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People who experience dissonance but have no way to resolve it may also feel powerless or guilty. However, this mode of dissonance reduction frequently presents problems for people, as it is often difficult for people to change well-learned behavioral responses (e.g., giving up smoking). The theory of cognitive dissonance has been widely researched in a number of situations to develop the basic idea in more detail, and various factors have been identified which may be important in attitude change.

Cognitive Dissonance-Based Interventions for Internalization

Dissonance was theorized by Festinger (1957) as an aversive motivation that will stimulate actions designed to re-establish homeostasis in the organism. In dissonance theory, a person’s expenditure of effort on a task may cause dissonance, which then may be reduced by enhancing cognitions supporting the value of the effort expenditure. Cooper and Axsom (1982) suggest that effort justification is a common ingredient in psychotherapy.

Cognitive Dissonance: Festinger’s Theory

• General-interest newspapers are usually journals of current news on a variety of topics.
• In dissonance theory, a person’s expenditure of effort on a task may cause dissonance, which then may be reduced by enhancing cognitions supporting the value of the effort expenditure.
• There have been three major revisions relevant to modern interpretation of dissonance phenomena.
• If you took the job you would miss your loved ones; if you turned the job down, you would pine for the beautiful streams, mountains, and valleys.

Asch’s most immediate heirs were modern schema theories, examining impression formation as a function of social categories that cue organized prior knowledge. Following Taylor and Fiske’s cognitive miser perspective, social perceivers were viewed as taking various mental shortcuts (below), schemas among them. Eventually, a more balanced perspective emerged, describing perceivers as motivated tacticians, who sometimes use shortcuts and sometimes think more carefully, depending on their goals.

Emotional Development in Childhood: 3 Theories Explained

Application of this theory has yielded many surprising and nonintuitive predictions. For example, conventional wisdom suggests that behavior follows from attitudes; dissonance theory, however, identifies conditions under which just the opposite occurs. An early and often replicated experiment illustrates the power and counterintuitiveness of the theory.

Provide a safe space and consider the use of relaxation techniques

When they encounter conflicting values or beliefs in the workplace, it can lead to job dissatisfaction and decreased engagement. Crafting persuasive marketing messages that resonate with consumers’ existing beliefs can help reduce cognitive dissonance. We can sometimes feel pressured cognitive dissonance theory into making decisions or taking action because people around us are encouraging us in a certain direction. Ever wondered why we often make choices that leave us scratching our heads? The answer may lie in a fascinating psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance.

The Role of Theories in Cognitive Psychology

When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. That’s why we often respond to cognitive dissonance by doing mental gymnastics to feel like things make sense again. This incompatibility (dissonance) can happen when you do something that goes against one of your values. Or maybe you learn a new piece of information that disagrees with a long-standing belief or opinion.

Social Psychology, Theories of

• In other words, it appears that participants reduced the dissonance they felt by deciding that they hadn’t lied when they said the study was enjoyable and that they really had liked the study.
• Festinger, [2–4] in his ground-breaking Cognitive Dissonance Theory described how beliefs have a cognitive, an affective, and a behavioral component.
• A newsmagazine, is a usually weekly magazine featuring articles on current events.
• Some individuals hold power by virtue of expertise or information (French and Raven), evoking internalization (privately held beliefs; Kelman) in those they influence.

Many people seem able to cope with considerable dissonance and not experience the tensions the theory predicts. It is a theory with very broad applications, showing that we aim for consistency between attitudes and behaviors and may not use https://ecosoberhouse.com/ very rational methods to achieve it. It has the advantage of being testable by scientific means (i.e., experiments). If we put effort into a task that we have chosen to carry out, and the task turns out badly, we experience dissonance.

Understanding all inconsistency compensation as a palliative response to violated expectations

• This approach works by encouraging people to say things or role-play behaviors that contradict their beliefs about food and body image.
• Theoretically, dissonance may contribute to a variety of changes in behavior or beliefs.
• Cognitive dissonance refers to the discomfort or tension we experience when we hold two or more conflicting beliefs or attitudes, or when our actions are inconsistent with our beliefs.
• For example, when individuals consider themselves helpful, kind or generous, refusing to participate is incompatible with their self-perception.
• Secondly, Festinger viewed people’s mental states in a social environment from an intellectual tradition, which was influenced by Kurt Lewin, rather than a Gestalt tradition as Heider did (Cooper, 2007).
• In his study and his book [3,4], Festinger infiltrated students into a UFO cult.

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