Cognitive Dissonance Explained

Recognize your bias when thoughts, feelings, and actions are not aligned

Picture from Steve Buissinne on Pixabay

Cognitive Dissonance is a psychological theory established in 1953 by Leon Festinger.

It proposes that we have a hidden propensity to hold all our actions and behavior in harmony while avoiding disharmony (or dissonance). This is called the principle of cognitive consistency.

Nevertheless, inconsistency happens among attitudes and behaviors, creating dissonance.

When we are in groups, interacting with each other, we need to adjust our inner reality to the outer reality. We find the balance within those realities by corresponding our mental attitudes with personal actions.

Such continual adjustments between cognition and action result in one of three relationships with reality:

1. Consonant relationship: Two cognitions or actions consistent with each other (e.g., not wanting to become drunk when out to dinner and ordering water rather than wine)
2. Irrelevant relationship: Two cognitions or actions unrelated to each other (e.g., not wanting to become drunk when out and wearing a shirt)
3. Dissonant relationship: Two cognitions or actions inconsistent with each other (e.g., not wanting to become drunk when…