According To Cognitive Dissonance Theory Human Beings Are Motivated To

Subjects of one group were paid twenty dollars ($20) for their participation. The third group, the control group, was not asked to speak with the confederate. Electoral politics can feature more than just policy disagreements. People seek to reduce their cognitive dissonance when making any choice.

The Search for Mediating Effects

The “strong initiation” group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words considered obscene. The “mild initiation” group of subjects cognitive dissonance and addiction were to read aloud twelve sexual words not considered obscene. After reading the list of words, participants were given headphones to listen in on an animal-sexuality discussion that they were told was occurring in the next room.

• Cultural norms and values shape the perceived importance of different cognitions and the available strategies for resolving dissonance.
• Individuals are inherently driven to maintain internal consistency and will employ various strategies to reduce psychological discomfort when their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors conflict.
• And there are important between- and within-school differences in the mix of teachers’ learning orientations.” Consequently, the authors recommended “differentiated forms of support for promoting effective professional learning in schools” (Pedder & Opfer, 2013).
• The behavior itself may be satisfying, or changing a particular behavior may result in pain or loss.

The psychology of mental stress

One of the most popular cognitive approaches to the study of motivation has been the theory of cognitive dissonance, first systematically studied by the American psychologist Leon Festinger. This theory proposed that people attempt to maintain consistency among their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. According to this theory, a motivational state termed cognitive dissonance is produced whenever beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours are inconsistent.

• We thrive on a sense of order and coherence in our thoughts and actions.
• In a nutshell, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that arises when a person holds two or more conflicting beliefs, ideas, or values.
• What I am doing is really important.” If this is his belief, he will realize that he is becoming stronger through his challenges.
• The strong initiation subjects convinced themselves that the discussion was more interesting than it actually was to make their effort to feel worthwhile.

Paradigms

The behavior itself may be satisfying, or changing a particular behavior may result in pain or loss. As a result, the cognitions that most often change are the ones related to attitudes, beliefs, and opinions. Do people from non-Western cultures experience cognitive dissonance as well? Research seems to suggest that people from non-Western cultures do experience cognitive dissonance, but that the contexts that lead to feelings of dissonance might differ depending on cultural norms and values.

Smoking

However, for the mild punishment children, it was a more difficult decision. Their desire for the toy was great and their concern Sobriety for the mild punishment was small. While they also chose not to play with the toy, they may have needed to justify, to themselves, why they did not play with the forbidden toy. The degree of punishment was insufficiently strong to resolve their cognitive dissonance; the children had to convince themselves that playing with the forbidden toy was not worth the effort.

Dissonance as a result of inconsistencies of attitudes and behavior occurs when there are discrepancies between what we believe and what we do. Because self-esteem acts as a https://upgostream.com/2021/12/14/does-weed-have-addictive-properties-marijuana/ global support system, if a student feels he has threatened his sense of self by lying to his classmate, he can look for other ways to affirm himself. Those with high esteem will find alternative ways quickly, experience less dissonance, and therefore, exhibit less attitude change. In recent years, psychologists have pointed out that many psychology studies recruit participants from Western countries (North America and Europe) and that doing so neglects the experience of people who live in non-Western cultures.

In psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person’s belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein they try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort. Festinger’s original theory did not seek to explain how dissonance works. It proposes that inconsistencies in a person’s cognition cause mental stress because psychological inconsistency interferes with the person’s functioning in the real world.

This discomfort motivates them to reduce the dissonance, often by altering their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors to achieve a more harmonious internal state. This paper explores the multifaceted motivations behind this process, analyzing how individuals react to inconsistencies and the strategies they employ to resolve them. Beyond simple contradiction, we will examine the nuanced ways in which dissonance manifests and the profound impact it has on decision-making, attitude change, and social interactions.