Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Definition

Introduced by Leon Festinger in 1957—and since that time debated, refined, and debated again by psychologists—cognitive dissonance is defined as the aversive state of arousal that occurs when a person holds two or more cognitions that are inconsistent with each other. The concept of dissonance was once enormously controversial, but its support through five decades of research has made it one of the most widely accepted concepts in social psychology.

Cognitive dissonance can explain a variety of ordinary and extraordinary events in our social lives. Indeed, for a concept to have as long and active a “shelf life” as dissonance, it must either help us see our social world differently, help us to understand why certain phenomena occur, or allow us to make (and confirm) interesting and nonobvious predictions about human nature. The theory of cognitive dissonance has accomplished all three.

[Page 150]To break the definition into its components, let us consider first what is meant by inconsistent cognitions, for it is the simultaneous holding of inconsistent cognitions that gives rise to the experience of dissonance. Festinger thought of a cognition as any piece of knowledge that we have. We can have knowledge about out beliefs, our behavior, our feelings, or about the state of the environment. We may have dozens of cognitions of which we are at least dimly aware at any moment in time and innumerable more of which we can become aware, once our attention or memory is set in motion. Most of the cognitions that we have are not related to each other in any obvious way. For example, my knowledge that I am hungry and my knowledge that the Earth travels around the Sun are two cognitions, but my hunger bears no relationship to the trajectory of the planets. However, some cognitions are directly related. My knowledge that I am hungry is very much related to my behavior at the local restaurant in which I am sitting. If I order a meal, the knowledge of that behavior is related to my knowledge that I'm hungry. In fact, it is quite consistent with my hunger. However, if I decide to forego the meal, or simply order a cup of coffee, my ordering behavior is again related to my hunger, but this time it is in-consistent.

Cognitive dissonance is all about the consequences of inconsistency. We prefer consistency to inconsistency and work hard to maintain (or restore) consistency among our cognitions. Failing to order food to allay my hunger at the restaurant, I may convince myself that I was not really that hungry, or that the restaurant's food was bad. In this way, the inconsistency between my knowledge of my hunger and the decision not to purchase food would seem more consistent. In many ways, the need to restore consistency is similar to the familiar concept of rationalization—indeed, rationalization is one way to deal with the dilemma posed by inconsistent cognitions.

Formally, the state of cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds one cognition that follows from the obverse of another cognition. For example, not ordering food at the restaurant would follow from the obverse or opposite of being hungry. If I were full, I would not be expected to order food. But I was not full, and thus the decision to refrain from eating would follow from the obverse of my knowledge that I was hungry. The condition for dissonance is met.

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