Cognitive Dissonance in Employment

Cognitive dissonance is defined as the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. Cognitive dissonance occurs most often when a person’s beliefs, morals or feeling are one way but they do not act accordingly. This dissonance may be displayed in numerous ways that may be done outwardly but also there is an internal process that takes place. A use of internal processing involves many different functions, included but not limited to, thinking, perception and problem solving. The driving force of dissonance is that we as humans attempt to align opposing thoughts or ideas and carry on with life in a way that still meets our morals, set standards or way of thinking. In doing so, we are then challenged to find what we believe as appropriate reasoning for making

A television show that demonstrates the concepts of cognitive dissonance and the power elite is called Prison Break. This show tells a storyline of a man named Michael Scofield who has to save his brother Lincoln, who was put on Death Row for a crime he did not commit. Lincoln was framed for the murder of the vice president by a power group of people called “The Company”. Michael is a genius who has an architect degree and sets up a plan to break Lincoln out of prison and prove his innocence by taking down The Company. The way they will take them down is by stealing a device called “Scylla” which is

If one is trying to pull a thought or feeling in closer, or push it away, they may be attempting to manipulate their cognitive dissonance. If one knows that they are not happy with their actions, they can dilute that feeling of cognitive dissonance by decreasing the negative or enhancing the positive attitudes about it (Smith & Mackie, n.d.). One might be a smoker for instance, and know that smoking is bad for them, but continue smoking anyway. A perception of a clash of unsuitable elements is a way to describe the way one feels when their actions and beliefs are at odds (McLeod, 2014). So, if one is unhappy about the things they do because they do not match what they think they should do, they will be said to be experiencing cognitive dissonance.

“The engine that drives self-justification, the energy that produces the need to justify our actions and decisions—especially the wrong ones—is an unpleasant feeling the Festinger called “cognitive dissonance.” Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when ever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent, such as “Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me” and “I smoke two packs a day.” Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish.” (p.13)

The cognitive theory argues that behavior is based on knowing about a situation in which the

We all live in a world of danger; anything could happen without any warning. In the face of danger we all react differently, some aggressively, others defensively, but we all have one thing in common. In Gail Helgason’s Bluffing, it is clear that in the presence of danger, individuals act without thought, entering a different mindset altogether. This mindset contains a predetermined reaction, which differs between individuals.

Cognitive dissonance is defined by Gilovich et all’s textbook as “ A theory that maintains the inconsistencies among a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions create an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency”. While this definition is true it also quite confusing. To understand this first the words that make up the term need to be understood. Cognition is a mental action, it involves gaining knowledge and understanding through use of thoughts, senses, and experiences. This cognition can produce a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition. Dissonance is simply a discrepancy among two things. In the case of cognitive dissonance this discrepancy is between any two of the following; an idea,

The idea is applicable in everyday life; we can use cognitive dissonance to help people make better decisions throughout the day. When we finish using the bathroom we often see a sign asking us to wash our hands to prevent disease and infection. When someone thinks to not wash their hands but sees the sign, they will experience cognitive dissonance. To get rid of this discomfort they will probably choose to wash their hands. Small interactions like these help better the world; by placing small changes like these in someone’s environment we can remind people of their morals and values.

Topic Background/Introduction: To get a positive response from an individual, one must offer a reward. To stop a particular response from an individual, one must present a punishment. The greater the reward and more severe the punishment, the more likely the individual is to respond to or stop the behavior. To achieve continued compliance, one has to continue to give a reward or punishment. Cognitive dissonance occurs when someone has two or more contradicting attitudes and behaviors. The only way to fix this is to change an attitude to match the behavior or change the behavior

The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance is recognised as a feeling of discomfort, initially aroused by two inconsistent cognitions created by performing an action that contradict ones typically self-concept (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010). The drive to view ourselves as

Cognitive dissonance theory was created by Leon Festinger and to better explain his theory he used the topic of smoking. He showed how “the contradiction is so clear and uncomfortable that something has to give - either the use of cigarettes of the belief that smoking will [harm]” (Griffin et al., 2015, p.201). Cognitive dissonance in a nutshell is a contradiction that causes us stress. It is when we act in ways that go against what we believe and the strong presence we have on the matter the greater the stress we have. Festinger (2015) describe it the distressing mental state one feels when one finds themselves doing things that don’t fit with what we believe or what the public approves of (p.200). An extreme example of this is the high one gets from taking drugs but the disapproval the community might have for it. With dissonance creating a stressful mental state we naturally want to avoid it by either change our behaviors or our beliefs.

Cognitive dissonance impacts attitudes and behavior negatively in the workplace in a variety of ways depending on the position you are employed. Being in management as an administrator you are faced with many challenges and situations that cause cognitive dissonance. For example, if my director asks me to perform a task and the way in which he wants me to perform the task, goes against my beliefs, I am forced to decide whether to follow his directives or risk termination for insubordination. The stress factor is making the correct decision. I can remember an instructor sending a student to me for conduct issues and wanted the student terminated from her program. The documentation that she provided to me was not sufficient to suspend the student,

When in context with violent crime, these stressors become even more intense, and irrational prejudices lead to failure of control over one’s own impulses. People are more insecure around members of different demographics, with the subconscious tension creating moral ambiguity within the mind, leading to a higher propensity of violent crime. Since these innate biases cannot be consciously controlled, the deterrence theory cannot be considered as a factor for curbing violent crime. Other subconscious factors manipulate people to act out impulsively without premeditated thoughts of the consequences.

Leon Festinger created the cognitive dissonance theory as an attempt to explain why people desire to have consistency between their behaviors and actions. Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state people feel when they find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold (Festinger, 1957; as cited in Griffin, 2009). Thus, people are motivated to change either their behavior or their belief when feelings of dissonance arise.

The principal assumption of the theory regarding to Hogg and Vaughan (2011, p.214) “is that cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state of psychological tension generated when a person has two or more cognitions (bits of information) that are inconsistent or do not fit together. So if people at the same time hold those two cognitions (thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, states of awareness of behaviour), which are psychologically inconsistent, then we experience dissonance. The theory also accounts for discrepancies between behaviour and attitudes. For instance, when people act in a manner that is inconsistent with their attitudes, then they experience tension. And how people can reduce this tension? Festinger (1957) suggested people have to do it by changing their attitudes so that they are in line with their behavior. The main way of reducing dissonance is attitude change. The theory propose that when we are dealing with two conflicting beliefs then we experience tension or an aversive state and a good example is military training. The military teaches and telling soldiers that when they kill the enemy its nothing wrong and killing them is a good thing but those same soldiers have a deeply natural and inborn belief that “thou shalt not kill”(Sturman, 2012) . Another example is about person who smokes cigarettes. Regarding to Stone and Cooper (2001) most people