We all know smoking cigarette is bad for health and it causes cancer, but believe it or not, as of writing this, 34.1 million adults in the US smoke cigarettes. Are they uninformed about the bad effects of smoking? Of course, not. Is it because nicotine is addictive? Yes, it is. But the psychological processes of addiction, in the case of smoking, one of which is morphing of cognitive dissonance, should not be ignored. Does it still sound confusing? Do not worry; by the end of the post, you will learn what cognitive dissonance is and how it affects our daily lives as I will be sharing some examples of cognitive dissonance as well.
What is Cognitive Dissonance?
In 1957, Leon Festinger, in his book titled “A theory of Cognitive Dissonance” described Cognitive Dissonance as a mental discomfort that erupts from holding two contradictory or conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. In simple words, it is the state that is opposite to mental harmony. As it takes quite a good amount of effort to accept the dissonance between the two contradictory facts, Festinger argued that people often try to resolve those conflicts by formulating ideas by adding supportive beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, by reducing the importance of conflicting beliefs, changing the belief or simply trivializing the contradiction.
Well, that sounds easy, the mind automatically fixing the disharmony arising from Cognitive Dissonance. But do you know, in doing so, it might harm us in certain ways, like in executing the right decisions in our day-to-day life? Let me give you some examples, but before that let us see have you ever experienced cognitive dissociation or how to identify when you have one.
How do you know if you are having or had a cognitive dissonance?
Almost everyone felt some degree of cognitive dissonance in their life. You might have had such a moment if you:
- Felt uncomfortable in taking a decision or before doing something
- Tried justifying a decision for something you have done
- Felt guilty about something you have done in the past
- Did something out of fear of missing out
Cognitive Dissonance often leads to anxiety, stress, feeling of shame, guilt, embarrassment, regret, or sadness. And to counteract this discomfort, people often formulate justification to nullify the unpleasant psychological impact of cognitive dissonance as we will see in the following examples and how it affects us.
Examples of Cognitive Dissonance
Example 1: Someone who smokes cigarettes might have the following thoughts – “I am a smoker” and “Smoking is bad for health” and this might give rise to Cognitive Dissonance leading to a feeling of guilt. However, to nullify the manifestations, the smoker may justify as “I don’t smoke that much”, “Smoking is better than other addictions like drinking alcohol”, “Smoking helps me relax” or he may simply ignore that smoking is bad.
Example 2: An office worker might hold two beliefs “I have a sedentary lifestyle” and “Sedentary lifestyle leads to heart diseases”. In this scenario, he may try to justify by saying, “Although I have a sedentary lifestyle, I do eat healthy food”, but we all know exercise is the best way to improve cardiac health.
Example 3: A student is saving enough for upgrading his mobile phone, but finds that at launch the device was priced twice the amount that was informed on the news before. He might rationalize the price by citing “This phone has got the best camera”, “It is the from the best brand”, although he might find devices with similar specifications from other brands at his expected budget, instead he might end up buying the overpriced phone because of his rationalization regarding the price and thus incur financial distress in other aspects.
Although negating the effects of cognitive dissonance is necessary to maintain mental harmony, but many times it may be "unbeneficial" to us and we should therefore learn to identify and deal with them properly. If you are interested in knowing about how to deal with cognitive dissonance, so that you can avoid the auto-pilot fixes for your benefits, then drop a comment and I will write about it.
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