Cognitive Dissonance: Examining the Mental Conflict in Psychology

This essay comprehensively explores cognitive dissonance, a psychological phenomenon characterized by mental conflict arising from inconsistent attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. It delves into the causes of dissonance, such as conflicting cognitions and forced compliance, and examines its effects on individuals, including feelings of discomfort and distress. The essay highlights the role of cognitive dissonance in decision-making, judgment, and the evaluation process, emphasizing its impact on behavior and action. It discusses various examples, like smoking and lying, to illustrate the concept and explores strategies for reducing dissonance, such as altering beliefs or behaviors. Furthermore, the essay contrasts cognitive dissonance with the self-perception and self-discrepancy theories, providing a nuanced understanding of the subject. The implications for processes like forced compliance and decision-making are also discussed, along with methods to overcome cognitive dissonance. The essay concludes by emphasizing the pervasive nature of cognitive dissonance in everyday life and its significance in inducing or changing attitudes and behaviors.

Running head Cognitive dissonance 0
Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance 1
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the mental disorder and situation which involves conflict, attitudes,
beliefs or behaviors. The different cognitions can be unrelated and dissonant with each other.
With the contradiction, the person feels discomfort and it leads to alteration in the attitude and
behavior of an individual. It is experienced by an individual's when they hold these situations
contradictory. A person faces the discomfort by two or more situations together and they also
face the clashes in beliefs. For reducing the discomfort, people try to resolve the contradiction
when they confront with the facts. It is stated that attitudes of an individual change because of
different factors within the person. Cognitive dissonance has strong influencing power on the
behavior and action of an individual. When the strength of the dissonance is greater, it has more
pressure for relieving the feeling of distress (Konow, 2000). It occurs in every individual’s life
and in many areas of life. For example, if a man smokes daily and he knows that it is harmful to
his health then it results in cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance theory states that two
different situations and cognitions become dissonance and then cognitive dissonance happens in
life. In this case, a person knows smoking is harmful is one cognition and another cognition is he
likes to smoke. This is the situation of cognitive dissonance as the conditions met because of the
cognitions are dissonant (Zajonc, 2017). Another example, an individual know that lying is bad it
is the first cognition but he is in a situation and forced to lie is a second recognition. In this
situation, cognition conflicts with each other and causes discomfort as a mental disorder.
Dissonance becomes strong when something an individual believes in them and then he or she
does against their belief. It is not necessary that cognitive dissonance creates negativity in a
person's life but works as a powerful motivation which helps in changing the conflicts in belief
or action (Harmon-Jones, et al., 2015).
When conflicts between the cognitions arise people want to reduce the dissonance and feelings
of distress. It plays a vital role in the judgments, decisions and evaluating. It is important to
become aware of the conflicts of beliefs as it impacts the decision-making process and it helps in
improving the ability to make the choices faster and accurate in cognitions (Mullainathan, and
Washington, 2009). Every person believes that exercise is important for their health but won't be
able to make time for the physical activities in real life and then an individual experience
cognitive dissonance and an increase in the amount of exercise may help in reducing discomfort.

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In this case, the alteration in behavior can be done to increase consistency in belief and by
reducing cognitive dissonance can help in experiencing a positive attitude in life. There are
factors that affect the strength of the dissonance as the number of dissonance beliefs and the
significance attached to beliefs. Dissonance by an individual can be eliminated by reducing the
significance of the dissonance belief, it can also be reduced by adding more consonant belief so
that it can compensate for the dissonance belief and by changing the dissonance belief so they
can be inconsistent for an individual. Dissonance occurs in the life of an individual in some
situations when they have to choose between the incompatible actions. It is created when a
person finds two alternatives attractive (Gawronski, 2012). The theory of dissonance applies to
all situations which involve the formation of attitude. It is essential for making decisions and
solving problems. Dissonance creates an uncomfortable feeling for an individual, so they can
change their behavior, belief or attitude for reducing the dissonance. When a person feels
uncomfortable because of cognitive dissonance, they may manifest themselves with stress, and
discomfort.
Cognitive dissonance is caused because of situations faced by individuals related to beliefs,
actions, attitudes, and beliefs. It can be forced compliance behavior is a situation when an
individual has to perform some actions which are against their beliefs. In a company, an
accountant is been asked by his boss to cover up the financial misappropriate work in the
accounting department, in this case, the accountant knows that this is wrong but the boss is
forcing to do it to retain the job and it leads to the cognitive dissonance (Harmon-Jones and
Mills, 2009). Dissonance also occurs while taking the decisions in choosing from two attractive
and almost similar alternatives. In order to justify the decision, an individual take the decision for
reducing the dissonance. It is important to reduce the cognitive dissonance as it cannot be
completely avoided; it can only be resolved or reduced it. It can be reduced by changing the
belief as it is a very simple option to reduce the dissonance but difficult for those who find
difficulty in pulling off belief. It can be reduced by changing the actions as situations can be
handled so it will not cause any guilt and shame in the future (Reeve, 2014).
Insufficient justification is related to cognitive dissonance as it is a theory which is proposed by
Festinger and Carlsmith which helps in explaining that how an individual can deal with cognitive
dissonance (Hinojosa, et al., 2017). Cognitive dissonance is when an individual is in an

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unpleasant state of mind which is occurred because of two conflicting thoughts in mind at the
same time. Insufficient justification helps an individual in analyzing that the cause is internal to
behavior not because of any external cause. It is an effect which helps in reducing cognitive
dissonance in an individual as a justified internal behavior and the external justification is
insufficient (Van Tongeren, et al., 2015). Insufficient justification in when an individual utilizes
their internal motivation for justifying a behavior.
The cognitive dissonance theory is the alternative to the self-perception theory. In self-
perception theory, when an individual has a conflict with another person, then also people do not
consider and think about their attitudes. In this, people build their own attitudes by observing
their own attitudes and behavior (Seligman, 2014). Self-perception theory states that we all know
about our own behavior and it may affect the attitude of others, so an individual develops their
own attitude by observing the behavior and conclude the attitude which has caused the other
person. In the self-perception theory, only the difference is that it does not have the experience of
people who is a negative drive called dissonance. In this people simply interfere in their own
attitude but their behavior like the other observer sees their attitude from outside. Another theory
is the Self-discrepancy theory in which people compare themselves, their own attitudes,
behavior, and beliefs (Bem, 2007). There are three selves in every individual, actual self which is
related to the self-concept and attributes in which the person believes. Second is the ideal self is
attributed in an individual which he or she likes to possess like the motivation, and hopes. Third
is ought self is the attributes in person which he or she believes that they should possess like the
various duties and responsibilities.
Cognitive dissonance has an implication that is related to processes. The method used is forced
compliance which causes an individual to change their behavior according to the situation
forcefully (Sweeney, et al., 2000). It also has implications for decision making, an individual
gets confused when it comes to choosing from two alternatives of a similar kind. So the people
explain to themselves form choosing the one option by creating the positive aspects of their
choice and option and create the negative aspects of the other option in their mind. It also causes
a phenomenon which is called an "error justification". Sometimes people invest their time and
money for something which is not good for them and also a big mistake for them, in this case,
people try to motivate themselves in a different way by explaining the situation in a positive way

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and they try to justify their effort by lying that it was a fun and important experience for them
rather than accepting the failure which they had occurred (Elliot and Devine, 2004). There are
various ways to overcome the cognitive dissonance as it can be done by eliminating or even a
person can ignore the dissonant cognitions. It can be overcome by altering the importance of
definite cognitions. Cognitive dissonance plays a vital role in overcoming the conflict. It helps in
inducing or changing the attitude or behavior of other persona and also forces people to reach on
the dissonance (Harmon-Jones, 2007). Cognitive dissonance happens with every individual in
everyday life.

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