Cognitive dissonance arises from the presence of several contradictory cognitions in a person. Under cognition should be understood any ideas, knowledge, conclusions, moral values and even emotional reactions to what is happening around. When there are conflicting cognitive elements, a person experiences severe psychological discomfort and at the subconscious level seeks ways to solve this problem.
Cognitive dissonance: causes
The reasons for cognitive dissonance are best explained by the theory of the same name proposed by Leon Festinger in 1957. To better understand the meaning of the term “cognitive dissonance”, one should know that dissonance is a violation of harmony, the emergence of contradictions in a certain coherent structure, in this case – cognitive, that is, associated with the processes of cognition.
There are several main reasons for the emergence of cognitive dissonance, which include:
- Logical discrepancy between a particular process or phenomenon with knowledge and perceptions of it;
- Mismatch of individual opinion of a person with the opinions of the majority of people around him;
- Mismatch of previously acquired experience and the repeated situation;
- Following cultural customs or the traditional pattern of behavior contrary to one’s own opinion of them;
The internal contradiction that has arisen or continues to exist for some time – that’s what cognitive dissonance means for a common man. Each person experienced cognitive dissonance to one degree or another throughout life, and the reaction to the onset of this condition can be very different. However, it is common for everyone to seek the justification for contradiction and inconsistency in order to return the balance to the system of their knowledge and beliefs.
In addition to highlighting the main causes of cognitive dissonance in his theory, Festinger formulated two main hypotheses of how a person can act to eliminate the psychological discomfort that has arisen. According to the first hypothesis, man will direct his forces to complete elimination or reduction of discrepancy between cognitions. He will seek additional information confirming his rightness or refuting new information. The second hypothesis involves avoiding human situations that enhance cognitive dissonance, and even your own memories and thoughts about it.
If you ask the person what the cognitive dissonance meant to him and what emotions he associated him with, then most people will remember about the awkwardness and the reduction of self-confidence. Such a state as a whole negatively affects not only the state of the psychoemotional sphere, but after the passage of time it can lead to the development of serious health problems. Therefore, in cognitive dissonance, a person is triggered by protective mechanisms that consist in justifying his thoughts and actions or in completely ignoring them.
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Cognitive dissonance can be caused by insufficiently careful perception of the surrounding world, inability to identify cause-effect relationships in one or another situation, ignorance of any issues. All these problems are solved by training on the BrainApps resource, where a large number of games and useful articles for personal development are concentrated.
Cognitive dissonance: examples
To better understand what cognitive dissonance is, examples from life are the most appropriate. A person can face cognitive dissonance at any age, but not everyone can recognize this unpleasant phenomenon. One of the simplest and most understandable examples are people who smoke or abuse alcohol. Information about the dangers of cigarettes and spirits comes to the person literally at every step, but he is not in a hurry to change his habits.
A malicious smoker or a lover of alcohol with cognitive dissonance can justify himself by complicated life circumstances, the need for relaxation and removal from everyday problems, but, in spite of all this, he knows perfectly well what causes irreparable harm to his health. Later, he can begin to study information that will confirm that nicotine or alcohol are not so dangerous substances, and in some cases even useful. Also, most likely, he will begin to avoid any talk about his bad habits and negatively react to any attempts to remind about the harm to his health. It is this situation that vividly illustrates cognitive dissonance and the natural reaction to it of a person.
In the case of smoking or alcohol, cognitive dissonance is very pronounced due to psychological and physical dependence on narcotic substances. However, the problem can arise due to other life circumstances. Very often cognitive dissonance is faced when necessary to make a specific choice. Also, communication and interaction with other people causes cognitive dissonance, usually examples of such dissonance can lead any person from their own life experience.
For example, an acquaintance of yours who is famous for his careless attitude to money and addiction to gambling has asked you for a loan. You know perfectly well that he has great financial difficulties, and he has several times not given his debt to you and other people. However, you lend him a certain amount of money and begin to experience severe psychological discomfort due to cognitive dissonance, because the experience and information acquired earlier indicate that you made the wrong decision. In order to drown out the cognitive dissonance that has arisen, you can begin to justify this action by believing in the best, pity or generosity, and also try to avoid talking about this situation with family and friends.
Another vivid example of cognitive dissonance is a popular experiment that illustrates the influence of public opinion on a person. From the group in advance, choose one participant and show him, for example, a red object. Then they ask what colour this item has from the selected participant and from the rest of the group’s representatives. Most, following the preliminary agreement, insist that the displayed object is blue. If a person who has seen the red colour with his own eyes agrees with the opinion of the majority, then he will experience strong cognitive dissonance and will feel morally and psychologically ill.
Having analyzed the concepts of cognitive dissonance on ordinary, everyday examples, it is easier to analyze your behaviour and the behaviour of other people, and also to choose the right tactics for further actions. Each person in most cases can cope with this problem if he recognizes its existence. So, if you suspect cognitive dissonance, examples from other people’s lives or past experiences will help you get rid of unpleasant feelings and gain inner harmony faster.
How to cope with cognitive dissonance
The emergence of cognitive dissonance should not be perceived as something terrible and irreparable. Everyone has the right to erroneous judgments and actions, and information coming from outside is not always absolutely correct. Therefore, if you are faced with the problem of cognitive dissonance, it is better to choose one of the following tactics of behavior:
- Consider the situation from a different point of view. This tactic is suitable for overly self-confident people who can hardly accept their own wrong. It is very important to recognize the possibility of error or delusion on our part, and in this case cognitive dissonance disappears by itself. For example, the negative consequences of your actions are explained by the mistake you made. In this case, the situation is logical and psychological discomfort is significantly reduced;
- Change the behavior model. This is necessary if you know for sure that your actions or inaction harm yourself or your loved ones. For example, a woman has been suffering for a long time from headaches and insomnia and knows what the consequences might be when ignoring the problem, but always postpones the visit to the doctor because of fear or lack of free time. In this situation, signs of cognitive dissonance are added to the symptoms of the disease and the general condition of the woman only worsens. As soon as she visits the doctor, psychological discomfort will disappear, because she did what she thought was right;
- Do not get stuck in the past. If in the past you have committed an act that was contrary to your own convictions and principles, then do not constantly resurrect this event in your memory. Consider the consequences of cognitive dissonance as an experience and try not to make the same mistake anymore;
It is also desirable to prevent the occurrence of cognitive dissonance. To do this, you should try to act in accordance with the experience and knowledge gained previously and not to deviate from your beliefs and ideas. However, fixing on one’s own rightness also does not help, you always need to be ready to revise or supplement already available information about you about a phenomenon or situation. Do not strongly reject the opinions or actions of other people, always try to get more information about different points of view.
The presence of cognitive dissonance often implies getting into an extraordinary and, at first sight, hopeless situation. In this case, you need to quickly analyze the problem and find a completely new solution. This will not dwell on the phenomenon of dissonance and successfully cope with it. Acceleration of thinking and its creativity are key factors in this situation, and they can be developed by games on the BrainApps website.
Cognitive dissonance is not always an absolutely negative factor. Sometimes it is through the emergence of cognitive dissonance that a person receives a powerful stimulus to development, self-improvement and self-improvement. In everyday life, it is almost impossible to avoid the emergence of conflicting feelings, actions and knowledge, but one can always find a way to view the situation from different angles and restore harmony.
