Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when holding two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their behavior conflicts with those beliefs. People typically try to reduce this discomfort through changes in beliefs, justifications, or behavior. Key ideas

• Origin: Concept introduced by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, describing the drive for internal consistency.
• Types of dissonance:
  • Consonant cognitions: beliefs that align and feel harmonious.
  • Dissonant cognitions: conflicting beliefs or between belief and action.
• Reduction strategies:
  • Change one of the conflicting cognitions or behaviors.
  • Add new cognitions to reconcile the conflict.
  • Trivialize the importance of the conflict or rationalize the behavior.
• Common signs: guilt, rationalization, rationalizing decisions after they’re made, avoiding information that intensifies the conflict.

Examples

• Health behaviors: Knowing smoking is harmful but continuing to smoke to avoid giving up a habit.
• Moral decisions: Believing honesty is important but telling a white lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, then justifying it as a protective act.
• Environmental vs. personal actions: Valuing sustainability while driving a gas-guzzling vehicle, leading to excuses like “I recycle sometimes, so it balances out.”

Why it matters

• It explains everyday inconsistencies in behavior and beliefs.
• It informs strategies for attitude and behavior change in areas like marketing, therapy, education, and self-improvement.

If you’d like, I can tailor more examples to your interests (e.g., workplace, politics, health) or explain classic experiments that demonstrated cognitive dissonance.