6B Cognitive Dissonance and cognitive biases

Cogntiive dissonance

The psychological tension that occurs when our feelings, thoughts and behaviours do not align with one another

Reducing/avoiding cognitive dissonance

Changing your thoughts to align with your behaviour. Or changing your behaviour to align with your thoughts

Cognitive biases

Unconscious, systematic tendencies to interpret information in a way that is neither rational nor based on objective reality.

Confirmation bias

The tendency to search for and accept information that supports or prior beliefs or behaviours and ignore contradictory information

Actor-observer bias

The tendency to attribute our own actions to external factors and situational causes while attributing other people’s actions to internal factors.

Self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute positive successes to our internal character and actions and attribute our failures to external factors or situational causes

False-consensus bias

The tendency to overestimate the degree to which other people share the same ideas and attitudes as we do.

Halo effect

The tendency for the impression we form about one quality of a person to influence our overall beliefs about the person in other respects.