Inconsistency between two cognitions creates dislike which gives rise to a desire, to reduce or abolish the inconsistency.
In other words, cognitive dissonance is a situation which involves conflicting beliefs or behaviours, which produces a feeling of discomfort, an aversive emotional state of dissonance, and the individual further takes action to reduce this discomfort which would lead to consistency
In simplest terms, Cognition- means belief/thought and dissonance means discrepancy. Therefore, cognitive dissonance means thoughts in disagreement. Two thoughts, pointing in two different directions induces a state of dissonance. When thoughts and actions are in conflict.
World hunger is a serious problem which needs attention. Would you agree, strongly agree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree?
Now, answer this. Do you personally do anything to lesson world hunger(donations/charity) etc.?
This produced an inconsistency inside of you. This state of dissonance may produce guilt.
Dissonance is inversely proportional to the degree of attempt you make in order to reduce it.
Leon Festinger first proposed the effect in his 1957 book. He stated, "Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction just as hunger leads toward activity oriented toward hunger-reduction. It is a very different motivation from what psychologists are used to dealing with but, as we shall see, nonetheless powerful"
Origins and Experiments
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) asked participants to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). As you can imagine, participant's attitudes toward this task were highly negative.They wanted to see that whether making people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behaviour.
In their laboratory experiment, they used 71 male students as participants to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour).
They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant (a confederate) that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the confederate that the boring experiment would be fun.
Results- When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.
Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs, and there is therefore no dissonance.
You may ask, what is its significance? Understand this, cognitive dissonance plays a considerable role in value judgements, and decisions. By being aware of how it can impact your decision making ability improves your efficiency and accuracy, in the choice you make.
Some signs that you're experiencing dissonance includes experiencing guilt, embarrassment, uncomfortable while trying to make a decision, or continually justifying the one you already made.
The reason why it exists is that human beings are sensitive to inconsistencies. Other reasons may include forced compliance, the importance attached to beliefs.
Some Ways to solve cognitive dissonance include changing of beliefs- suppose you're experiencing dissonance due to eating junk food which you belief will cause obesity, then change the underlying belief that "eating junk food is fine, it does not increase weight". However, basic beliefs like this are significantly strong, and we may not be able to convince ourselves.
- Changing actions
You promise yourself that you won't even junk food.
Changing perception of action
Rationalise actions. Eg. Eating junk food once a month is fine.