He suggested that people have an inner need to ensure that their beliefs and behaviors are consistent. Inconsistent or conflicting beliefs lead to disharmony, which people strive to avoid. In our opinion, developing an instrument assessing a specific affect, such as the CDS, requires understanding the precise nature and characteristics of this affect. However, the characteristics of the CDS are not well-understood today, aside from a general consensus that it should involve a form of negative arousal. For the purpose of developing a relevant instrument, we believe that there is much to gain from taking a step back and examining the characteristics of the CDS in a more global framework. While cognitive dissonance theory has rarely been linked to psychological models of emotions, these models can be used to better describe the nature of the CDS.
The Rise and Fall of the Human Mind: A Look at the Impact of Modern Technology on Cognitive Health
The reading of obscene sexual words to be initiated to the discussion involved a greater investment by the subjects than reading non-obscene words. Listening to a dull discussion was not worth the embarrassment of reading the obscene words, resulting in cognitive dissonance. The strong initiation subjects convinced themselves that the discussion was more interesting than it actually was to make their effort to feel worthwhile.
Body image and health intervention
- There is also some ambiguity (i.e., vagueness) about the term “dissonance” itself.
- People do not necessarily experience discomfort in response to every apparent contradiction in their thoughts and beliefs.
- Cognitive dissonance theory has become popular among social psychology and social science researchers since its early days, due to its few tenets that are able to explain the complex process of dissonance.
- It refers to the mental discomfort or tension experienced when an individual holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes simultaneously.
- See a certified medical or mental health professional for diagnosis.
Indeed, decades of research have investigated the nature and structure of human emotions, and it seems senseless to ignore this work in the examination of the CDS. In the following studies, we use the framework of the Pleasure Arousal Dominance model of emotion (Bakker, van der Voordt, Vink, & de Boon, 2014; Mehrabian & Russell, 1974) to investigate the characteristics of the CDS across two cognitive dissonance paradigms. In fact, recent research has suggested that while a discrepancy between cognitions drives individuals to crave attitude-consistent information, the experience of negative emotions drives individuals to avoid counter attitudinal information. In other words, it is the psychological discomfort that activates selective exposure as a dissonance-reduction strategy.
Older Adults Not More Disadvantaged by Multitasking, Study Finds
Experiencing cognitive dissonance can lead people to try to reduce their feelings of discomfort —sometimes in surprising or unexpected ways. Sometimes, the ways that people resolve cognitive dissonance contribute to unhealthy behaviors or poor decisions. Cognitive dissonance can often have a powerful influence on our behaviors and actions. It doesn’t just influence how you feel; it also motivates you to take action to reduce feelings of discomfort. Sometimes learning new information can lead to feelings of cognitive dissonance.
Forced Compliance Behavior
Another approach is to adjust behaviors that conflict with your values. As your actions begin to align more closely with your beliefs, the discomfort you feel should decrease. However, it’s possible to reduce cognitive dissonance by changing your thoughts, changing your behaviors, or finding other ways to cope.
Study 1: Hypocrisy Paradigm
After 1 minute of writing, the experimenter feigned to have forgotten a phase of the study and gave the PAD scale to the participants. The scale was the same as in Study 1 and its instructions explained the need to assess the participants’ emotions, as they could influence their essay. At the end of the scale, a complementary question assessed participants’ attitude towards an increase of inscription fees on a 7-point-scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). In The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group (1956), to qualify for admission to listen in on a discussion, two groups of people underwent an embarrassing initiation of varied psychological severity.
How Attitude Change Takes Place
With dissonance that results from wanting something we can’t have, there are things we would like to have that we cannot for any number of reasons. When the desired “something” is very important, we may have dissonant cognitions that make us tense and unhappy. A psychological concept known as “self-affirmation theory” offers another possible answer to managing dissonance. For example, drinking too much coffee or using nicotine can make you feel more anxious than usual. Poor sleep hygiene can also elevate stress levels and make it harder to regulate your emotions. Turn to friends =https://ecosoberhouse.com/ who reassure you that you don’t have to do favors for people who treat you poorly.
- When Festinger (1957) proposed cognitive dissonance theory, the behaviorist perspective and reinforcement theory (e.g., Skinner 1938) were influential in how theorists thought about human behavior.
- Moreover, it proposes that human (and perhaps other animal) brains have evolved to selectively ignore contradictory information (as proposed by dissonance theory) to prevent the overfitting of their predictive cognitive models to local and thus non-generalizing conditions.
- Consequently, when reviewing the main cognitive dissonance paradigms, Kenworthy et al. (2011) conclude that guilt could be the most important mediator of common cognitive dissonance effects.
- Disposing of trash outside, even when knowing this is against the law, wrong, and is harmful for the environment, is a prominent example of cognitive dissonance, especially if the person feels bad after littering but continues to do so.
- According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.
- He can tell himself, “I am becoming stronger, healthier, and sharper.
Bipolar Disorder Linked to Distinct Brain Changes, New Study Reveals
Heider’s Balance Theory, on the other hand, emphasizes the desire for balanced relations among triads of entities (like people and attitudes), with imbalances prompting changes in attitudes to restore balance. Both theories address cognitive consistency, but in different contexts. In other words, he could tell himself that a short life filled with smoking and sensual pleasures is better than a long life devoid alcoholism symptoms of such joys. In this way, he would be decreasing the importance of dissonant cognition (smoking is bad for one’s health). Participants in the high-dissonance condition chose between a highly desirable product and one rated just 1 point lower on the 8-point scale. After reading the reports about the various products, individuals rated the products again.
Only scant research has investigated multiple dissonance reduction strategies simultaneously (McGrath, 2017). However, in general, 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 (Harmon-Jones & Mills, 2019). Therefore, changes are more likely to happen in an element that is less resistant or less important (Cooper, 2007). However, an attempt to reduce a dissonance is not always successful.
Are You Feeling Suicidal?
This treatment made it possible for scholars to understand the psychological process as a whole. Secondly, Festinger viewed people’s mental states in a social environment from an intellectual tradition, which was influenced by Kurt Lewin, rather than a Gestalt tradition as Heider did (Cooper, 2007). This intellectual tradition proposed that people navigated the world by motivational pushes and pulls, and therefore our behaviours were driven by psychological forces. Based on this intellectual tradition, Festinger was able to predict the magnitude cognitive dissonance theory of dissonance in different situations. Cognitive dissonance plays a crucial role in decision-making processes. The discomfort it causes can serve as a catalyst for change, pushing individuals to make choices that align more closely with their beliefs or values.