In psychology, there is a phenomenon known as “cognitive dissonance,” which refers to the inconsistency between an individual’s behavior and beliefs.
For instance, someone might firmly believe that they are very intelligent, but perform poorly in certain tasks. This is an example of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance can lead to feelings of discomfort and anxiety because it disrupts an individual’s self-image and understanding of the world.
What Exactly Is Cognitive Dissonance?
Also known as cognitive incongruity, cognitive dissonance (Cognitive Dissonance) is a situation where a person’s behavior conflicts with their established perception of themselves, which is typically positive and affirming. This discomfort or unpleasant emotion arises when one cognitive element leads to the inference of another contradictory cognitive element. There are two components involved: cognitive elements, which refer to people’s thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs; and inference, which is about whether the logical reasoning is correct or not.
It represents a significant theory within the cognitive consistency theories, rooted in Gestalt psychology, and was one of the most influential theories in the field of social psychology in the Western world during the 1950s and 60s.
The cognitive dissonance theory focuses on the inconsistency between an individual’s attitudes and behavior. “Dissonance” is an unpleasant motivational state that occurs when there is inconsistency between an individual’s behavior and attitudes.
Cognitive dissonance can be likened to pulling in opposite directions between behavior and attitude.
Take, for example, a recent news story that became popular: a South Korean woman decided to break up with her fiancé after discovering his habit of leaving negative reviews for takeout orders. This made her think of her parents, who had lost their jobs at their restaurant due to the pandemic. When she asked her boyfriend why he would give a one-star review to a restaurant he enjoyed, he replied that he internally rated it six out of ten, and believed he was praising the restaurant owner by doing so.
If what her fiancé said was true—that he intended to leave a positive review but ultimately left a negative one—this discrepancy between the intention to praise and the action of criticizing is a classic example of cognitive dissonance.
From this example, it is clear that cognitive dissonance is actually quite common.
Why Do People Experience Cognitive Dissonance?
1. Updating Information
For an individual, when new situations occur or new information is learned that is related to existing knowledge, viewpoints, or behavior, at least temporary cognitive dissonance can arise. Since people don’t have complete control over the information they come across or potential events in their environment, this kind of dissonance can easily occur.
2. Changes in Cognitive Components
Changes in a person’s beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, and concepts can all lead to the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance.
3. Inconsistencies in Logical Reasoning
The origins of cognitive dissonance are similar to those of cognitive biases. There are many common cognitive biases, such as the confirmation bias, hindsight bias, false dilemma, slippery slope, etc., all of which can produce cognitive dissonance due to inconsistencies in logical reasoning.
4. Cultural and Custom Differences
For example, if a person moves to a new place, the local cultural customs may clash with their existing ones, leading to a conflict between their new behavioral patterns and their old cognitive beliefs, which can result in cognitive dissonance.
Even in everyday life, without the occurrence of new or unpredictable events or information, dissonance can still arise.
How Can We Update Our Cognition and Avoid Cognitive Dissonance?
1. Self-awareness and Developing Independent Thinking
This is the first step to updating cognition and avoiding cognitive dissonance. We must be aware of our own beliefs, the beliefs of our social groups, and whether our beliefs are inconsistent with those of our social groups. We should also reflect on whether we have experienced cognitive dissonance in the past.
2. Gaining Social Support
Social groups are a significant source of cognitive dissonance for individuals, but they are also the main source for eliminating and reducing potential dissonance. We can better understand ourselves by comparing our beliefs to those of our social groups. When our beliefs are not in harmony with those of our social groups, trying to gain social support can help us reduce the sense of dissonance and empower us to update our cognition.
So, how do we gain social support?
We can:
(1) Express ourselves more and make our voices heard, attracting the interest of social groups.
(2) Increase social interactions to boost our chances of joining social groups.
3. Reading Widely, Listening, Learning, and Reflecting
Updating our cognition includes updating our information, ideas, thoughts, and logic. Reading widely, listening, and learning are akin to updating our information database, building a strong information system to support the update of our cognition. Reflecting helps us update our ideas, thoughts, and logic.
4. Reading Books, Especially Good Ones, to Update Our Cognition
Good books are the crystallization of wisdom. Reading classics is like having a dialogue with the wise, exchanging thoughts, and this too is a way to input information into our database. With input, there can be output; with input, cognitive formation and updating can occur.
By reading widely, listening, learning, reading good books, reflecting, and developing our independent thinking abilities, as well as learning how to gain social support, we can constantly update our cognition, become more aware of cognitive dissonance, see cognitive biases more clearly, and avoid falling into the trap of cognitive errors.
