Cognitive Dissonance Theory Essay -- Essays Papers

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Leon Festinger shared his brilliance with the world when he, opposing all previous psychological behaviorist work, created the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. In his own words, he quickly sums up this quite complex theory: "If you change a person’s behavior, his thoughts and feelings will change to minimize the dissonance" (Groenveld, 1999, p.1). In order to decode this dense statement, we must first be aware that Festinger held to be true that humans have a deep abiding need in their psyche to be consistent in our attitudes and behaviors; we want to feel in agreement and unified in thought and action. Inner harmony sounds good to everyone, and so it was Festinger’s view that when we feel a disharmony, or dissonance, within ourselves, between two factors, we strive to decrease this tension by either changing our original thought, giving strength to the opposing thought, or letting go of the behavior. All three techniques are in the name of decreasing dissonance because it is threatening to experience such a large crack in our rationale that dissonance often creates. Say I realized the college I am attending is not offering me the classes I’m interested in. I am feeling a post-decision dissonance, now that I’ve chosen my school, within myself due to this logical inconsistency: I value a college that offers classes interesting to me. I am not attending a college that offers classes interesting to me. I really want to work it out because otherwise I feel scattered like a "schizophrenic" as Festinger put it. Since my belief and behavior conflict, I seek to eliminate and reconcile the difference by choosing one of three paths (TIP:Theories, 1999): 1. I can devalue my belief and say, "Classes ar... ...ns that women find they love guys that use or abuse them, which is an unhealthy extreme of the minimal justification theory. It happens very frequently in college. References Griffin, E. (1997). A first look at communication theory. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Groenveld, J. (1999). Totalism & group dynamics [online]. Available: http://www.crl.com/~tzimon/General/cult_tot.html . Kearsley, G.(1999). Cognitive dissonance. Theory into Practice (TIP) Database [online] Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~tip/festinge.htm. Neilands, T. (1995 Dec). The time course of the self-concept threat reduction process among low and high self-esteem individuals (dissertation). [Online]. Available: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~neilands/psych/research/bigd/ch6.htm. Trenholm, S. & Jensen, A. (1996). Interpersonal communication. New York: Wadworth Publishing Company.