Cognitive Dissonance

IN 1957, SOCIAL psychologist Leon Festinger posited the theory of Cognitive Dissonance. The fundamental premise of the theory is that individuals do not like information that is inconsistent with already-held beliefs and attitudes. Inconsistent information creates psychological discomfort, or cognitive dissonance, for individuals. Festinger asserted that individuals expose themselves to information that supports a decision, while avoiding information that would indicate a choice was a poor decision.

An illustration of this theory includes a scenario where an individual had to decide which candidate to support in a presidential election with the choices being a Democrat, Republican, or Independent party candidate. After deciding to vote for the Republican candidate, the voter then selectively attends to the Republican candidate's advertisements and campaign materials, which reinforce the positive aspects of the Republican candidate. The voter selectively avoids advertisements and campaign materials that highlight positive aspects of the Democratic and Independent candidates. By selectively attending to the Republican's advertisements and campaign materials, the voter is attempting to alleviate any post-decision dissonance by seeking information that reinforces the decision to vote for the Republican.

Leon Festinger defined cognition as beliefs, knowledge, or opinions about an individual's behavior, environment, or oneself. Specifically, dissonance was defined as inconsistent relations between cognitions while consonance was defined as consistent relations betweens cognitions. Leon Festinger suggested that cognitive dissonance is most likely to occur when logical inconsistencies exist (such as when cats do not [Page 125]meow, they bark), cultural mores are involved (such as when an individuals eat with their fingers at a formal dinner party and demonstrate poor social manners), when a specific opinion is inconsistent with a general opinion (for example, when an individual is a Republican, but votes for a Democrat), and when present experiences are inconsistent with past experiences (such as when an individual stands in the rain, but does not get wet).

Once cognitive dissonance arises, Festinger proposed two solutions to eliminate the dissonance or the psychological discomfort. First, individuals can change their cognition about their behavior by changing the action. That is, if an action creates cognitive dissonance for an individual then the individual could decide to simply not engage in the action that causes the psychological discomfort. Second, to eliminate cognitive dissonance, individuals can change their knowledge by convincing themselves that there are other situations or actions that cause even greater psychological discomfort.

There are different levels of cognitive dissonance, the greatest amount of psychological discomfort occurs when the image we hold of ourselves is threatened. To illustrate this point, the very serious inconsistency that driving recklessly can kill both you and others while knowing that you are a reckless driver causes greater cognitive dissonance, or psychological discomfort, than the inconsistency of being late for a meeting while thinking that you are a punctual individual.

Thus, not all inconsistent cognitions are alike, some inconsistencies are more important to individuals than others. In sum, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, an individual will actively seek information that is consistent (consonant) and actively avoid information that is inconsistent (dissonant) with already held beliefs and attitudes.

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