Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance: A CrashCourse

Chances are good that youre heard ofcognitive
dissonance, but how well do you know the ins and outs of
it? Its an element of psychology thats made its way into
popular vocabulary, although many people use the term
without understanding the psychological nuances. Since
Leon Festingers landmarkbookin 1957, there have been a
ton of studies examining and clarifying the power of
dissonance.
So lets get into it! My job today is to demystify cognitive
dissonance and bring clarity to what might be an otherwise
murky psychological phenomenon. By the end of this, youll
have a better sense of what dissonance is and what effects
it produces. Even more, youll know more
aboutwhyandwhenit works the way it does.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

The key behind dissonance
isinconsistency.When you hold two thoughts
that areinconsistentwith one another, youve
got yourself a case of cognitive dissonance.
See below for an example. If at the same time,
you realize that you believe that smoking is
unhealthyandthat you regularly smoke, that
would be inconsistent. As a rational person, you
wouldnt smoke if you knew it was unhealthy. So
youre faced with a dilemma: dissonance.

 There are all sorts of dissonance, and they often

(though not always) involve an inconsistency
between a belief or opinion and a behavior. If
youre an environmentalist and you litter, thats a
case of dissonance. If you tell other people to be
vegetarian but you eat meat, thats dissonance. If
you prefer one presidential candidate butvotefor
the other, thats dissonance.
So hopefully you see the key:inconsistency.

How do People Deal with

Dissonance?
Of course, inconsistency is only the beginning of the story. Things
get interesting when you start to consider how people deal with
the inconsistency. What happens to the health-conscious smoker
in the above example?
There are a few common ways in which people try to resolve their
dissonance:
Change the belief or opinionso its more consistent with the
other cognition or behavior (e.g., Smoking isnt actually that bad
for you.).
Change a behaviorto help restore consistency (e.g., quitting
smoking).
Add another belief or opinionthat helps restore consistency
(e.g., But I do eat lots of healthy food.).
Reduce the importanceof the inconsistency (e.g., I enjoy
smoking, so who cares about the health consequences?).

 In general, these are cases ofrationalizing: doing

some mental work to bring back some consistency to
yourself. You may have heard friends come up with
all sorts of justifications for their behavior. Many of
these might be attempts to alleviate cognitive
dissonance.
If youre on a diet, for example, and I catch you
eating thirteen cookies, youd be faced with a good
deal of dissonance. In that moment, you could
convince yourself that you were never that
committed to your diet anyway (strategy 1), stop
eating desserts for the next week (strategy 2),
convince yourself that these cookies are actually
healthy and that youve been sticking to your diet
otherwise (strategy 3), or say screw itIm eating
these cookies and thats fine by me! (strategy 4).

Why Deal with it AtAll?

Why is dissonance such a big problem that we
feel like we need to solve it? After all, whats
wrong with some mental inconsistency? Some
of that is a philosophical problem and has to
do with issues of epistemologybasically,
mental inconsistency gets in the way of
getting at some sense of truth.
The real issue is thatmental inconsistency
can be physicallyuncomfortable, and
generally, when we feel uncomfortable, we
look for ways to make that feeling go away.

 Psychologists have gotten clever in order to test whether

dissonance actually produces discomfort.Somestudies
have directly measuredphysiological arousalby
taking recordings of skin conductance.When we
experience dissonance, our bodies show subtle
signs of nervousness and tension.
Otherstudieshave used more indirect measures, relying
on methods that can trick us into thinking our discomfort
is coming from some other source (even though its really
happening because of mental inconsistencies).
Finally, sometimes you can even just ask people how
uncomfortable and tense they feel at the moment.
People who have just done something that would make
them experience cognitive dissonance are able toreport
feeling for uneasy and bothered, compared to people in
a control group.

When is Dissonance Especially

Problematic?
Although in the early days, people generally
thought that any case of cognitive
inconsistency was a case of cognitive
dissonance and the inevitable motivation to
resolve the inconsistency. Since then, new
evidence has pointed to additional
considerations. Its not thatanyinconsistency
will make a person uncomfortable and motivate
them to restore consistency in their minds; its
only under certain conditions that this is
especially likely to happen.

 One big development in understanding

dissonance was the so-called
New Look model, developed by Joel Cooper
and Russell Fazio in 1984. In a recentreviewof
cognitive dissonance, Cooper explains the new
development like this (boldface not in original):
As Festinger had surmised, dissonance is an
arousing, uncomfortable tension state that
motivates change. However, it is not brought
about by cognitive inconsistency per se, but
rather by theperception that one is
responsible for bringing about an
unwanted event.

 This is to say that its not always enough tojusthave

mental inconsistency. Instead, two other conditions need to
be in place:choiceandnegative consequences. In other
words,cognitive dissonance leads to rationalization
especially when you feelresponsiblefor the
inconsistency and when that inconsistency can have
forseeable consequences that you dont want.
An example might help make this more clear. Lets say you
just sat through the movie
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip . Its not a stretch
to say that you didnt like the movie. Now, what if a friend
of yours runs a movie website, and the Alvin and the
Chipmunks producer paid him to write a positive review of
the movie. Hes too busy, but he asks you for a favor:will
you write a positive review of a movie you think is
garbage?This is a friend of yours, so you decide that youll
help him out and write this review.

This is a clear case of cognitive dissonance,

right? Check out the figure below to see how this
is a case of mental inconsistency. The easiest
way to restore consistency would be to
altercognition 1and convince yourself that Alvin
and the Chipmunks wasnt actually that bad. By
coming to believe the movie was better, it makes
your action less of an inconsistency.

 But lets backtrack a second. Would this

scenarioreallycreate dissonance, discomfort, and the
motivation to rationalize? It depends on the two key
conditions
1) Choice.Did you feel like you had responsibility? Could
you have declined the offer? If it was clear that you had the
freedom to choose to write the review, then youll probably
feel more dissonance, which will cause you rationalize your
actions by truly thinking the movie wasnt that bad. If, on
the other hand, your friend says, You have to do this for
me. You owe me, and our friendship depends on it! Well
that doesnt feel like you had much chance to say no,
which means that your actions wont necessarily change
your opinion of the movie; you dont need to rationalize
becauseyouwerent responsible for the inconsistency. This
is exactly what happens inexperimental studiesthat
simulate basically these conditions.

2) Negative Consequences.Will your action

produce aversive consequences? If your friends
movie website receives thousands of visits a day,
and you will have convinced them to waste 86
minutes in a movie theatre, you might feel bad
about it. Even worse, what if friends of yours see the
review and spend $50 (i.e., what feels like modern
ticket prices) on a movie based on your
recommendation? This would likely produce
dissonance and rationalization. If, however, you
know that your friends website is really small and
caters just to kids, then the consequences are less
negative, and youll hang onto your real opinion of
the movie. Once again,manystudieshave shown
this power of aversive consequences.

Gotit?
So there you goyoure a dissonance
expert! Well, at least you get the
basics. Keep an eye out, and youll
see examples of dissonance all over
the place. Rationalizing decisions,
justifying your behavior, talking
yourself out of feeling guiltythese
are likely cases of attempting to
resolve cognitive dissonance.

Gotit?
In truth, however, this is the tip of the iceberg,
and I hope to cover more in the future. For
example, there are some specific ways in which
cognitive dissonance can come about, including
making difficult decisions,justifying ones effort,
andbeing hypocritical. In addition, othertheories
over the years have emphasized the role
thatself-esteemplays in dissonance. Theres also
new evidence coming fromsocialneuroscience
that has started to point to the ways in which
dissonance involves various parts of the brain
that are related to all kinds of inner conflict.

Gotit?
If youre especially motivated, I
recommend checking out Joel
Coopers book,Cognitive
Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Th
eory
.

PART 1

Cognitive Dissonance: What Happens

When Reality Trumps Perception

We hold many thoughts and beliefs

about the world and ourselves. When
two thoughts clash, a discrepancy is
evoked, resulting in a state of tension.
This tensions is defined as cognitive
dissonance

 Cognitive dissonanceis the mental

stress or discomfort experienced when
holding two conflicting thoughts. It occurs
in situations where a person is presented
with facts that contradict that persons selfimage, attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This
includes:
Holding two or more contradictory beliefs,
thoughts, or values at the same time.
Performing an action that is contradictory
to ones values, beliefs or self-image.
Consuming new information that conflicts
with existing beliefs or conclusions.

 Here are a few situations that would cause

cognitive dissonance:
If you are in a cult and you believe the world
will end on a given date but it doesnt.
If you believe government is solving inequality
but find evidence that it isnt.
You value your health but eat a donut.
The tension of cognitive dissonance increases
with the following variables:
The importance of the subject at hand.
How significantly the two dissonant thoughts
conflict.
Our inability to rationalize the conflict.

Cognitive dissonance is
uncomfortable
People seek consistency between their
thoughts and expectations and reality. We
have a desire to hold all our attitudes and
beliefs in harmony and avoid contradiction (or
dissonance).
An individual who experiences inconsistency
(dissonance) tends to become psychologically
uncomfortable. As a result, he is motivated to
reduce this dissonanceas well as actively
avoid situations and information likely to
induce it in the first place.

It encourages change in
thoughts or behaviors.
As the experience of dissonance is
unpleasant, we are motivated to
reduce or eliminate it, and achieve
consistency. Because of this, people
engage in dissonance reduction to
bring their thoughts and actions in line
with one another. This creation of
uniformity allows for a lessening of the
psychological tension and distress.

 This motivation triggers an alteration in

one of the conflicting thoughts, attitudes,
beliefs or behaviors to reduce the
discomfort and restore balance.
However, people dont always match their
beliefs to the truth, as a rational thinker
might expect. The powerful motivation to
maintain cognitive consistency can give
rise to irrational thoughts and behaviors.
It can lead to a tendency to
reject new informationor ways of thinking
that do not fit with pre-existing beliefs.

How we reduce cognitive

dissonance
When the consistency of our thoughts or behaviors is challenged,
we must change our thoughts or behaviors to reduce the
dissonance. In practice, four strategies can be applied:
Change our behavior. This strategy presents challenges however,
as it is often difficult for people to change well-learned behavioral
responses (i.e. giving up smoking) or accept that they were wrong.
Justify our behaviorby changing the conflicting thoughts or
adding new thoughts.
Change our values or self-imageor reduce or exaggerate their
importance.
Ignore or denyany information that conflicts with existing beliefs
or acquire new information that outweighs the dissonant beliefs.

 To illustrate, lets consider a scenario where a

person has adopted the attitude that they will
no longer eat unhealthy food, but eats a donut.
Here, the four methods of reduction are:
Change the behavior: Dont eat the donut.
Justify the behavior: Im allowed to cheat
every once in a while or Ill spend 30 extra
minutes at the gym to work this off.
Change values: I dont really need six pack
abs or Live a little.
Ignore or deny: This donut is not high in fat
or I found an article that says donuts are
healthy.

 Changing behaviors or pre-existing beliefs is

the hardestphysically and emotionally. We
dont like to second-guess our choices or
conclusions, even if later they are proven
wrong or unwise. By second-guessing
ourselves, it makes us think that we may not
be as wise or as right as we thought we
were (even more cognitive dissonance).
Thus, the more common strategy is to
justify, ignore or rationalize. Those who have
heavily invested in a position may, when
confronted with disconfirming evidence, go
to greater lengths to justify their position.

The tells for cognitive

dissonance
Once your actions and your self image get out of sync, the
result is often some kind of rationalization. Here are a few ways
you cantellif someone is experiencing cognitive dissonance
and taking action to resolve it:
Speechless. When a person that is otherwise very vocal
becomes temporarily tongue-tied.
Personal attacks. Making a personal attack without reason or
argument.
Irrational explanations. Offering a wide variety of explanations
for an observation.
When a generally rational person gives an irrational response
to your rational argument, it probably means the argument
was sound but it violated someones sense of identity.

Persuasion101
Arguing on the basis of facts is mostly futile because:
Changing beliefs and behaviors is extremely hard.
There is always more information out there for people
to justify ignoring your arguments and/or re-affirm
their own.
Knowing that people dont want to change beliefs or
behaviors, the only other variable you can change is
identity. Therefore, the strategy if someone disagrees
because of cognitive dissonance is to change who that
person believes they are. Once his self-image matches
your argument, he is free to agree with you.

 2016 presidential candidate has been quite effective

with this strategy. Heres whatScott Adamshad to
say about it:
Trump isnt trying to change your mind on the facts.
He knows voters are in cognitive dissonance half the
time or more. Trump is changing who we are, until
our self-images match his argument.Trump is not
changing peoples minds about the world he rarely
talks about specific policieshes changing their
minds about who they are.
Once you change a persons self-image, that person
will act in a way that is consistent with the new selfimage. The new thoughts are ideas are now in-line
with their self-image, so there is no cognitive
dissonance.

How cognitive dissonance can

help yousucceed
If youve read this far, cognitive dissonance probably
sounds interesting at the least. But what are the
implications? And how can you benefit from it? Below are a
bakers dozen or so applications and implications. Ill cover
them in more detail in future posts.
Changing unhealthy behaviors and forming new healthy
habits
Identifying and changing our own false or irrational beliefs.
Becoming more happy by matching expectations and
reality.
Understanding the rise of Donald Trump and the seemingly
irrational system as a whole.
Selling and marketing effectively.

The Implications
People are irrationalat least some of the time.
When people associate with a point of view, they begin to
lose objectivity.
Knowing what causes cognitive dissonance, and the steps
people take to solve it, we can influence behaviors.
People can justify lies or other unethical behaviors with
dissonance reducing strategies.
People stick to decisions that theyve invested heavily in
(like a career choice or large investment) even if they turn
out to be wrong.
One can set traps by understanding what will cause
cognitive dissonance and the actions people are likely to
take to resolve it.

This is the first of a three part series

on cognitive dissonance. Parts two and
three will cover practical applications
and implications.

PART 2

PART 3