Leon Festinger, a prominent social psychologist first coined his theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957 in his book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957). He suggested that all humans have an inner drive to keep our attitudes and behaviors in harmony and avoid cognitive dissonance when these behaviors are disharmonious. This is a very common mental state that can arise subconsciously in all human beings. An example of this internal moral conflict that has been covered multiple times is the meat paradox. The meat paradox is the apparent disconnection between not wanting animals to suffer yet killing them for food. Because of this strong cognitive dissonance humans tend to rationalize their behaviors and inconsistencies within their attitudes by creating excuses (Dowsett et al., 2018).
A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance
Festinger believed that cognitive dissonance is an antecedent condition to the ultimate dissonance reduction activity (such as rationalization). It acts in the same way as hunger pushes our innate drive to reduce hunger activity. This comparison makes this concept rooted into our innate biological, psychological and ecological systems. In his book Festinger goes on to explore what leads to cognitive dissonance and the means that people use to reduce their “dissonance drive”. This has important implications for concepts within social and motivational psychology. This theory can be applied to the economic problems of partial reward, delay of reward and effort expenditure. Cognitive dissonance accounts for unexplained data within other theories because it integrates empirical phenomena. Festinger was undoubtedly influenced by psychoanalysis as he believed that the most influential elements that motivated people’s lives were dynamic. People are propelled by motivation, drives and forces in our environment that may be in conflict with forces within their own personalities. These drives are tangible, they are not a preference or impartial, they are a necessity to our psyche.
The Experiment
In 1959 along with Carlsmith, Festinger and his colleagues devised an experiment to prove cognitive dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). This changed multiple assumptions that psychologists had on the nature of decision making. The experiment started with participants having to carry out a very boring and dull task such as turning pegs at fixed intervals. The group was then separated in three groups and two of the groups of participants were asked to talk to another subject (a confederate) to convince that the task was actually really interesting and engaging. Because they had just completed a very boring task, the act of talking positively about it created cognitive dissonance within the individuals. Of these two groups one was paid twenty dollars and the other group was paid one dollar, the third group was not asked to talk to the confederate. The surprising finding of this study was during the debriefing interview. When subjects were asked to rate how negatively they felt about the task at hand, the ones who were paid less money rated the task more positively than the ones who were paid twenty dollars or were in the control group. This shows that the participants who were paid one dollar had to alleviate the cognitive dissonance internally, because they could not use the external excuse that they were paid money to explain the task in a positive light. These participants had much less comfort from their small incentive and were placed in a greater anxious state. The need to reduce dissonance led people to change their attitudes in the direction of their public statements. The participants who were paid twenty dollars had external justifications for their behavior and therefore did not have to internalize their cognitive dissonance.
Examples of cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance may not always be negative. It has been found that in certain individuals it may be a precursor to creativity, which may be the product or the result of the human cognition being stimulated (Runco, 2011). In depressed individuals cognitive dissonance arises very often and may lead to very grave consequences (Stadler, 2014). It has been found that in religious people existentially threatening stimuli increase religious cognitive dissonance more than in less intrinsically religious individuals (Forstmann & Sagioglu, 2020). It is unquestionable that in our era the advent of climate change and global warming has increased cognitive dissonance in the majority of individuals: not everyone can live a lifestyle that is in line with our beliefs to reduce climate change (Wagner, 2018). Cognitive dissonance has been found to be more present in people who use social media and social networks, victims of domestic violence, people who read online reviews and people who support torture (Jeong, Zo, Lee & Ceran, 2019; Nicholson, 2017; Liang 2016; Houck, 2016). Interestingly brain imaging studies may have found that cognitive dissonance is more present in younger people: they found an interaction effect associated with cognitive conflict in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in young participants but that was missing in elderly participants (Ito et al., 2019).
There are many ways that I have identified through the previous literature review to reduce cognitive dissonance. One of the best ways is to rationally change your own attitudes and behaviors in a healthy way to match our internal beliefs. Another way is to study and research new habits and information that outweigh the dissonance without falling pray to confirmation bias. Therapy may also be helpful if the dissonance is so strong that it impairs our every day life, this is unfortunately a reality for people suffering from OCD and PTSD who have to deal with irrational fears that do not match their outer environments.
Implications
As mentioned, the study of cognitive dissonance has implications for many who are suffering from mental health. People who suffer from eating disorders, depression, substance abuse or even diabetes face internal dysregulation. If a diabetic is told to stop eating sugars, but they crave sugars they will immediately be thrown into a state of cognitive dissonance as they are the immediate person responsible for what food they decide to eat (Pansu et al., 2019). It is also important for students to explain the effort justification pursuing education, as immediate results of their hard labor are not immediately rewarded (Lepper & Greene, 1975).
A study title Beyond Reference Pricing: Understanding Consumer’s Encounters with Unexpected Prices identifies the importance of cognitive dissonance in consumer behavior (Lindsey- Mullkin, 2003). They identify three specific behaviors to reduce cognitive dissonance when people are faced with unexpected prices: (a) they use a strategy of continual information: they engage in bias and search for information to support their prior beliefs (such as looking at other retailers or substitute goods), (b) they exert a change in attitude: they might re-evaluate a price by comparing it to external reference-prices or associate pricing to quality and (c) they engage in minimization: by reducing the importance of elements that cause dissonance such as the importance of money, saving, shopping or finding a more efficient deal.
Computer scientists have hypothesized that introducing cognitive dissonance into machine learning may produce a “creative autonomy” of machines ultimately creating a piece of what will become artificial consciousness also known as the synthetic conscious (Jennings, 2010).
Conclusion
There are many ways that I have identified through the previous literature review to reduce cognitive dissonance. One of the best ways is to rationally change your own attitudes and behaviors in a healthy way to match our internal beliefs. Another way is to study and research new habits and information that outweigh the dissonance without falling pray to confirmation bias. Therapy may also be helpful if the dissonance is so strong that it impairs our every day life, this is unfortunately a reality for people suffering from OCD and PTSD who have to deal with irrational fears that do not match their outer environments.
The theory of cognitive dissonance has become widely recognized and used for its influential notions of decision making. Since cognitive dissonance produces stress it has great implications for finding new ways to alleviate stress in a healthy and rational manner.
Works Cited
Dissonance? Retrieved from https://uiowa.edu/crisp/sites/uiowa.edu.crisp/files/art8.20.14_3.pdf
Forstmann, M., & Sagioglou, C. (2020). Religious concept activation attenuates cognitive dissonance reduction in free- choice and induced compliance paradigms. The Journal of Social Psychology, 160(1), 75–91. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1080/00224545.2019.1609400
Jeong, M., Zo, H., Lee, C. H., & Ceran, Y. (2019). Feeling displeasure from online social media postings: A study using cognitive dissonance theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 97, 231–240. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2019.02.021
Dowsett, E., Semmler, C., Bray, H., Ankeny, R. A., & Chur-Hansen, A. (2018). Neutralising the meat paradox: Cognitive dissonance, gender, and eating animals. Appetite, 123, 280–288. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.appet.2018.01.005
Wagner DA. The marketing of global warming: A repeated measures examination of the effects of cognitive dissonance, endorsement, and information on beliefs in a social cause. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018;78(10-A(E)). http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2017-33535- 020&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed April 20, 2020.
Nicholson, S. B., & Lutz, D. J. (2017). The importance of cognitive dissonance in understanding and treating victims of intimate partner violence. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26(5), 475–492. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1080/10926771.2017.1314989
Liang, Y. (Jake). (2016). Reading to make a decision or to reduce cognitive dissonance? The effect of selecting and reading online reviews from a post-decision context. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 463–471. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.016
Pansu, P., Fointiat, V., Lima, L., Blatier, C., Flore, P., & Vuillerme, N. (2019). Changing behaviors: Using norms to promote physical activity for type 2 diabetes patients. European Review of Applied Psychology / European Review of Applied Psychology , 69 (2), 59–64. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.erap.2019.03.001
Ito, A., Kawachi, Y., Kawasaki, I., & Fujii, T. (2019). Effect of aging on choice-induced cognitive conflict. Behavioural Brain Research, 363, 94–102. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.bbr.2019.01.053
Houck, S. C. (2016). The cognitive dissonance theory of torture perceptions [ProQuest Information & Learning]. In Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering (Vol. 77, Issue 3–B(E)).
Lindsey-Mullikin, J. (2003). Beyond reference price: understanding consumers’ encounters with unexpected prices.
Jennings, K. E. (2010). Developing creativity: Artificial barriers in artificial intelligence. Minds and Machines: Journal for Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and Cognitive Science, 20(4), 489–501. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1007/s11023-010-9206-y
Lepper, M. R., & Greene, D. (1975). Turning play into work: Effects of adult surveillance and extrinsic rewards on children’s intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(3), 479–486. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/h0076484
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