Cognitive dissonance: what it is in simple words, examples, how to get rid of

psychologist, orthopedic therapist, expert of the online school of psychological professions “Psychodemia”

“Today the phrase “I have cognitive dissonance” has become almost commonplace. But not everyone who utters it really understands what this psychological phenomenon is. Let’s get to the bottom of it.”

Table of Contents

What we’ll tell you about

What is cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of psychological discomfort that arises as a result of an individual having two or more conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or values. This internal conflict causes us to experience unpleasant feelings of anxiety, worry or other difficult emotions.

When a person believes in one thing (e.g., in favor of positive thinking always and in everything), but is forced to take the opposite action (getting upset about being suddenly fired from a job), he or she feels internal conflict and discomfort. Since the experience of cognitive dissonance is unpleasant, we try to get rid of it in every possible way, including various avoidance mechanisms.

Cognitive dissonance is not a disease or mental disorder. But understanding what this process is, how it works and how it affects your emotional state will improve the quality of your life. After all, by recognizing how cognitive dissonance is affected, a person can deal with it more effectively, as well as better control the actions they intend to take.

The emergence and development of the theory

American psychologist Leon Festinger published his book, The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, in 1957. It suggests that we have a desire to keep behavior and inner peace in harmony by avoiding disharmony. This desire has been given the name “cognitive consistency”.

If suddenly at some point there is a contradiction between our values, beliefs, or attitudes, something must happen to help resolve it.

An important nuance: the theory does not claim that these ways will work. It only says that a person in a situation of cognitive dissonance makes attempts to eliminate it.

So why does this state of discomfort arise? Festinger explained that the cause of cognitive dissonance lies in the very essence of human nature. In fact, each of us during the course of our lives receives certain knowledge about the surrounding reality, memorizes it and takes it for granted. This is how our individual picture of the world is formed.

The truth is that the knowledge of an individual person is not always objective and corresponds to reality. Therefore, we often find that our cognitive picture of the world and reality contradict each other.

This is where the contradiction arises. In fact, the knowledge of the world in a person’s head and reality are not the same. Then he begins to make attempts to bring reality and the cognitive picture into conformity, rationalizes his behavior.

If conceptualization does not allow to eliminate the contradiction, then there is a psychological discomfort, which forces a person to perform some actions in his life to cope with it. At this point, he may experience severe frustration.

Leon Festinger initiated the idea of “cognitive dissonance”, but later this concept was the subject of study by other scientists. The main studies followed the following lines of research.

1- The study of choice of alternatives and freedom of choice

These works showed that when freedom of choice appears, cognitive dissonance arises already from the presence of several alternatives. And vice versa – in the absence of it, it is reduced (or may be absent) due to the transfer of responsibility for decision making to an external factor.

One of the experiments on this topic was conducted by Jack Brehm in 1956. His participants were told that they were to examine the products of several manufacturers. For this they were supposed to receive one of the items for free. And the gifts were different in terms of functionality and value.

Some of the participants knew in advance what products they would be offered to choose from. They had to decide for themselves what they wanted to take. Members of the control group had no choice and simply received a random gift.

Afterward, the researchers assessed the emotional state of all the female participants. It turned out that members of the control group did not experience cognitive dissonance. Other participants with free choice took a long time to decide and experienced a lot of negative feelings.

Scientists made several conclusions from the results of the research.

If the choice is free and there are several alternatives, it is possible to reduce cognitive dissonance. It is only necessary to devalue the rejected alternative and give importance to the one we choose.
If there is no freedom of choice, then discomfort still arises in a situation where we know that negative consequences for us will occur later.

Thus, we realize that a freelancer will be much more likely to experience cognitive dissonance in his work because of the constant freedom in his actions. At the same time, an office worker can also face this state of discomfort. For example, in a situation when he/she is forced to constantly go to work on weekends and sacrifice his/her rest when he/she is not compensated or paid for the time spent.

2- The study of attributions (mechanism to explain behavior)

The theory suggests that shifting the responsibility for the fact of dissonance from one’s own behaviors and attitudes to external factors greatly reduces it. When this fails, two options are possible.

To devalue the very behavior that we can do nothing about. “I didn’t actually do anything wrong!”.
Ignore the relationship between the behavior and cognitive dissonance. “I have a weak stomach. It hurts all the time. So eating french fries has nothing to do with it.”

3- Exploring Attitudes Toward Unacceptable Behavior

In a situation when a person behaves uncharacteristically and contradictorily for a long time, the increase of dissonance changes the attitude to such behavior. Then, in order to reduce internal tension, he begins to justify the behavior that led to the internal dissonance. The stronger the feeling, the more the attitude to the unacceptable behavior changes.

A vivid example would be the situation of infidelity in marriage. Suppose the partner considers betrayal not a norm, promises his favorite person never to have a parallel relationship. However, at some point he decides to do it. Then the longer the betrayal lasts, the stronger (most likely) the position of the person to it will begin to change.

Gradually, he will begin to justify the behavior with problems in the marriage or in his partner. In essence, these are attempts to minimize the cognitive dissonance between conflicting beliefs: “I will never cheat on my loved one” and “I have a parallel relationship and I enjoy it”.

4- Investigating the impact of effort

In a situation where a person expends a large amount of effort to achieve something but does not get the expected result, cognitive dissonance will be lower by increasing the importance of the behavior itself. The same is true if there is an expectation of punishment or a strong threat. The more effort expended, the more valuable the behavior will feel.

For example, if you walked up a steep mountain for 10 kilometers, your hike will seem more valuable to you compared to covering a distance of 1.5 kilometers.

The same idea was confirmed by an experiment conducted by Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills in 1959.

Female students volunteered to participate in a discussion on the psychology of sex. The first group read aloud to a male experimenter a list of words. All of them were related to sex. For example, “virgin,” “prostitute,” and profane words. A very sexually explicit passage was also read. The control group went straight to the main study. They discussed sex in lower animals.

The students later rated how interesting the discussion and the people involved were. The main group gave the most positive evaluation of the experiment.

Examples from everyday life

1. Regular sports

There is hardly a single person today who does not realize the importance and health benefits of regular exercise. We all know that our condition is directly related to our activity, sleep, rest and nutrition.

Therefore, when people frequently skip or neglect their workouts, they will experience cognitive dissonance that causes guilt.

2. Smoking and alcohol

Similarly, we know that alcohol and nicotine addiction is bad for our health and we recognize the negative consequences of these abuses. A person may try to quit their habits, but very often this is unsuccessful or for a short time.

3- Impulsive purchases

Do you remember situations when you impulsively spent on something, later tried to convince yourself that this thing was necessary for you, and after some time you started to feel disappointed when you realized that the purchase was useless or you didn’t need it? This is also one form of how cognitive dissonance manifests itself in ordinary life.

4. Productivity in work

Getting work done in a quality, timely and responsible manner is an important task for most people. It is also key to our career success and professional growth. Most of us are well aware of the significance of this. However, we get distracted, sit on the internet at the workplace, put off important tasks and sometimes miss deadlines. At the same time, we experience frustration and guilt.

5. Honesty in relationships

We value openness and honesty in communication. We realize that trust is the basis for a comfortable and close relationship with a partner, friends, and within the family. We feel the importance of telling the truth. Nevertheless, sometimes we may lie to avoid embarrassing ourselves. For example, about the real reason we were late for dinner. And later we often feel conflicted, thinking we should have told the truth, but we didn’t.

How to reduce dissonance in life?

Consciously or not, a person will always try to minimize the feeling of cognitive dissonance. However, if you do this unconsciously, you will very often choose ways that are not the most helpful or constructive for you.

Here are a few principles to help reduce the feeling of cognitive dissonance in everyday life.

1. Regularly evaluate your own beliefs and values, reflect on them and analyze whether they really coincide with your actual behavior. Ask yourself questions: if not, what is the contradiction? What actions can I change to eliminate it?

2. Gather more information about those beliefs, judgments, conclusions that you find useful for yourself and want to consolidate.

For example, if you want to exercise on a regular basis, gather more information about its value, positive consequences for yourself, your health and lifestyle.

3. Increase the value of a belief that you consider important. And also decrease the importance of a contradictory one.

4. Be flexible and be prepared that in certain situations you may have to change your ingrained attitudes and beliefs.

5. Communicate with people who have contradictory points of view. This will help to expand your own picture of the world and in principle to look at things more objectively.

Flexibility, critical thinking, the ability to gather and accept new information, analyze the relationship between your behavior and the existing attitudes in your life – these are the main principles that help you overcome the feeling of cognitive dissonance.

How does dissonance affect us?

In everyday life, cognitive dissonance can have quite a serious impact on our behavior. Let’s look at different situations in different areas of life.

In relationships

1- Justification of harmful behavior

For example, “I criticize you because I wish you well”. Very often in relationships, a person who commits unpleasant or even harmful actions towards his or her significant other begins to justify himself or herself, while avoiding taking the blame and responsibility for the emotional (and sometimes physical) harm that his or her behavior causes to the partner.

2. Avoiding conflict resolution

For example, “My partner has been spending very little time with me lately. We rarely talk. I don’t get enough time together. But I think I will only make things worse if I start talking about it. I mean, we’d be fighting. And it’s not that big of a problem. A lot of people have it a lot worse.”

To avoid admitting a problem in a relationship, people often tend to downplay it and avoid discussing it directly. In fact, this leads to increased dissatisfaction and emotional distance. This tendency to avoid and rationalize conflict prevents effective resolution and can undermine trust and intimacy in relationships.

3. Reinforcement of negative behaviors

The need to reduce cognitive dissonance can reinforce negative patterns in relationships. When people experience dissonance, they may double down on negative behaviors to remain consistent with their beliefs. For example, a person who believes they are always right may continually ignore their partner’s valid concerns, reinforcing cycles of conflict and misunderstanding.

4- Distortion of self-perception

Cognitive dissonance can distort self-image and perceptions of the beloved. To reduce the contradiction, people may overemphasize their partner’s shortcomings while downplaying their own. This leads to an unbalanced and often unrealistic view of the relationship.

For example, a person is so used to seeing himself as an empathic and understanding partner that he focuses on the times when he manages to be so. But he completely ignores the moments when a loved one tells him about misunderstandings on his part.

In marketing and advertising

In a situation where you don’t need a certain thing, but you are thinking about buying it, there is a sense of cognitive dissonance. Most often it stops you from buying something unnecessary. And this is the positive effect that the feeling of cognitive dissonance gives us.

However, marketers also know the principles of our psyche and actively use them in their activities. What techniques do we especially often see?

1. Creating a gap between the consumer’s current state and the desired one

For example, in advertising we often see photos and videos of “before” and “after” application of cosmetic products.

The contradiction between these two states usually causes the consumer to feel cognitive dissonance and want to cope with it in any way possible. As a result, we buy something we don’t really need.

2- Justification for the purchase

You are offered big discounts, free gifts, limited time offers. You realize that you don’t really need this item. However, the additional “bonuses” reduce the feeling of cognitive dissonance. You end up making a purchase you hadn’t planned on.

3. Social proof

Reviews and information about how a product is sought after by other customers greatly reduce the sense of cognitive dissonance, and increase the likelihood of a rash purchase. We get the feeling that if so many people are already using the product, we must need it too.

Cognitive dissonance is a condition that everyone faces all the time during their lives. It affects the way we build relationships with ourselves and others, the beliefs and principles that underpin our lives.

However, if we don’t realize it, cognitive dissonance drives us and our actions. But reflection and critical thinking can help us turn this state of discomfort from an unpredictable adversary into an ally and greatly increase our awareness and quality of life.