In this paper, we place dissonance theory in the larger framework of appraisal theories of emotion, emotion regulation, and coping. The basic premise of dissonance theory is that people experience negative affect (to varying degrees) following the detection of cognitive conflict. The individual will be motivated to alleviate these emotional reactions and could do so by reducing dissonance in some manner. We argue that detection of dissonance will follow the same principles as when people interpret any other stimuli as emotionally significant.
Social behavior
When the boundaries between reality and fantasy are blurred, people can be confused, anxious, or mistrustful. Experiencing cognitive dissonance is just one part—the other part is often looking for ways to minimize the feelings that the dissonance brings. When you smoke, you may feel guilt because you know smoking can cause cancer and that you should stop.
The theory behind cognitive dissonance
- It doesn’t just influence how you feel; it also motivates you to take action to reduce feelings of discomfort.
- Sometimes, when you’re faced with difficult decisions in the moment, it’s best to take a break and revisit it later when all parties have processed what’s happened.
- On the other hand, changing your perception of the behavior by telling yourself you have enough driving experience to text and drive safely will not have the same long-term outcome.
- If the CDS is a specific state, then instruments should allow the CDS to be distinguished from other negative emotions.
If your explanation for something is, “Well, that’s the way I’ve always done it or thought about it,” that may also be a sign. Socrates extolled that “An unexamined life is not worth living.” In other words, challenge and be skeptical of such answers if you find yourself falling back on them. On a big-picture level, we have cognitive dissonance to thank for huge advancements within society. Dr. Noulas says that successes in women’s rights, environmental rights, and gay rights are examples of positive change that have resulted from cognitive dissonance. Those changes were due to individuals recognizing contradictions between how people viewed women, the environment, and nontraditional relationships and how we acted as a society (or allowed others to act). Finally, many of the studies supporting the theory of cognitive dissonance have low ecological validity.
Social pressures
The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will increase cognitive dissonance. 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. People may run into problems with cognitive dissonance because it can be, in its most basic form, a sort of lie to oneself.
Emotional correlations
Next, we will explore this notion more closely by presenting a general model of dissonance reduction. Based on the process model, more recent research has attempted to understand under which circumstances people choose one emotion-regulation strategy over another. Sheppes (2014) argues that emotional intensity, motivational goals (cf. Kelman and Baron, 1968), and cognitive capacity (cf. Kaplan and Crockett, 1968) will influence the decision. Thus, if the headline is a character-assassination of your favorite politician, you might not read the article because you suspect that the content might be too emotionally arousing. As for cognitive capacity, Sheppes argues that reappraisal (vs. distraction) is a more complex cognitive operation because it requires both attending to and elaborating on the emotional stimuli, and reappraisal might thus be avoided when the individual feels that it may be too cognitively taxing.
If a voluntary experience that has cost a lot of effort turns out badly, the dissonance is reduced by redefining the experience as interesting. In all conditions, they then heard a very boring discussion about sex in lower animals. They were asked to rate how interesting they had found the discussion and how interesting they had found the people involved in it. Female participants were informed they would be helping out in a study funded by several manufacturers. Participants were also told that they would receive one of the products at the end of the experiment to compensate for their time and effort.
- We first describe dissonance theory and review some of the major views on dissonance reduction.
- In all conditions, they then heard a very boring discussion about sex in lower animals.
- If successfully implemented, the individual might feel relief after denying responsibility.
- The participants felt like hypocrites — but their intention to take the positive action increased.
- Coaches are skilled at helping people navigate the stages of behavior change and resolve internal discomfort.
- Researchers have found that people usually deal with these dilemmas by seeking support from those who share one’s beliefs, but also by refuting and/or misperceiving/misinterpreting the new information (see e.g., Gawronski et al., 2014).
- However, if the reduction strategy fails, the individual might feel a prolonged sense of annoyance and irritation.
Consider the importance of dissonant thoughts
Developing the self-awareness to notice and question the dissonance often resolves it. Social psychologists have uncovered dozens of cognitive biases, such as self-serving bias, unconscious bias or implicit bias, confirmation bias, fundamental attribution error, and the sunk-cost fallacy. Say you’re a student looking to choose between two different universities you’d like to attend.
How to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance
- The propaganda office was called the “Ministry of Truth,” a camouflage for “Ministry of Disinformation.” Its proclaimed tenets of Truth (lies) declared that freedom was equivalent to slavery, war was love, and ignorance became strength.
- The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism’s active drive for reducing prediction error.
- In other words, people can react vastly different to the same dissonant situation and then resolve the situation in several different ways.
- Since these strategies imply that the individual managed to somehow resolve the situation, a full-blown negative emotion is unlikely to have evolved (or is at least unlikely to still be present).
- She holds a master’s degree in psychology with a concentration in behavioral neuroscience and a bachelor’s degree in integrative neuroscience from Binghamton University.
As a classic result in dissonance studies, they were also expected to report more positive attitudes toward the counterattitudinal topic. Participants were invited to participate in a study about students’ attitudes toward tuition fees. They read instructions explaining that a faculty committee wanted to know students’ attitudes towards a possible increase in tuition fees. In order to know the general attitudes of the students, participants were told that they would have to write an essay either in favour of or against an increase in tuition fees. In the Counter-attitudinal condition, all participants were told that they would have to write an essay in favour of an increase in inscription fees.
Free-choice was emphasized by telling participants that they were free to participate or not in the study and that they could quit the study at any time, without any loss of benefits or other negative consequences. As for guilt (a lower-intensity self-conscious emotion), this emotion is experienced when people acknowledge having violated standards, rules cognitive dissonance addiction and/or goals (SRGs) (Lewis, 2016). For example, using a car when walking is completely feasible or not giving up one’s seat for an elderly individual on the subway might produce feelings of guilt. Since guilt usually has a corrective response, the individual might try to make amends for the transgressions in these cases (e.g., behavioral change).
