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We have millions of cognitions, many of which are in our awareness but most are not (Marx, 1976). Festinger (Festinger, 1962) theorised that a pair of cognitive elements may relate to each other in three ways. However, identification of the relationship may also be difficult, as two elements may be dissonant in one context, but not in another (Festinger, 1962). Dissonance can arise from many sources, including, but not limited to, logical inconsistency, cultural differences, contradictions between specific opinions and their related general stand, and a disconfirmation of a past experience to a current situation (Westmeyer, 2012). The is a case when a pair of cognitive elements does not imply anything concerning one another.
There is also some ambiguity (i.e., vagueness) about the term “dissonance” itself. Is it a perception (as “cognitive” suggests), a feeling, or a feeling about a perception? Aronson’s Revision of the idea of dissonance as an inconsistency between a person’s self-concept and a cognition about their behavior makes it seem likely that dissonance is really nothing more than guilt.
What Causes Cognitive Dissonance?
In two pre-registered studies, we investigated the usefulness of the PAD model to assess the CDS induced by the hypocrisy paradigm (Study 1) and by writing a counterattitudinal essay (Study 2). Combined together, our two studies show that the CDS induced in the hypocrisy and counterattitudinal paradigms is first and foremost characterised by increased negative valence, as captured presently by the Pleasure dimension. Our studies did not find evidence of a role for Arousal or Dominance change, which suggest that these characteristic are less defining features of the dissonance state. While the sensitivity of the PAD scale seems moderate in regards to our results, we believe that cognitive dissonance scholars should continue to reconnect with general models of emotion to investigate the CDS.
- Cognitive dissonance was measured indirectly by asking participants about changes in their opinion about how enjoyable the task was following the experiment.
- The magnitude of dissonance depends on the number and importance of cognitions that the person experiences a consonance or dissonance with.
- We may feel as if the effort was a waste or that we were cheated out of our payoff.
- It is only by understanding the precise nature of the CDS that the field will be able to construct an internally consistent instrument for its assessment, a subject that has motivated more and more research in recent times (e.g., Levy, Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2017).
- As an alternative to this misery, John can change his beliefs or attitudes.
A smoker who knows that smoking is bad for health will experience dissonance, which causes mental discomfort, because the habit of smoking and the knowledge of how harmful smoking is are conflicting. First, the person could remove the dissonant cognition by either changing his behaviour (stop smoking) or knowledge (believe that smoking is actually not bad for health). Second, the person could https://ecosoberhouse.com/ reduce the importance of the dissonant cognition by thinking that the risk of getting lung cancer from smoking is lesser than being in a car accident. Third, the person could increase the amount of consonant cognition by looking for positive effects of smoking. Lastly, the person could focus on the benefits of smoking as an important part of his or her life (Mills & Harmon-Jones, 1999).
Induced compliance
Coping mechanisms can include justifying their behavior (and our relationship with them), trivializing their behavior or the importance of it, attempting to change their behavior, or changing our own behavior. Cognitive dissonance and the way we cope with it regularly affect our relationships, too, both positively and negatively. Cognitive dissonance theory itself suggests that if patients are investing time, money, and emotional effort in the therapy, they will be likely to work hard to reach their therapeutic goals in order to justify their efforts.
The application provides a social psychological basis for the constructivist viewpoint that ethnic and racial divisions can be socially or individually constructed, possibly from acts of violence (Fearon and Laitin, 2000). Their framework speaks to this possibility by showing how violent actions by individuals can affect individual attitudes, either ethnic or racial animosity (Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen, 2015). In fact, recent research has suggested that while a discrepancy between cognitions drives individuals to crave attitude-consistent information, the experience of negative emotions drives individuals to avoid counter attitudinal information.
Discussing discrepant behavior
The subjects convinced themselves that the tasks were somewhat interesting to rectify the dissonance due to inconsistency between believing the tasks were boring but telling someone they were interesting. Aside from the misattribution paradigm, the most popular method to study the CDS is the use of self-report scales. Most scholars using self-report scales consider that the CDS is not felt as a general negative affect but is rather experienced as a specific psychological discomfort (Elliot & Devine, 1994). A review of cognitive dissonance theory at the organisation level was also conducted to integrate the relevant knowledge that was published from 2000 to 2016 (Hinojosa et al., 2017).
There are a variety of ways people are thought to resolve the sense of dissonance when cognitions don’t seem to fit together. They may include denying or compartmentalizing unwelcome thoughts, seeking to explain away a thought that doesn’t comport with others, or changing what one believes or one’s behavior. To deal with the feelings of discomfort then, they might find some way of rationalizing the conflicting cognition. For instance, they may justify their sedentary behavior by saying that their other healthy behaviors—like eating sensibly and occasionally exercising—make up for their largely sedentary lifestyle.
Lastly, the discrepancy reduction phase related to dissonance reduction mechanisms. The concept of dissonance is predominantly related to the post-decision or post-purchase situation (Oliver, 2009). The research on this phase commonly focused on the impacts of post-purchase touchpoints on product or service evaluation (Cohen & Goldberg, 1970), satisfaction (Engel, 1963) intention to repurchase (Hunt, 1970) and the back-out rate (Donnelly & Ivancevich, 1970) of customers. Negative emotion was another concept that has been closely invested with cognitive dissonance. Some studies also investigated moderators, such as income and product involvement (Gbadamosi, 2009), on consumer decision making. Dissonance can also be extended to other purchase phases, but its purposes will be different (Koller & Salzberger, 2009; Koller & Salzberger, 2012).
When used together, both the PAD scale and the SAM tend to show similar results (Bradley & Lang, 1994). To our knowledge, cognitive dissonance theory has rarely been linked with general models of emotion before, and never with the PAD model. Yet, this model appears to be a relevant framework to examine the characteristics of the CDS. Festinger and Carlsmith wanted to create a feeling of dissonance in participants—in this case, their belief (that lying should be avoided) is at odds with their action (they just lied to someone). Experiencing cognitive dissonance can lead people to try to reduce their feelings of discomfort —sometimes in surprising or unexpected ways.