Examples Of Cognitive Dissonance

What is cognitive dissonance? Give an example of cognitive dissonance. Also, explain how one would adjust behaviors to become more consistent with attitudes. Cognitive dissonance is when you have conflicting/contradictory beliefs or views on something that can cause you to feel some sort of guilt or “discomfort.” A prime example of cognitive dissonance is smoking.

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,

Cognitive dissonance is when people revise their attitudes to justify their action. This is presented in chapter five and it says that the strongest dissonance is when the action is not consistent with a preexisting attitude or desire, although it does not always have to be in this sense. An example under the broad umbrella of cognitive dissonance is if a fox wanted grapes but could not reach them, then the fox decides that the grapes are sour and not worth

Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith (1959) were interested in the cognitive dissonance, which can influence a person decision to choose one action or thought over another. The researchers were also interested in forced compliance, where authority can force individuals to say or act in a way that is conflicting to one’s own private opinion, whereas, the individual's attitude is altered through persuasion and authority. “Force” was operationally defined as the amount of reward offered for lying and cognitive dissonance experienced from the participant’s rated enjoyment of the tasks. Therefore, the researchers investigated if cognitive dissonance could be created through forced compliance behavior. Furthermore, Festinger and Carlsmith hypothesized

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.

Rachel decides to tell the news to Ross, but Ross is not taking the news well. Furthermore, we see Ross is being awfully distressed in this situation and surprised by Rachel’s pregnancy. Ross is experiencing cognitive dissonance because he thinks that he and Rachel were being cautious and he did not want to have a baby with Rachel as it was not planned and had not had a previous romantic relationship with each other. Nevertheless the pregnancy occurred, she wound up pregnant which led to the feeling of discomfort. Ross’s discomfort and tension left him feeling uncomfortable that could possibly effect his ego and self confidence and could make him feeling self conscious and because of that he is feeling

Cognitive Dissonance Overview the topic and define relevant terms in your own words.   When someone makes a decision or takes an action that goes against their personal beliefs, they experience a sense of discomfort; this discomfort felt is due to cognitive dissonance. People may values and beliefs that they live by. A person who believes that smoking cigarettes are bad is unlikely to smoke a cigarette; if they do smoke a cigarette than they will experience some discomfort. The action of smoking is conflicting with their idea that smoking is bad; this creates cognitive dissonance.

People behave in certain ways to feel good about themselves. That is a small part of what cognitive dissonance does. Briefly, cognitive dissonance is a psychological concept. It's when someone has two conflicting thoughts, that could be for instance; decisions, the way you view yourself, and more. This also influences the reason why people don't recognize that they're not meeting the standards they set for themselves.

After reading chapter five I noticed cognitive dissonance throughout a large portion of the book. Cognitive dissonance was described in class as being a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. A good example of this was found on page 182 where the author writes about how we all tell our self that African Americans “deserve” all of this even though we know, but do not want to acknowledge that white Americans are less likely to be convicted of the same crime done by blacks. Cognitive dissonance applies here because we know that this mass incarceration is not fair or morally right to do, however, our behavior does not try to stop it from happening. Instead of doing what our beliefs say is right we try to convince ourselves that it is the African Americans fault that they are

Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when people either hold two inconsistent thoughts or a cognition and a behavior that psychologically inconsistent. This was exactly what I felt when I was doing this experiment. The material explained that we can change the cognitions or behaviors to be more compatible, or we can add information to bridge the gap. I told myself that I was doing this for my assignment, and that this was logical.

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.

Define, in your own words, the following terms: fundamental attribution error, cognitive dissonance, and diffusion of responsibility. Fundamental attribution error: is the fact to focus to our own behaviors in order to better express what other people feels but the most often we prefer take into account the internal characteristics instead the external characteristics. Cognitive dissonance: is the mental difficulty or discomfort that people can have when two or more things are running in his mind in the same time, Such as ideas, beliefs and values.

Cognitive Dissonance theory was founded by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957, is the distressing mental state that is caused by inconsistency between a person’s two belief or a belief and an action, in another word it a distressing mental state when we find ourselves doing things that do not fit with what we know or have opinions that do not fit with other people opinions. Cognitive dissonance can also considered as a form of belief or behavior. Festinger used the smoking concept to illustrate dissonance. I have been involved in many Cognitive dissonance theory situation that involving attitudes and reducing dissonance, especially when it come to me making relevant decision making and problem solving. cognitive dissonance is important issues we all deal with it in our daily lives without being aware that it exist.

An example of cognitive dissonance would be when a person smokes (behavioral component) despite he or she knows it is unhealthy (cognitive component). In this case, the person has an inconsistency between both cognitions. One tell him that smoking gives him pleasure and the other one tells him that is bad. The person has a couple of choices; the person stops smoking (change its behaviour) or changes its attitudes (does not care about the negative effects of

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,