Cognitive Dissonance Essay - 1280 Words

â€Å"Your best friend is having a beer bash tonight. Everyone you talk to indicated their positive intentions of going to the best beer bash of the millennium. However, you have a Psyc 135 final next morning that you havent studied for. Your midterm scores have been low going into the final, but everyone claims that the final is easy every semester. Should you stay home and study for the final or go to this millennium beer bash and merrily consume alcohol?† Above stated scenario raises several questions in my mind and lands me in a state of psychological tension. Having a choice of attending a social event or studying for the final exam puts me in a dilemma as to what to do next. Deciding to stay home and study for a test may very well anger†¦show more content†¦One decision is to stay abstinent from alcohol or follow in the footsteps of my beer bash friends. Prescribing to any of the alternatives may lead to dissonance as drinking may deteriorate health and cause lower grades, while not attending the beer bash may give my best friend and peers a sense of their rejection. What happens to people when they discover dissonant cognitions? The answer to this question forms the postulation of Festinger’s theory. Festingers theory of Cognitive Dissonance postulates that individuals, when presented with evidence contrary to their worldview or situations in which they must behave contrary to their worldview, experience cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Dissonance can be simply understood as an â€Å"unpleasant state of tension.† A person who has dissonant or discrepant cognitions is said to be in a state of psychological dissonance, which is experienced as unpleasant psychological tension (Berkowitz amp; Cotton, 1984). This tension state has drive-like properties that are much like those of hunger and thirst. When an individual has been deprived of food for several hours, he/she experiences unpleasant tension and is driven to reduce the unpleasant tension state that results (Berkowitz amp; Cotton, 1984). The general sequence of a psychological tension is as follows, (a) conflict, (b)Show MoreRelatedCognitive Dissonance1266 Words   |  6 PagesCognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance or mental stress which is primarily caused by contradictory beliefs, can be a common part of some peoples life’s however we are psychologically motivated to avoid situations which cause mental stress. This paper will discuss a situation and the behavior using attribution theory, the reciprocal relationship between behavior and attitudes as well as how cognitive dissonance theory could be used to rationalize the behavior. Situation and Subsequent Behavior Read MoreCognitive Dissonance1161 Words   |  5 PagesPsych Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive dissonance theory has been around since the late fifties. It has inspired many psychologists to figure out the murky depths of people’s minds. The theory relates strongly to decision making, social phenomenons and mental angst. Many paradigms exist within cognitive dissonance. Two important paradigms are the Belief Disconfirmation paradigm and the Free Choice paradigm. There are several experiments that have been studied that relate to cognitive dissonance, includingRead MoreCognitive Dissonance Theory1621 Words   |  7 Pagescreated the cognitive dissonance theory as an attempt to explain why people desire to have consistency between their behaviors and actions. Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state people feel when they find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold (Festinger, 1957; as cited in Griffin, 2009). Thus, people are motivated to change either their behavior or their belief when feelings of dissonance arise. Read MoreCognitive Dissonance Paper1671 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction The words Cognitive Dissonance were fascinatingly interesting; therefore more research went into the origin of these two words. Both words are Middle English, which was the English in use from 12th to 15th centuries and both used in the 15th century [ (Merriam-Webster, 2011) ]. Cognitive is an adjective meaning, there is physical activity involving the mind; be it: thinking, reasoning or remembering. Dissonance is a noun meaning, when there is a tug-of- war between one’s actions andRead MoreAssignment on Cognitive Dissonance1417 Words   |  6 PagesTheory Paper on Cognitive Dissonance Theory â€Å"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn t fit in with the core belief.† ― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, WhiteRead More Cognitive Dissonance Theory Essay1027 Words   |  5 Pages nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The theory of Cognitive Dissonance states that when individuals are presented with information that implies we act in a way that contradicts our moral standards, we experience discomfort (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1998, P. 191). This is considered Cognitive Dissonance, A psychological term used to describe mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information; arouses unease or tension; relieved by one of several defensive maneuvers:Read MoreCognitive Dissonance1475 Words   |  6 PagesCognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance Consistency, the absence of contradictions, has sometimes been called the hallmark of ethics. Ethics is supposed to provide an individual with a guide for moral living, and to do so it must be rational, and to be rational it must be free of contradictions. When consistency and ethics are compromised, this is known as cognitive dissonance. Leon Festinger shared his brilliance with the world when he created the Cognitive Dissonance theoryRead MoreCognitive Dissonance And Its Effect On Behavior1654 Words   |  7 PagesPeople experience cognitive dissonance when they perceive that there is a mismatch between their attitudes and behaviors. Because we are motivated to keep our cognitions consistent, the inconsistency brought about by dissonance becomes a drive that must be reduced. This is done by changing either the attitude or the behavior such that they may accurately align with each other. Eventually, the New Look model to dissonance will shift the causal path to an explanation using avoidance of aversive consequencesRead MoreThe Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Essay example877 Words   |  4 Pagestheory of cognitive dissonance started as a very simple observation by Leon Festinger that people do not like to deal with inconsistency. This simple observation led to the development of a theory that became very controversial, and it would be this controversy that propelled the theory forward. Many years of research has led to many different ideas of what cognitive dissonance really is and why it actually occurs. Festinger developed the term cognitions while developing his theory on cognitive dissonanceRead MoreActions Caused by Cognitive Dissonance Essay919 Words   |  4 PagesFestinger’s cognitive dissonance theory that asserts that we act to reduce discomfort or dissonance, an unpleasant tension, we experience when two of our thoughts or cognitions are inconsistent. Mkimmie, et al. (2003) investigated the impact of social support on cognitive dissonance arousal in their experiment, â€Å"I’m a Hypocrite, but So Is Everyone Else: Group Support and the Reduction of Cognitive Dissonance.† The psychologists aimed to test the impact of social support on dissonance by testing two