Festinger has some ideas on how to overcome cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, we could change our beliefs. This is probably the easiest approach. Basically, if you believe one thing but act another way, changing your belief system will ease the disconnect between thoughts and action.
For example, if you change your beliefs that oversized cars are bad for the environment, you won't experience dissonance when you drive. But the problem with this approach to reducing dissonance is that our beliefs are fairly stable most of the time. So while this may seem like the easiest approach to reducing dissonance, in practice it's not that common. It's not that easy for us to simply change our beliefs.
There are a few different ways in which we could reduce cognitive dissonance. First, we could change our beliefs. This is probably the easiest approach in theory, but it's often not that simple to simply change our beliefs, especially if they're deeply held. Another approach is to change our behavior.
So, with this strategy, we would simply stop doing the behavior that caused the dissonance. However, the most common way to reduce dissonance is to change our perception of action that is misaligned with our beliefs. This is basically a way to rationalize our actions. This is a bit of a complicated way to continue with a certain action without changing our conflicting beliefs about that action.
Leon Festinger is the founder of cognitive dissonance theory, which suggests that students try to achieve coherence between their beliefs, opinions, and other cognitions. When an inconsistency occurs, they will alter their behavior or attitude to reduce dissonance. Festinger believed that this was one of the most powerful motivators, as students want to avoid the discomfort, pressure, and tension that dissonance can cause. Essentially, when there are two behaviors, actions, or cognitions at war in their minds, students are more likely to make significant changes to solve the problem and seek alignment.
Our discussion begins with cognitive dissonance, one of the most prominent topics in social psychology. The central thesis of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 195) is that when two beliefs are inconsistent, individuals experience a cognitive conflict that awakens negatively (called dissonance). Because dissonance is aversive, individuals try to reduce it by changing one belief or another. For example, when making a difficult decision, people show a change in attitude that justifies the decision.
In this case, people who are faced with such a decision are in conflict because not all beliefs are consistent with the decision. For example, they may have beliefs that favor the option that is being rejected. Therefore, people are motivated to reduce conflict by justifying the decision they have made. Justification is generally achieved by changing your attitudes and beliefs so that the new attitudes and beliefs are consistent with the decision that has been made and justify it.
It should be noted that the resulting change in attitude can be long-lasting (Sharot, Fleming, Yu, Koster, & Dolan, 201. By nature, then, we may be rationalizing beings, willing to justify what we have done after the fact). Dissonance theory deals with resolving cognitive inconsistencies in order to make sense of what has happened. Cognitive dissonance theory has generally been used with women at risk and outside the school environment. Cognitive dissonance was measured indirectly by asking participants about changes in their opinion about how pleasant the task was after the experiment.
Sweeney, Hausknecht and Soutar (2000) developed a 22-item scale to measure cognitive dissonance immediately after a purchase. The inner discomfort and tension of cognitive dissonance could contribute to stress or unhappiness. It is recommended that future research investigates the use of cognitive dissonance and Internet-based approaches in schools. The most effective way to resolve cognitive dissonance is for a person to ensure that their actions are consistent with their values, or vice versa.
Leon Festinger was a social psychologist who produced some of the most influential works on cognitive dissonance. More importantly, it also provided the first testable framework for conceptualizing how cognition could be motivated and how motivated cognition could produce some intriguing forms of social behavior. However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance because of the discomfort it causes. In his book Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger proposed that two ideas can be consonant or dissonant.
The purpose of DBI is to induce cognitive dissonance by making people voluntarily adopt a stance against the Western ideal of beauty. The discrepancy between attitude and behavior (eating a donut while thinking about reducing calorie intake) causes a psychological discomfort called cognitive dissonance (Harmon-Jones, 201. The concept of cognitive dissonance is explained very well in this YouTube video by social psychologist Andy Luttrell). .
