Dissonance Theory

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

Sometimes the greatest test of a theory is its longevity. Over time, some theories will be disproved, some will be modified, and some will become the basis for a whole new group of theories. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance has stood up to challenge for over forty years, and is considered by many to be the single most important theory of social psychology. Though there have been modifications to the theory after many recreations and simulations of the original 1957 experiment, few have been able to really disqualify Festinger’s findings. It would be safe to say that many people don’t even have a full grasp of the incredible

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

No one enjoys being told what they are doing is wrong, and in this specific case that they are stealing. Peter explains to Joanna that his business has been rounding certain amounts to take “fractions of a penny” from compounded interests and then they placed the “dropped remainder” in an account they own. By using the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, I will analyze this artifact and incorporate how this theory is intertwined within the conversation between the characters Joanna and Peter. I will show how Peter uses selective exposure, post-decision dissonance, and two of the three parts of the state-of-the-art revisions to reduce his dissonance.

In 1994, two hundred million people own a gun privately, but today its between two hundred seventy and three hundred million people own guns. There have been more than ten firearms deaths per 100,000 people a year. "In 90% of gun crimes, the firearms has changed at least once since the original sale" (Bennet, 3). The topic of gun control can prevent school shootings have a history to consider, and there will always be both supporters and critics who continue to debate this topic.

OneMain Financial is a servicer of consumer loans and operates the largest branch based consumer finance company in the U.S. As a Personal Loan Specialist Intern, I was given the opportunity to learn every facet of direct consumer lending, some of which include: credit underwriting, business development and sales techniques, and client servicing. Upon completion of the training onboarding process, I was able to build rapport with customer and establish a relationship through sales and delivering exceptional service. By understanding personal loan products and best practices, I was able to assist customers by showing empathy for their situation. Each situation was uniquely different; therefore, I had a greater responsibility to comply with company

     The theory of Cognitive Dissonance states that when individuals are presented with information that implies we act in a way that contradicts our moral standards, we experience discomfort (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1998, P. 191). This is considered Cognitive Dissonance,

This theory refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance (Mcleod, n.d.). Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive consistency (Mcleod, n.d.). Throughout the film, Matt experiences many emotions, which results in different attitudes and behaviors toward others.

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 theory has been around since the late fifties. It has inspired many psychologists to figure out the murky depths of people’s minds. The theory relates strongly to decision making, social phenomenons and mental angst. Many paradigms exist within cognitive dissonance. Two important paradigms are the Belief Disconfirmation paradigm and the Free Choice paradigm. There are several experiments that have been studied that relate to cognitive dissonance, including the boring tasks experiment. The person who coined the phrase cognitive dissonance is the famous Leon Festinger, and he studied it inside and out. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most important topics

The researchers conducted this study to determine if an individual’s perception would change through forced acceptance and pressure on behavior. The researchers were trying to predict how dissonance would effect an individual’s own opinion when they go against their own opinion. Concerning cognitive dissonance theory was used in the experiment. The hypothesis of this study is the amount of reward offered to form a conflicting opinion based on their initial opinion through forced behavior.

The focus of this paper is to determine how cognitive dissonance affects our decisions, and how one can reduce the impacts of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon which occurs when two cognitions are conflicting. In choosing one option over the other, people tend to question if they made the right decision. There are several strategies to resolve cognitive dissonance. Altering the conflicting cognition, altering the importance of the conflicting cognition and adding additional positive cognitions to outweigh the conflicting ones are ways to resolve cognitive dissonance. The results of these dissonance reduction strategies all typically result in a stronger attribution with the option that was chosen, and the unchosen alternative is more negatively attributed.

One may experience cognitive dissonance when he or she has performed an undesirable action that is inconsistent with his or her belief of his or herself (Plous, 1993). The self-perception theory explains this dissonance by how people think of themselves (Plous, 1993). People naturally tend to believe they are good people, so actions inconsistent with their thoughts create an unsettling feeling. To reduce this feeling, an individual tries to justify his or her actions. In order to justify the decision, an individual can revoke the decision, increase or decrease the attractiveness of the decision, or minimize the importance of the decision.

“Cognitive dissonance plays a key role in people’s behavior when choosing between alternatives, because the selection of an alternative is based in the fact it is more desirable” (Alvarado, Ramirez, 2014). Humans are often faced with the challenge of choosing between two alternatives, and are often faced with discomfort or regret afterwards. When faced with this regret, people often try to justify or rationalize the decision they made, wanting to reduce this feeling of dissonance. “No matter how smart they are, people who are in the midst of reducing dissonance are so involved with convincing themselves that they are right that they frequently end up behaving irrationally and maladaptively (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, & Sommers, 2016). People do not like to admit they are

It is important to individuals to be able to control cognitive dissonance since it creates confusions between one or more cognition within their personality and ways of making attributions. When individuals’ cognitive ability are affected with conflicting behaviors and beliefs, they become confused and sometimes handicap to produce the right attributions to others. Most of the times, individuals are optimists to what they believe is right without thinking about the negative side of their beliefs. “Mostly, individuals consider themselves to be generally self-aware at any given time” (GCU, 2012). Hence, cognitive dissonance manipulates the self-attributive determination, and drives the person to inability to make the right decisions, attributions,