Attending specialized therapy sessions such as psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy can help individuals who struggle with cognitive dissonance work through emotional difficulties and disruptive or negative thoughts. Your psychologist or licensed professional counselor can help you understand your thought process, identify where the feelings are coming from, as well as find ways to change your bias, reduce conflicting beliefs or add new ones. As we reach the end of our journey through the world of cognitive dissonance therapy, let’s take a moment to reflect. We’ve explored how conflicting beliefs can create mental turmoil, and how therapy can help us navigate these internal battles.
- If they are part of a wider problem that is causing distress, people may benefit from speaking with a therapist.
- According to this theory, cognitive dissonance describes the discomfort experienced when two cognitions are incompatible with each other.
- This is as it should be, as arguably no theory has been more frequently studied, criticized, supported and modified than cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance Examples
- In the grand symphony of your mind, cognitive dissonance therapy can be the conductor, helping you create a more harmonious melody from the sometimes discordant notes of your thoughts and beliefs.
- Facts can be replaced by whims of fancy and fiction, bearing little relation to reality.
- Cognitive dissonance theory, which was founded by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957, states that cognitive dissonance drives people to resolve the conflict between truths and behaviors that don’t match one another.
- That’s because if you’re not self-aware, cognitive dissonance can leave you acting and feeling pretty out of character.
- For instance, someone with an eating disorder might simultaneously believe that they need to lose weight to be attractive, while also knowing that their current weight is dangerously low.
When the cataclysm did not occur, we can imagine that the Seekers realized that having lost so many relationships and possessions were unwanted consequences of their errant prophecy. In general, if our behavior leads to a consequence that we would rather not have brought about, it is considered aversive and leads to the possibility of dissonance arousal. The second, and perhaps most iconoclast contribution was its apparent reversal of the predictions that would be made by learning theories. Rather than creating change as a direct function of its magnitude, reward seemed to have had the opposite effect in the dissonance situation. People who made statements for large rewards were less likely to believe their statements than people who acted for small rewards.
Health Conditions
People who feel it could realize, for example, that they need to update their beliefs to reflect the truth, or change their behavior to better match the person they want to be. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people are averse to inconsistencies within their own minds. It offers one explanation for why people sometimes make an effort to adjust their thinking when their own thoughts, words, or behaviors seem to clash with each other. However, cognitive dissonance can also be a tool for personal and social change. Drawing a person’s attention to the dissonance between their behavior and their values may increase their awareness of the inconsistency and empower them to act.
The Drive Properties of Dissonance: Reality or Metaphor?
Dr. Stacey Diane Arañez Litam (she, her, siya) is a licensed professional clinical counselor and supervisor, a national certified counselor, a certified clinical mental health counselor, as well as a board-certified diplomate and sexologist. She is an immigrant and identifies as a Chinese and Filipina American woman. Her clinical work, research expertise and advocacy for supporting BIPOC communities, LGBTQ+ folx, as well as human sex trafficking survivors have garnered national praise and notoriety.
Dissonance comes up when we realize there are two things opposing each other,” she explains. “The tension that gets created when you hold certain beliefs or values but act in a way that conflicts with your belief systems generates an internal discomfort that most people have to subconsciously work very hard to ignore,” Curry says. Talking to a coach can help you develop self-awareness and understand the source of your cognitive dissonance.
How to reduce cognitive dissonance
Gosling et al. (2006) found that the students who had not been asked about their responsibility changed their attitudes toward the admission policy. Those who completed the responsibility scale used the scale to avoid taking responsibility and did not change their attitudes. Enter cognitive dissonance therapy, a specialized form of cognitive therapy that aims to address these conflicting beliefs head-on. To help individuals recognize and resolve their inconsistent thoughts and behaviors, ultimately leading to improved mental health and well-being.
Mental health awareness: The importance of conversation
The therapy itself was indeed effortful, but cognitive dissonance and addiction not in a way that participants may have anticipated. It was a purely physical effort therapy, involving lifting weights and doing gymnastic exercises. At the conclusion of several minutes of the effortful therapy, participants returned to the room in which Oz was lying and were asked to approach the snake a second time.
How Attitude Change Takes Place
Doing some soul searching to determine the areas of your life where contradiction exists can shed light on areas you may need to work on. Maybe you always expect your friends to be prompt when you have dinner plans, but you’re usually 10 minutes late yourself. Adjusting your behavior or your expectations of your friends might help lessen conflict down the line.
Examples of cognitive dissonance
- Though, the severity may vary depending on how tightly the belief is held.
- We do not offer individual medical advice, diagnosis or treatment plans.
- 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.
- There has been a great deal of research into cognitive dissonance, providing some interesting and sometimes unexpected findings.
- Jocelyn Solis-Moreira is a New York-based science journalist whose work has appeared in Health, Live Science, and Discover Magazine, among other publications.
You realize that you were making a decision that was out of step with what you said you wanted to do. Research into eating disorders and mass shooters reveals a common thread—overvalued ideas that are relished, amplified, and nurtured online. For example, a person may have to do something they disagree with at work. By Kendra Cherry, MSEdKendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the “Everything Psychology Book.” According to Festinger, there are a few ways that a person might resolve this dissonance. Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the “Everything Psychology Book.”