What is cognitive dissonance

But the moment we’re talking about here is different. It is once you’ve decided, taken action, and then say “Oh no. What have I done?” as you immediately regret your decision and the following action. This is called Cognitive Dissonance. You may have heard of it. But what is cognitive dissonance and how does it affect someone's life? RELATED: What is cognitive dissonance? This psychological concept has been around for a while, and as a result, there are many definitions. I’ll share the one I like best because it describes the common situation most of my patients have faced. Cognitive dissonance is the anxiety, tension, and conflict you may find yourself in when you have weighed, and now For example, you have an important meeting where you’re going to ask for a raise. You decide to wear the red top, a power color. As you leave your home, already later than you wanted to be due to trying on half of your wardrobe, you begin thinking the blue one is better, a calmer color. Blue says confidence. But you don’t have time to go back and change. You hurry to your meeting feeling less attractive than you wanted to be, feeling defeated as you berate yourself for making such a stupid decision. Or you’re shopping for a car. You’ve done your research, made your decision to buy the less fancy, less expensive one. You purchase the practical car. But you pick it up with a sinking feeling in your gut. After all, this is your splurge birthday gift to yourself. This year you vowed to begin to...

In California last September, residents were told two things within the space of a few days – first, in a few years they will only be able to buy electric vehicles and then they were told not to charge the ones they already owned because it could crash the power grid. The cognitive dissonance was heard around the world. This particular event can be dismissed as yet another typically loopy California example of the government – in the name of equity or justice or sustainability or change or climate or some other personal pathology of a politician suddenly transformed into public policy – ordering people to fly to the moon and handing them a Ziploc bag of air and a Jolly Jumper to do so. But this governmental detachment from reality is not limited to California, nor is it always quite so obvious. Detaching the public from reality is now a science, a common practice, an intentional effort to stupefy, homogenize, and infantilize the population in order to better control the citizenry. Be it “nudge” theory, censorship of all stripes, spin, purposefully deceitful governmental conduct knowing they will never be called on it because the media that is supposed to do that engages in the exact same practice, willful obfuscation of things once considered fact, and straight up using the police powers of the state to force immediate behavioral changes, every level of society is both subjected to and participating in the altering of the very concept of reality to better serve political e...

Cognitive dissonance is a term that was first introduced into psychology by Leon Festinger in the 1950s. It is a state of tension or discomfort that people experience when their beliefs or behaviors do not match. Cognitive dissonance is often caused by a conflict between two parts of our minds. The idea of cognitive dissonance is that people often try to reduce or resolve this tension by changing their beliefs or behaviors. People will often do this to feel comfortable and harmonious with their beliefs. However, if the beliefs and behaviors do not match, this can create tension. Cognitive dissonance can be a very powerful force. It can drive people to change their beliefs or behaviors to make them match. This can be harmful if done in a way that is not well thought out. On the other hand, cognitive dissonance can also be a motivating force if used correctly. The key to using cognitive dissonance effectively is to understand how it works. It is important to know how it can drive people to change their beliefs or behaviors. However, knowing how it can help people learn and grow is also important. The Edvocate was created in 2014 to argue for shifts in education policy and organization in order to enhance the quality of education and the opportunities for learning afforded to P-20 students in America. What we envisage may not be the most straightforward or the most conventional ideas. We call for a relatively radical and certainly quite comprehensive reorganization of America...

You’ve gotten offers for two different jobs you applied and interviewed for. The first is at a company you’ve always wanted to work for. And the role sounds like a perfect fit. The second pays significantly more. You need to decide which you’re going to take. If you’re conflicted about the choice, you’re experiencing In the new job scenario, you know you can only accept one offer, but there are aspects of both that are appealing to you, which is why and how you experience dissonance. RELATED: The dissonance can help you make a better decision between your choices if you recognize the conflict and resolve it. In this case, that might mean recognizing what about each job is appealing to you, and being honest with yourself about which factors are most important to you: the paycheck you’re bringing home or the satisfaction you get from the work. Cognitive Dissonance Is a Result of Having the Freedom to Decide Psychologists call the cognitive dissonance we experience in decision-making the “free-choice paradigm.” When it comes to making decisions, usually we’re not presented with one perfect option, which means we have to weigh one imperfect option against another imperfect option (there are pluses and minuses to both), which creates dissonance. ( You experience that internal conflict as your brain tries to balance those two (or more) choices, Dr. Leno says. Or, it may come up after a decision has been made, and lead you to rationalize why you made the choice you did make. That...

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Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several members of the group Heaven’s Gate followers had a tragically misguided conviction, but it is an example, albeit extreme, of cognitive dissonance, the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings—even when those findings can save our lives. This dynamic is playing out during the pandemic among the many people who refuse to wear masks or practice social distancing. Human beings are deeply unwilling to change their minds. And when the facts clash with their preexisting convictions, some people would sooner jeopardize their health and everyone else’s than accept new information or admit to being wrong. Cognitive dissonance, coined by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, describes the discomfort people feel when two cognitions, or a cognition and a behavior, contradict each other. I smoke is dissonant with the knowledge that Smoking can kill me. To reduce that dissonance, the smoker must either quit—or justify smoking (“It keeps me thin, and being overweight is a health risk too, you know”). At its core, Festinger’s theory is about how people strive to make sense out of contradictory ideas and lead lives that are, at least in their own minds, consistent and meaningful. One of us (Aronson), who was a protégé of Festinger in the mid-’50s, ad...