In today's article, you will learn what is cognitive dissonance, Have you ever known someone who acted in a completely opposite way to what they stand for? In reality, the problem is more complex than this example. To better understand what the problem is, read this post to the end!

What is cognitive dissonance for Festinger

Cognitive dissonance is a concept that was first developed by Professor Leon Festinger in the mid-20th century. His work was mostly developed at the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1957 his book on the subject was first published, entitled " Cognitive dissonance ", nowadays quite difficult to find.

The author defines Cognitive Dissonance as a tension between what a person thinks or believes, and what they do. When someone produces an action that is at odds with what he or she thought, this discomfort is generated among the psychic mechanisms. This is the effect of cognitive dissonance.

Either what we know or think adapts to our behavior, or the behavior adapts to our knowledge. Festinger considered that the need to dodge dissonance is as important as security or food needs.

Cognitive dissonance concept

Cognitive dissonance is the inconsistency between what the person says or thinks (beliefs, values, principles) and what the person actually practices.

There would be a "psychologically uncomfortable state," that is, a internal conflict in the subject in his decision-making process when two (or more) cognitive elements are perceived as not coherent.

The subject has a specific opinion about a subject, or a specific behavior to a situation, and this does not agree with what the subject thinks of himself. That is, a concrete (temporal) thought or attitude does not agree with the abstract (timeless) image that the person makes of himself.

Cognitive dissonance is both rational and emotional

For authors Sweeney, Hausknecht, and Soutar (2000), cognitive dissonance theory carries within it a contradiction, because it has an eminently emotional value even though it has the "cognitive" (a conceptual or rational idea) in its name.

This discomfort varies according to the importance that the subject assigns to a theme and, depending on how it is, it can be perceived as something more serious, even anguish or anxiety, which would reflect the mismatch between cognitions.

Defense mechanisms against dissonance

In order to resolve (or ameliorate) the dissonance, the subject will trigger various psychological mechanisms. These mechanisms will have an effect of justifying, counteracting, or ameliorating one of the poles of dissonance. The subject will trigger various psychological mechanisms to reduce or eliminate the dissonance.

In psychoanalysis, we use the concept of ego defense mechanisms Defense mechanisms like rationalization are also softening mechanisms of cognitive dissonance.

Example Cognitive dissonance: there is cognitive dissonance when a person has an image of himself as an environmentalist, but one day throws garbage on the street, out the window of his car. If the person has already publicly positioned himself on the subject (for example, defending the environment to his children or on social networks), the tendency is that the dissonant conduct generates greater psychic discomfort.

To dissolve the dissonance between his self-perception and his real behavior (and to alleviate the anguish generated), the person can adopt mechanisms such as: "it was just a one time thing", "today is not a good day for me", "I don't like the mayor of this city", "there is another explanation for this specific case", etc.

Eliminate or reduce cognitive dissonance

We talk about the ego defense mechanisms, which can also be adapted to understand the mechanisms to resolve dissonance.

Now, speaking in more specific terms, the cognitive dissonance theory states that there are three ways to eliminate or reduce dissonance :

• Dissonant relationship The subject will try to substitute one or more beliefs, behaviors or opinions involved. E.g.: "The city oppresses me", "The mayor is corrupt".
• Consonant relationship The subject will try to acquire new information or beliefs to increase consonance, e.g.: "Someone will pick up the garbage I threw and make money from recycling it".
• Irrelevant relationship The subject will try to forget or think that new information or beliefs are more important, at least for that specific case. E.g. "This is not that important next to the difficulties I went through today".

In our view, the important thing is that the subject resolves the dissonance in a profound way and that gives a new meaning to the self-image that the subject makes of himself. In this way, he will be able to find a new frame of consonance and in conformity with his "essence", something that is not a mere excuse for dissonance.

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That is, to solve it in a profound way, one must seek more knowledge and self-knowledge, in the sense of identifying whether:

• the self-image that I had of myself is inadequate and needs to change? If so, one resolves the dissonance by building a new self-image of oneself, reducing demands on a dissonant ideal;
• Is the image I had of myself adequate and does it need to continue? If so, the dissonance is solved by reviewing the behaviors and practices, adjusting them (on the next occasions) to the values and beliefs of the self-image, assuming the responsibilities, without dwelling on anguish over dissonances related to past events.

More information about the meaning of cognitive dissonance

In outline, This is an uncomfortable tension that can be generated by two conflicting thoughts. Basically, it is about the perceived incompatibility between two cognitions, where "cognition" is a term defined as any element of cognition, including attitude, emotion, beliefs, or behavior.

The theory of cognitive dissonance preaches that opposing cognitions serve as stimuli for the mind to obtain or invent new thoughts or beliefs. Furthermore, it is possible to modify pre-existing beliefs in order to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions that is caused.

It is worth noting that, according to Festinger, the severity or intensity varies according to the importance we give to the cognitive elements that are in dissonance.

Examples that help to better understand the theory of cognitive dissonance

To better understand the context of Cognitive Dissonance, we have prepared some examples below that are present in our daily lives.

How cognitive dissonance affects emotion or behavior

Cognitive dissonance is present in our daily lives, be it in the purchases we make every day at the market or at the mall.

You see, most people want to make good choices when buying a product. However, it is quite common when suddenly, for some reason, we regret spending the money or even find that the product was not what we expected. In this situation, the brain clashes with the beliefs already in your head. Thus, causing you to clash with your mind.

Practical examples experienced by all of us

Have you ever done something even though you knew it was wrong?

A good example is smoking a cigarette knowing that it is harmful to your health. Eating sweets in excess also helps to understand the concept, remembering that the excess can be fatal for those who suffer from diabetes. Parking in an elderly person's space is another example, even knowing that it is forbidden.

Driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol knowing all the dangers that can result from this choice is also totally controversial.

More examples that affect our emotions

Sometimes we are so eager for everything to work out in our relationship with a person, be it a boyfriend, a husband, a friend, a co-worker, a relative, or a boss, that we overlook the real absurdities that this person might commit in order to cover for and defend them.

Furthermore, we end up making excuses for them, justifying the unjustifiable when we should just realize that this person is not doing us any good. This problem is particularly interesting when we observe cases of cognitive dissonance in interrogations, which is super tricky to deal with.

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Read Also: What is emotion within Psychoanalysis?

In psychology, this feeling is a result of cognitive dissonance, which is a phenomenon where our beliefs actually contradict each other.in short, whenever the way you see the world clashes with the way you act, think or communicate, we have a case of dissonancecognitive.

When is cognitive dissonance present or not? A quick layman's definition

When, after the purchase, the customer carries with him a pleasant feeling of satisfaction, without guilt or remorse for having spent in that store, there is no cognitive dissonance. However, when we observe the opposite, after the purchase the customer regrets having spent the money, or feels sorry for what happened, here we can see that cognitive dissonance is present.

What to do when cognitive dissonance occurs?

In a minute of stress or discomfort between two different ideas, generating dissonance, we can soften the moment by taking a different attitude. Trying to change the environment and adjust it to the convictions you are in or adding new information to your knowledge is extremely important, this way we soften the internal conflicts.

Tips to lessen the impact on your daily life

• Work on your most favorable beliefs in order to overcome the dissonant belief or behavior;
• Add new beliefs, in this way you are expanding your knowledge and automatically giving less importance to non-constructive beliefs;
• Minimize the interest of the belief that is in dissonance (conflict);
• Seek social support;
• Don't charge yourself so much. Decreasing the degree of importance you give to your belief is crucial;
• If you want to eat candy on a diet, allow yourself to eat candy. Thus, you will be reducing the internal discomfort that happens to you because you believe that eating a sweet will spoil all your plans;
• Add new cognitions into your life.

We have seen that cognition is related to beliefs and opinions, if you have a point of view related to a certain subject. So that goes for an object, person, moment, religion, among other things.

By adding a new cognition, we gain more information about that particular topic. As a consequence, we bring a state of balance to the new perceptions, decreasing the conflict of dissonance. This happens because we insert new information that breaks the degree of importance of the previous dissonance.

Is it possible to cure cognitive dissonance?

Here we leave our question mark for this question, after all, cognitive dissonance is present in our lives. In fact, it can even be beneficial in several contexts for our survival. We will not be immune, but we can without a doubt determine a more self-critical relationship with our own mind on behalf of better performances.

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