Using an effort justification approach, Axsom (1989) demonstrated that being personally responsible for engaging in an effortful therapy could help students alleviate speech anxiety. Similarly, effort justification was also found to be useful to alleviate clients’ fear of assertiveness (Cooper, 1980). Using a different dissonance-inducing paradigm, Mendonca & Brehm (1983) showed that giving obese children the perception that they chose which of two therapies to engage in produced greater weight loss than assigning children to a therapy. The time is right for dissonance to show its mettle as a principle for real world change. This is not to say that dissonance has remained a laboratory science without practical cognitive dissonance and addiction application. To the contrary, When Prophecy Fails (Festinger et al., 1956) was an analysis and prediction of what would happen to real people in the real world who had committed themselves to a prediction that would be contradicted by reality.
Reducing the Importance of the Conflicting Belief
- People with cognitive dissonance often try to resolve the feeling either by changing their behavior or beliefs or with other strategies like ignoring or justifying the contradiction.
- Sometimes learning new information can lead to feelings of cognitive dissonance.
- Living with that dissonance probably means you’re fairly stressed out and angry every day.
- Arguably, the least appreciated feature of dissonance theory was also its most innovative.
- The social group takes paramount importance in social identity theory because it is one of the major roots of people’s self-worth.
A series of studies that I was involved in with my colleague Mark Zanna took a different approach. We asked participants to ingest a pill as part of what they thought was a completely separate study. We had people engage in a counterattitudinal essay writing task and told half of them that any arousal they might be experiencing was due to the pill. We reasoned that if attitude change is based on the arousal caused by inconsistent cognitions, then those participants who could blame their arousal on the pill would not be motivated to change their attitudes. Only those who thought their arousal was due to the inconsistency between their attitudes and their essay-writing behavior should change their attitudes, for that would be the way to reduce their arousal.
Cognitive Dissonance and How It Is Related to Addiction
Psychologist Leon Festinger came up with the concept in 1957 to describe the discomfort we experience when two of our cognitions — or thoughts — are incompatible with each other. When there’s inconsistency or incompatibility (dissonance), it can cause a sense of unease or discomfort. With 2 years of experience in the field, she is committed to creating personalized recovery plans that empower clients to achieve long-term success.
The Drive Properties of Dissonance: Reality or Metaphor?
I make efforts in my thinking process to convert “alcoholic” or “drug abuser” into a more helpful “client addicted to alcohol” or “client with a substance use disorder.” The veteran should not be labeled. We can reduce cognitive dissonance by changing either our behavior or our beliefs so that they’re consistent with each other. In some cases, it also might be helpful to change our perception of our actions. Yes, when we acknowledge that our beliefs or attitudes are unaligned with our actions, it can prompt us to make positive change and reduce inconsistencies. Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we experience when we hold two related but conflicting thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes in our mind at the same time. Most of us have probably experienced cognitive dissonance at some point — it’s really just part of being human.
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
Once a choice has been made, however, people need to find a way to reduce these feelings of discomfort. We accomplish this by justifying why our choice was the best option so we can believe that we made the right decision. Sometimes you might find yourself engaging in behaviors that are opposed to your own beliefs due to external expectations at work, school, or in a social situation. This might involve going along with something due to peer pressure or doing something at work to avoid getting fired.
- An experimenter asked the participant to move as close to Oz as he possibly could.
- In social groups, members experience an intersubjectivity with other members of their group and feel as one with those members.
- The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates them to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort.
If the CDS is a negative state, it is difficult to understand how individuals can misattribute it to a positive source. While some data provided support for this conceptualization (e.g., Martinie et al., 2013), most scholars still consider the dissonance state to be aversive per nature. His primary strengths include clinical insight into substance abuse/mental health, hard work ethic, and ability to work well under pressure.