Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

unpleasant feeling a person gets when they hold conflicting beliefs or thoughts.

OR

when their actions don’t match their values or beliefs.

how to alleviate dissonance?

1. Avoidance - we avoid making the decision or choice

2. Reduction - we reduce the action or reduce our belief to reflect our action

3. Rationalisation - we add other thoughts that justify or reduce the importance of one thought, hence, reducing the discomfort.

Causes of cognitive dissonance

1. forced compliance

2. decision making

3. effort

forced compliance

• when an individual performs an action that doesn’t match their beliefs.

• reduced by re-evaluating their attitude.

decision making

• When making choices between options, we might like parts of the option we didn’t pick

• reduced by changing our attitude. Convince ourselves that the choice we made is better than the other options.

effort

• when we work hard to achieve something, we value it more. If it turns out badly, it results in dissonance (discomfort).

• reduced by thinking more positively (think it turned out well).

Dull Tasks Experiment

• Festinger & Carlsmith 1959

• aim: determine if making people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behaviour.

• method: 71 male students participants performed a series of dull tasks (e.g., turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). They were paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant (confederate) that the tasks were really interesting.

• Results: those paid only $1 rated the task as more fun and enjoyable than those who were paid $20 to lie. Those paid $1 experienced dissonance as it isn’t enough, while those paid $20 had a reason for turning pegs so no dissonance.

Strengths

• explains why and how people change their attitudes and behaviours when in conflict.

Limitations

• some individuals may resist changing their beliefs or behaviours even though experiencing dissonance.