Recognize Cognitive Dissonance and Learn How to Stop It

What Is Cognitive Dissonance?

Cognitive Dissonance is the idea that we as people are motivated to have consistent behaviors and attitudes. When these are not consistent we experience dissonance or mental tension.

This cognitive dissonance theory comes from the studies of the relationship between attitude and behavior. Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith carried in the 1950s an experiment about cognitive dissonance.

In this experiment, the participants were forced to do a boring task and had to lie to the next participant and tell them the task was fun. Some were paid $1 to lie and others $20.

Toward the end, their attitudes for the task were measured and it was found that those who were paid $1 reported to have enjoyed the task more than those who were paid $20.

Why? This experiment created dissonance in the participants since they were lying. Those who were paid $20 had less dissonance because they were lying to get the money and they knew they were going to be rewarded.

On the other hand, those who were paid $1 weren’t given a sufficient reward for lying. They had to minimize the dissonance they were feeling from doing a boring task and not getting a good reward. They also needed to pretend they were doing something fun. To do this their minds changed their attitude. That’s why they reported having enjoyed the activity more.

We have to remember that this change happens with no conscious awareness. Once it has happened we can take a moment to ourselves and reflect on why we have changed our attitude towards a subject.

The Relationship Between Attitude and Behavior in Our Minds.

Our attitude and behavior go hand in hand. We always feel something towards an action we are doing. We also have an opinion on why we are doing this certain behavior.

In our minds, I like to think that they are a team that is in charge of decision making. We have Mr. Attitude which is in charge of our beliefs and our morals. For example, knowing that lying is wrong or knowing that you shouldn’t steal. Then we have Mr.Behavior, which has a stronger say and tends to act without consulting. It is harder to change his opinion than Mr. Attitude’s.

So when we are forced, driven into, or peer pressured into doing something that Mr. Attitude doesn’t think is right (something that contradicts our morals, for example, cheating) he is forced to change his opinion and tell Mr. Behvior that what he did it’s not that bad so that they don’t have to fight about what just happened.

When they do fight what happens is cognitive dissonance. It creates tension and it doesn’t allow you to think properly, it also can bring a sense of guilt. Since we as human beings hate feeling guilty, we change our opinion on the matter to make it seem like it wasn’t that bad.

How to Stop Cognitive Dissonance

To stop the mental tension what ultimately has to be done is to either change the attitude or the behavior. You have to change your mindset about the issue or not pursue the behavior that your attitude shows is wrong.

The second option would involve coming up with excuses to justify this behavior. Cognitive dissonance usually happens after the behavior has been done and our attitude clashes with what we just did.

Cognitive dissonance is mental tension.

It creates a sense of guilt and sometimes happens when we are presented with decision making. When we have to choose something, in or minds we have to justify why we are not choosing the other option. Therefore we change our attitude so that it goes along with our behavior.

The Easiest Way to Fight Cognitive Dissonance

As mentioned earlier it is easier to change our attitude than our behavior since the behavior has most likely already happened. That is what creates the dissonance, unless that it is caused by a decision-making conflict.

Let’s give some examples of an attitude change. This is mostly what we say to ourselves but sometimes we tend to say it out loud for reassurance. We might say: “It’s not that bad.” “We are young.” “I had nothing to lose.”

Those are phrases that are mostly said the moment after just having made a bad decision.

Then we use other types of phrases to try to convince ourselves that the important decision we just made was the right one. We normally start listing all the pros and say a few cons but in the end, we mention the decisive factor.

A really clear example of cognitive dissonance is the one of the smokers. They may say that it is not that bad for them or that they don’t smoke that much.

Sometimes they convince themselves that they deserve it or that they are stressed and need to smoke, but at the end that is part of the addiction and they have to fight the mental tension to be able to be in peace.

Learning to Acknowledge Mental Tension

When influenced by cognitive dissonance we tend to make hurried decisions just to stop the fight against our attitude and behavior. The thing is we should notice that we are about to completely justify an action that we shouldn’t just because it is bothering us. Especially because we are doing something that is against our values.

We should recognize what is happening in our heads. We should think to ourselves if we are only changing our thoughts about the subject because we already did the action and want to not feel bad about ourselves or if we truly believe that doing that was the right choice.

Of course, it is harder to change our actions when we have peer pressure and someone close to us that does this behavior. This is especially true for addictions.

Let’s take the smoking example again.

Deep down we know that is it’s not good for our health but we may say to ourselves that one more won’t do us any harm or that we don’t do it that often or that we do it because it calms us down and we’re anxious. These people are justifying to themselves why they smoke so that they can stop the cognitive dissonance in their heads. 

Cognitive dissonance is something that is hard to realize that is happening. Once we start analyzing our thoughts and what goes through our minds we can identify when we are justifying behaviors that are against our morals.