Cognitive dissonance

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, or participates in an action that goes against one of these three, and experiences psychological stress because of that. When two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people will do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.^[1] The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new evidence (facts) perceived, wherein they will try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.^[2][1]

In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.^[2]

Relations among CognitionsEdit

To function in the reality of a modern society, human beings continually adjust the correspondence of their mental attitudes and personal actions; such continual adjustments, between cognition and action, result in one of three relationships with reality:^[2]

1. Consonant relationship: two cognitions or actions consistent with each other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out to dinner, and ordering water rather than wine)
2. Irrelevant relationship: two cognitions or actions unrelated to each other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out and wearing a shirt)
3. Dissonant relationship: two cognitions or actions inconsistent with each other (e.g. not wanting to become drunk when out, but then drinking more wine)

Magnitude of dissonanceEdit

The term "magnitude of dissonance" refers to the level of discomfort caused to the person. This can be caused by the relationship between two differing internal beliefs, or an action that is incompatible with the beliefs of the person.^[3] Two factors determine the degree of psychological dissonance caused by two conflicting cognitions or by two conflicting actions:

1. The importance of cognitions: the greater the personal value of the elements, the greater the magnitude of the dissonance in the relation. When the value of importance of the two dissonant items are high, it is difficult to determine which action or thought is correct. Both have had a place of truth, at least subjectively, in the mind of the person. Therefore, when the ideals or actions now clash, it is difficult for the individual to decide which takes priority.
2. Ratio of cognitions: the proportion of dissonant-to-consonant elements. There is a level of discomfort within each person that is acceptable for living. When a person is within that comfort level, the dissonant factors do not interfere with functioning. However, when there is an abundance of dissonant factors and not enough that are in line with each other, we go through a process to regulate and bring the ratio back to an acceptable level. Once the choice has been made to keep one of the dissonant factors, the other is forgotten quickly in order to restore peace of mind.^[4]

There will always be some magnitude of dissonance within a person as they go about making decisions due to the changing quantity and quality of knowledge and wisdom that they gain. The magnitude itself is a subjective measurement since the reports are self relayed, and there is no objective way as of yet to get a clear measurement of the level of discomfort.^[5]

ReductionEdit

Cognitive dissonance theory proposes that people seek psychological consistency between their expectations of life and the existential reality of the world. To function by that expectation of existential consistency, people continually reduce their cognitive dissonance in order to align their cognitions (perceptions of the world) with their actions.

The creation and establishment of psychological consistency allows the person afflicted with cognitive dissonance to lessen mental stress by actions that reduce the magnitude of the dissonance, realised either by changing with or by justifying against or by being indifferent to the existential contradiction that is inducing the mental stress.^[2] In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance in four ways:

1. Change the behavior or the cognition ("I'll eat no more of this doughnut.")
2. Justify the behavior or the cognition, by changing the conflicting cognition ("I'm allowed to cheat my diet every once in a while.")
3. Justify the behavior or the cognition by adding new behaviors or cognitions ("I'll spend thirty extra minutes at the gymnasium to work off the doughnut.")
4. Ignore or deny information that conflicts with existing beliefs ("This doughnut is not a high-sugar food.")

Three cognitive biases are components of dissonance theory. The bias that one does not have any biases, the bias that one is "better, kinder, smarter, more moral and nicer than average" and confirmation bias.^[6]

That a consistent psychology is required for functioning in the real world also was indicated in the results of The Psychology of Prejudice (2006), wherein people facilitate their functioning in the real world by employing human categories (i.e. sex and gender, age and race, etc.) with which they manage their social interactions with other people.

The study Patterns of Cognitive Dissonance-reducing Beliefs Among Smokers: A Longitudinal Analysis from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey(2012) indicated that smokers use justification beliefs to reduce their cognitive dissonance about smoking tobacco and the negative consequences of smoking it.^[7]

1. Continuing smokers (Smoking and no attempt to quit since the previous round of study.)
2. Successful quitters (Quit during the study and did not use tobacco from the time of the previous round of study.)
3. Failed quitters (Quit during the study, but relapsed to smoking at the time of the study.)

To reduce cognitive dissonance, the participant smokers adjusted their beliefs to correspond with their actions:

1. Functional beliefs ("Smoking calms me down when I am stressed or upset."; "Smoking helps me concentrate better."; "Smoking is an important part of my life." and "Smoking makes it easier for me to socialize.")
2. Risk-minimizing beliefs ("The medical evidence that smoking is harmful is exaggerated."; "One has to die of something, so why not enjoy yourself and smoke?" and "Smoking is no more risky than many other things people do.")^[8]