Cognitive dissonance

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions.^[1] Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some change in their cognitions or actions to cause greater alignment between them so as to reduce this dissonance.^[2]

Relevant items of cognition include peoples' actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance exists without signs but surfaces through psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of conflicting things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people automatically try to resolve the conflict, usually by reframing a side to make the combination congruent. Discomfort is triggered by beliefs clashing with new information or by having to conceptually resolve a matter that involves conflicting sides, whereby the individual tries to find a way to reconcile contradictions to reduce their discomfort.^[2]

In When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World (1956) and A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world.^[3] Persons who experience internal inconsistency tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and are motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance.^[2] They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization), believing that "people get what they deserve" (just-world fallacy), taking in specific pieces of information while rejecting or ignoring others (selective perception), or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).^[4]^[5] Festinger explains avoiding cognitive dissonance as "Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."^[6]

^ Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology (2 ed.). American Psychological Association. 2019. ISBN 978-1-4338-3010-5. JSTOR j.ctv1chs6tk.
^ ^a ^b ^c Harmon-Jones, Eddie, ed. (2019). Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-3077-8.
^ Festinger, Leon (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
^ Hogg, Michael A., ed. (2003). Social psychology. Sage benchmarks in psychology. London: Sage Publ. ISBN 978-0-7619-4044-9.
^ Ellis, Ralph D.; Newton, Natika, eds. (2005). Consciousness & emotion: agency, conscious choice, and selective perception. Consciousness & emotion book series. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. ISBN 978-1-58811-596-6. OCLC 57626418.
^ Collin, Catherine; Benson, Nigel C.; Ginsburg, Joannah; Grand, Voula; Lazyan, Merrin; Weeks, Marcus, eds. (2012). The psychology book (1st American ed.). London New York Melbourne: DK. ISBN 978-0-7566-8970-4.

[1] Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology (2 ed.). American Psychological Association. 2019. ISBN 978-1-4338-3010-5. JSTOR j.ctv1chs6tk.

[:6-2] Harmon-Jones, Eddie, ed. (2019). Cognitive Dissonance: Reexamining a Pivotal Theory in Psychology (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-3077-8.

[:72-3] Festinger, Leon (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.

[4] Hogg, Michael A., ed. (2003). Social psychology. Sage benchmarks in psychology. London: Sage Publ. ISBN 978-0-7619-4044-9.

[5] Ellis, Ralph D.; Newton, Natika, eds. (2005). Consciousness & emotion: agency, conscious choice, and selective perception. Consciousness & emotion book series. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. ISBN 978-1-58811-596-6. OCLC 57626418.

[:05-6] Collin, Catherine; Benson, Nigel C.; Ginsburg, Joannah; Grand, Voula; Lazyan, Merrin; Weeks, Marcus, eds. (2012). The psychology book (1st American ed.). London New York Melbourne: DK. ISBN 978-0-7566-8970-4.

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