with existing beliefs (“This doughnut is not a high-sugar food.”)
Cognitive dissonance and selective exposure
Another method to reduce cognitive dissonance is through selective exposure. Festinger noticed that people would selectively expose themselves to some media over others; specifically, they would avoid dissonant messages and prefer consonant messages. Through selective exposure, people actively (and selectively) choose what to watch, view, or read that fit to their current state of mind, mood or beliefs. In other words, consumers select attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This can be applied to media, news, music, and any other messaging channel. The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will increase cognitive dissonance.
For example, a study was done in an elderly home in 1992 on the loneliest residents — those that did not have family or frequent visitors. The residents were shown a series of documentaries: three that featured a “very happy, successful elderly person”, and three that featured an “unhappy, lonely elderly person.” After watching the documentaries, the residents indicated they preferred the media featuring the unhappy, lonely person over the happy person. This can be attested to them feeling lonely, and experiencing cognitive dissonance watching somebody their age feeling happy and being successful.
This study explains how people select media that aligns with their mood, as in selectively exposing themselves to people and experiences they are already experiencing. It is more comfortable to see a movie about a character that is similar to you than to watch one about someone who is your age who is more successful than you.
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.
The likelihood that a particular cognition will change is determined by its resistance to change, which is based on its responsiveness to reality and the extent to which it is consonant with other cognitions. Therefore, changes are more likely to happen in an element that is less resistant or less important. However, an attempt to reduce a dissonance is not always successful. An individual may fail to restore a consonance, if there is a lack of social support and new harmonious elements, or the existing problematic element is too satisfying
In conclusion
In simple terms, a dissonance is an inconsistency in cognitive elements, which can be knowledge, opinions, beliefs, or the behaviours of an individual. The existence of such inconsistency causes mental discomfort and motivates the individual to take some actions to reduce or eliminate it.
The likelihood that a particular cognition will change is determined by its resistance to change, which is based on its responsiveness to reality and the extent to which it is consonant with other cognitions.

Description

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels when their behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs. It can also occur when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It is the discomfort one feels when confronted with one’s own inconsistency, such as between one’s attitudes and behaviours. For example, acting against one’s own ideals should cause dissonance. Among ways to reduce dissonance, one might soften one’s ideals or trivialize one’s actions.
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.
For example, a person who wishes to protect other people and who believes that there are germs in the air that might cause infections will consider wearing a mask in public. This is consonance.
If that same person believes that there are germs in the air but refuses to wear a mask because it can trigger a panic attack their values and behaviours would contradict each other. This is dissonance.
Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes. This can prompt people to adopt certain defence mechanisms when they have to confront it.
Depression and cognitive dissonance
Depressed individuals are more prone to dissonance effects based on the following observations:
· Compared to nondepressed individuals, depressed individuals generally experience greater negative affect, and dissonance is essentially a negative affective response to an aversive event. More specifically, depressed individuals are more likely to feel threats to ego, which for many dissonance theorists are central to the experience of dissonance.
· Depressed individuals are more prone to feel guilt, which mimics dissonance in several respects, particularly in that both guilt and dissonance involve feelings of personal responsibility for negative behaviour.
· Depressed individuals are also more likely to feel indecisive, and indecisiveness predicts greater dissonance-induced attitude change.
· Depressed individuals anticipate greater post-decisional regret which is a classic indicator of dissonance.
· Another connection between depression and dissonance theory involves trivialization. Trivialization is a primary mode of dissonance reduction. Upon feeling dissonance, if one can downplay the importance of a dissonant element, then the dissonance should reduce. However, depressed individuals seem less able to trivialize, in that they tend to perceive greater importance in negative events. With less access to this mode of dissonance reduction, depressed individuals would generally be more susceptible to dissonance effects.
Strategies to reduce cognitive dissonance
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.
In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance in the following ways:
· Change the behaviour or the cognition (“I’ll eat no more of this doughnut.”)
· Justify the behaviour or the cognition, by changing the conflicting cognition (“I’m allowed to cheat my diet every once in a while.”)
· Justify the behaviour or the cognition by adding new behaviour s or cognitions (“I’ll spend thirty extra minutes at the gymnasium to work off the doughnut.”)
· Ignore or deny information that conflicts with existing beliefs (“This doughnut is not a high-sugar food.”)
Cognitive dissonance and selective exposure
Another method to reduce cognitive dissonance is through selective exposure. Festinger noticed that people would selectively expose themselves to some media over others; specifically, they would avoid dissonant messages and prefer consonant messages. Through selective exposure, people actively (and selectively) choose what to watch, view, or read that fit to their current state of mind, mood or beliefs. In other words, consumers select attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This can be applied to media, news, music, and any other messaging channel. The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will increase cognitive dissonance.
For example, a study was done in an elderly home in 1992 on the loneliest residents — those that did not have family or frequent visitors. The residents were shown a series of documentaries: three that featured a “very happy, successful elderly person”, and three that featured an “unhappy, lonely elderly person.” After watching the documentaries, the residents indicated they preferred the media featuring the unhappy, lonely person over the happy person. This can be attested to them feeling lonely, and experiencing cognitive dissonance watching somebody their age feeling happy and being successful.
This study explains how people select media that aligns with their mood, as in selectively exposing themselves to people and experiences they are already experiencing. It is more comfortable to see a movie about a character that is similar to you than to watch one about someone who is your age who is more successful than you.
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.
The likelihood that a particular cognition will change is determined by its resistance to change, which is based on its responsiveness to reality and the extent to which it is consonant with other cognitions. Therefore, changes are more likely to happen in an element that is less resistant or less important. However, an attempt to reduce a dissonance is not always successful. An individual may fail to restore a consonance, if there is a lack of social support and new harmonious elements, or the existing problematic element is too satisfying
In conclusion
In simple terms, a dissonance is an inconsistency in cognitive elements, which can be knowledge, opinions, beliefs, or the behaviours of an individual. The existence of such inconsistency causes mental discomfort and motivates the individual to take some actions to reduce or eliminate it.
The likelihood that a particular cognition will change is determined by its resistance to change, which is based on its responsiveness to reality and the extent to which it is consonant with other cognitions.