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Cognitive Dissonance and Attitude Change

People seek to hold consistent beliefs and attitudes, and experience psychological discomfort (cognitive dissonance) when their beliefs or actions contradict one another. To resolve dissonance, individuals will often change their attitudes to align with their behaviors. The amount of dissonance experienced depends on how many and how important the inconsistent beliefs are. People can reduce dissonance by changing their beliefs, adding new consonant beliefs, or reducing the importance of dissonant beliefs.

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Glaiza Gigante
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29 views1 page

Cognitive Dissonance and Attitude Change

People seek to hold consistent beliefs and attitudes, and experience psychological discomfort (cognitive dissonance) when their beliefs or actions contradict one another. To resolve dissonance, individuals will often change their attitudes to align with their behaviors. The amount of dissonance experienced depends on how many and how important the inconsistent beliefs are. People can reduce dissonance by changing their beliefs, adding new consonant beliefs, or reducing the importance of dissonant beliefs.

Uploaded by

Glaiza Gigante
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger)

According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to


seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an
inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must
change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between
attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

Two factors affect the strength of the dissonance: the number of dissonant beliefs, and the importance
attached to each belief. There are three ways to eliminate dissonance: (1) reduce the importance of the
dissonant beliefs, (2) add more consonant beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, or (3) change the
dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer inconsistent.

Dissonance occurs most often in situations where an individual must choose between two incompatible
beliefs or actions. The greatest dissonance is created when the two alternatives are equally attractive.
Furthermore, attitude change is more likely in the direction of less incentive since this results in lower
dissonance. In this respect, dissonance theory is contradictory to most behavioral theories which would
predict greater attitude change with increased incentive (i.e., reinforcement).

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