Cognitive dissonance is a negative condition in which individuals experience mental discomfort caused by confrontation in their minds of conflicting ideas, values, knowledge, worldviews, ideas, beliefs, behavioral attitudes or reactions of an emotional nature.

The concept of cognitive dissonance was first proposed by L. Festinger, a specialist in the field of psychology of thought control. In his research during the analysis of the individual’s worldview, he was based on the principles of balance. He began his theory with the postulate that individuals strive for a certain coherence as a necessary internal state. When contradictions arise among individuals between their knowledge base and actions, they strive to somehow explain such a contradiction, as a result of which they present it as a “non-contradiction” in order to achieve a sense of internal cognitive coherence.

Causes of cognitive dissonance

The following factors are identified that cause a state of cognitive dissonance, as a result of which individuals often feel internal dissatisfaction:

- logical inconsistency;

- the dissimilarity of one person’s opinion with the generally accepted one;

- reluctance to follow cultural norms established in a certain territory, where traditions are sometimes guided more than by legislation;

- a conflict between an already experienced experience and a similar new situation.

Cognitive personality dissonance arises due to the inadequacy of the individual’s two cognitions. A person, having information on a problem, is forced to ignore it when making a decision and, as a result, a discrepancy or dissonance appears between the individual’s ideas and his actual actions. As a result of such behavior, a change in certain ideas of the individual is observed. Such a change is justified based on the vital need of a person to maintain the consistency of his own knowledge.

That is why humanity is ready to justify its own mistakes, because an individual who has committed an offense tends to look for excuses for himself in his thoughts, while gradually shifting his own attitudes regarding what happened in the direction that what happened in reality is not so terrible. In this way, the individual “manages” his own thinking in order to minimize confrontation within himself.

Festinger's modern theory of cognitive dissonance finds its goal in the study and interpretation of contradictions that arise both in individual human individuals and in groups of people.

Everyone, over a certain period of time, acquires a certain amount of life experience, but beyond the time limit, he must function according to the circumstances in which he exists, contrary to the acquired knowledge. This will cause psychological discomfort. And to alleviate such discomfort, the individual has to find a compromise.

Cognitive dissonance in psychology is an attempt to explain the motivation of human actions, their actions in a variety of everyday situations. And emotions are the main motive for appropriate behavior and actions.

In the concept of cognitive dissonance, logically contradictory knowledge is assigned the status of motivation, which is designed to ensure the elimination of the emerging feeling of discomfort when faced with inconsistencies through the transformation of existing knowledge or social prescriptions.

The author of the theory of cognitive dissonance, L. Festinger, argued that this state is the strongest motivation. According to the classical formulation of L. Festinger, cognitive dissonance is a discrepancy between thoughts, attitudes, information, etc., while the denial of one concept comes from the existence of another.

The concept of cognitive dissonance characterizes methods for eliminating or smoothing out such contradictions and demonstrates how an individual does this in typical cases.

Cognitive dissonance - examples from life: two individuals entered the institute, one of whom was a medalist, and the second was a C student. Naturally, the teaching staff expects excellent knowledge from a medal winner, but nothing is expected from a C student. Dissonance occurs when such a C student answers the question more competently, more comprehensively and completely than the medalist.

Cognitive dissonance theory

Most motivational theories were first discovered in the works of ancient philosophers. Today there are already several dozen such theories. In modern psychological teachings about motivation, which claim to explain human behavior, the prevailing approach today is the cognitive approach to the motivational sphere of the individual, in which phenomena associated with the understanding and knowledge of the individual are of particular importance. The main postulate of the authors of cognitive concepts was the point of view that the behavioral reactions of subjects are guided by knowledge, judgments, attitudes, ideas, views about what is happening in the world, opinions about the causes and their consequences. Knowledge is not a simple collection of data. An individual’s ideas about the world predetermine and construct future behavior. Everything an individual does and how he does it depends not so much on fixed needs, deep aspirations and eternal desires, but on relatively changeable ideas about reality.

Cognitive dissonance in psychology is a state of discomfort in the individual’s psyche, provoked by the confrontation of conflicting ideas in his mind. The socio-psychological study of cognitions was developed to explain changes in cognitions (opinions, attitudes, attitudes) as a method of eliminating logical conflict situations.

Cognitive personality dissonance is characterized by a specific feature, which consists in linking together, in other words, the emotional and cognitive components of attitudes.

The state of cognitive dissonance arises as a result of the individual’s awareness that his actions do not have sufficient grounds, that is, he acts in confrontation with his own attitudes and attitudes, when the personal meaning of behavior is unclear or unacceptable for individuals.

The concept of cognitive dissonance argues that, of the possible methods of interpreting and evaluating such a situation (objects) and one’s own actions in it, an individual gives preference to those that generate a minimum of anxiety and remorse.

Cognitive dissonance - examples from life were given by A. Leontiev: revolutionary prisoners who were forced to dig holes certainly perceived such actions as meaningless and unpleasant, a decrease in cognitive dissonance occurred after the prisoners reinterpreted their own actions - they began to think that they were digging the grave of tsarism. This idea contributed to the emergence of an acceptable personal meaning for the activity.

Cognitive dissonance can arise as a consequence of past actions. For example, when an individual in a specific situation has committed an act, which then provokes the appearance of remorse in him, as a result of which amendments can be made to the interpretation of circumstances and their assessment, which eliminate the grounds for experiencing this state. In most cases, this turns out to be simple, since life circumstances are often ambiguous. For example, when a smoker learns about the discovery of a cause-and-effect relationship between the occurrence of cancer and smoking, he has many tools aimed at reducing cognitive dissonance. Thus, in accordance with cognitive theories of motivation, an individual’s behavior depends on his worldview and cognitive assessment of the situation.

How to get rid of cognitive dissonance? Often, external attribution or justification is used to eliminate cognitive dissonance. Responsibility for actions can be removed by recognizing them as forced measures (forced, ordered) or justification can be based on self-interest (they paid well). In cases where there are few reasons for external justification, another method is used - changing attitudes. For example, if an individual was forced to lie, then unconsciously he amends his original judgment about reality, adjusting it to a “false statement”, as a result of which it is subjectively transformed into the “truth”.

According to a number of postulates, this concept converges with the theories of cognitive balance and attribution introduced by the Austrian-American psychologist F. Heider, who based his theories on the principles of Gestalt psychology.

In the variety of situations that arise in everyday life, dissonance can increase or decrease. The degree of its expression depends on the problematic tasks that face the individual.

Dissonance occurs under any conditions if an individual needs to make a choice. At the same time, its level will increase depending on the degree of importance of this choice for a person.

The presence of dissonance, regardless of the level of its intensity, forces the individual to free himself from it one hundred percent or significantly reduce it, if for some reason this is not yet possible.

To reduce dissonance, an individual can use four methods:

- change your own behavior;

- transform one of the cognitions, in other words, reassure yourself of the opposite;

— filter incoming information regarding a specific problem;

- apply the criterion of truth to the information received, admit mistakes and act in accordance with a new, more specific and clear understanding of the problem.

Sometimes an individual can prevent the occurrence of this condition and its consequences of internal discomfort by trying to avoid information about his problem, which comes into confrontation with existing data.

The filtering mechanisms of personally significant information for individuals are well described in the theories of Sigmund and Anna Freud about psychological “defenses.” The contradiction that arises in the minds of subjects regarding significant deep-personal themes is, according to S. Freud, a key mechanism in the formation of neuroses.

If dissonance has already arisen, the subject can prevent its increase by adding one or more elements of cognition to the cognitive scheme to replace the existing negative element that provokes dissonance. Consequently, the subject will be interested in finding information that will approve his choice and weaken or eliminate this condition completely, while it is necessary to avoid sources of information that can provoke its increase. Often, such actions of subjects can lead to negative results - the individual may develop prejudice or fear of dissonance, which is a dangerous factor affecting the individual’s views.

There may be contradictory relationships between several cognitive components. When dissonance occurs, individuals strive to reduce its intensity, avoid it, or completely get rid of it. Such aspiration is justified by the fact that the subject sets as his goal the transformation of his own behavior, finding new information that would relate to the situation or phenomenon that gave rise to dissonance.

It is completely understandable that it is easier for an individual to agree with the current state of affairs, adjusting his own internal ideas in accordance with the current situation, instead of lengthy reflection on the problem of the correctness of his actions. Often this negative state appears as a result of making serious decisions. Preferring one of the alternatives (equally tempting) is not easy for an individual, but having finally made such a choice, the individual often begins to become aware of “opposing cognitions,” in other words, the positive aspects of the version from which he turned away, and the not entirely positive aspects of the alternative, with which he agreed to.

To weaken or completely suppress dissonance, the individual seeks to exaggerate the importance of the judgment he has accepted, while at the same time, downplaying the significance of the rejected one. As a result of this behavior, the other alternative loses all attractiveness in his eyes.

Cognitive dissonance and complete (a state of oppressive tension, feelings of hopelessness, anxiety) have the same adaptive strategies for getting rid of a problematic situation, since both dissonance and frustration cause in subjects a feeling of disharmony, which they try with all their might to avoid. However, along with this, dissonance and the situation that provoked it can also be frustration.

Festinger's cognitive dissonance

Cognitive motivational theories, which are being intensively developed today, originate from the well-known works of L. Festinger.

The theory of cognitive dissonance in Festinger's work has two fundamental advantages that distinguish a scientific concept from a non-scientific one. The first advantage lies, to use Einstein's formulation, in its reliance on the most general foundations. From such general grounds, Festinger deduced consequences that can be subjected to experimental verification. This is the second advantage of Festinger's teaching.

Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance involves some kind of confrontation between several cognitions. He interprets cognition quite broadly. In his understanding, cognition is any knowledge, belief, opinion regarding the environment, one’s own behavioral reactions or oneself. A negative state is experienced by the subject as a feeling of discomfort, from which he strives to get rid of and restore internal harmony. It is this desire that is considered the most powerful motivating factor in human behavior and his worldview.

A state of contradiction between cognition X and cognition Y arises if cognition Y does not emerge from cognition X. Consonance between X and Y, in turn, is observed when Y emerges from X. The individual always strives to achieve internal consistency, that is, strives for the state consonance. So, for example, an individual who is inclined to be overweight decided to stick to a diet (X-cognition), but is not able to deny himself a chocolate bar (Y-cognition). An individual who wants to lose weight is not recommended to consume chocolate. This is where the dissonance lies. Its origin motivates the subject to reduce, in other words, to eliminate, reduce dissonance. To solve this problem, an individual has three main ways:

— transform one of the cognitions (in a specific example, stop eating chocolate or end a diet);

- minimize the significance of cognitions included in the confrontation relationship (decide that being overweight is not a big sin or that eating chocolate does not affect a significant increase in body weight);

- add new cognition (a chocolate bar increases weight, but at the same time, it has a beneficial effect on the intellectual sphere).

The last two methods are a kind of adaptive strategy, that is, the individual adapts while maintaining the problem.

Cognitive dissonance requires reduction and motivates it, leading to a modification of relationships, and then behavior.

Below are two of the most famous effects associated with the emergence and elimination of cognitive dissonance.

The first occurs in a situation of behavior that conflicts with the individual’s evaluative attitude towards something. If a subject agrees to do something without coercion that is in any way inconsistent with his attitudes or point of view, and if such behavior does not have a convincing external justification (monetary reward), then subsequently attitudes and views are transformed in the direction of greater compliance with behavior. In the case when a subject agrees to actions that are slightly contrary to his moral values ​​or moral guidelines, the result will be the appearance of dissonance between moral beliefs and knowledge about behavior, and in the future the beliefs will change in the direction of lowering morality.

The second effect found in research on cognitive dissonance is called dissonance after a difficult decision. A decision is called difficult when the alternative phenomena or objects from which a choice has to be made are equally attractive. In such cases, most often, after making a choice, that is, after making a decision, the individual experiences cognitive dissonance, which is a consequence of the resulting contradictions. Indeed, in the chosen option, on the one hand, there are negative aspects, and in the rejected option, on the other hand, positive features are found. In other words, the accepted alternative is partly bad, but still accepted. The rejected option is partly good, but rejected. During the experimental analysis of the results of a difficult decision, it was revealed that over time after making such a decision, the subjective attractiveness of the chosen alternative increases and the subjective attractiveness of the rejected alternative decreases.

The individual is thus freed from cognitive dissonance. In other words, the person convinces himself about the chosen option that this option is not just slightly better than the rejected one, but significantly better. By such actions the subject seems to expand alternatives. From this, we can conclude that complex decisions increase the likelihood of behavioral reactions consistent with the chosen option.

For example, when an individual was tormented for a long time by the choice between cars of brand “A” and “B”, but in the end gives preference to brand “B”, then in the future the chance of choosing cars of brand “B” will be slightly higher than before purchasing it. This is due to the increase in the relative attractiveness of B-brand cars.

Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance is a specific variation of problem situations. Therefore, it is necessary to determine with the help of which protective mechanisms and non-defensive adaptive tools an adaptive strategy is carried out, if it is used to rid the individual of dissonances. This strategy may be unsuccessful and cause increased dissonance, giving rise to new frustrations.

There are also forces that resist reducing dissonance. For example, changes in behavior and judgments about such behavior often change, but sometimes this is difficult or involves loss. It is difficult, for example, to give up habitual actions, since the individual likes them. New cognitive dissonance and complete frustration may arise as a result of the transformation of other variations of habitual behavior, which entails material and financial losses. There are forms of behavior that generate dissonance that the individual is not able to modify (phobic reactions).

In conclusion, we can say that Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance is quite simple and briefly summarized as follows:

— relationships of inconsistency may exist between cognitive elements;

— the emergence of dissonance contributes to the emergence of a desire to reduce its impact and avoid its further growth;

— manifestations of such aspiration consist in the transformation of behavioral response, modification of attitude, or in the conscious search for new opinions and information regarding the judgment or phenomenon that gave rise to dissonance.

Examples of cognitive dissonance

What is cognitive dissonance? The definition of this concept lies in the understanding that every action of an individual that goes against his knowledge or beliefs will provoke the emergence of dissonance. It does not matter whether such actions are forced or not.

How to get rid of cognitive dissonance? In order to understand this, we can consider behavioral strategies using examples. This condition can be caused by the simplest everyday situations. For example, an individual stands at a bus stop and sees two subjects in front of him, one of whom gives the impression of a respectable and successful man, and the second of whom resembles a homeless person. These two people are eating something in a wrapper. According to the knowledge of the individual, the first subject should throw the wrapper into the trash can, which is located at the same stop three steps away from him, and the second subject, in his opinion, will most likely throw the piece of paper in the same place where it is, that is, he will not bother himself with to come up and throw the trash in the trash can. Dissonance occurs when an individual sees the behavior of subjects that runs counter to his ideas. In other words, when a respectable man throws a wrapper at his feet and when a homeless person covers a distance of three steps to throw the piece of paper into the trash bin, a contradiction ensues - opposing ideas collide in the mind of the individual.

Another example. An individual wants to gain an athletic physique. After all, it is beautiful, attracts the gaze of the opposite sex, makes you feel good, and helps improve your health. To achieve the goal, he needs to start doing regular physical exercise, normalize his diet, try to follow the regime and adhere to a certain daily routine, or find a bunch of justifying factors indicating that he doesn’t really need it (not enough finances or free time, supposedly bad health, body composition within normal limits). Any actions of the individual, thus, will be directed towards reducing dissonance - liberation from confrontation within himself.

In this case, it is almost always possible to avoid the appearance of cognitive dissonance. Often this is facilitated by simply ignoring any information regarding the problematic issue, which may differ from what is available. In the case of an already emerging state of dissonance, its further development and strengthening should be neutralized by adding new beliefs to the system of one’s own ideas, replacing the old ones with them. An example of this is the behavior of a smoker who understands that smoking is harmful to his health and those around him. The smoker is in a state of dissonance. He can exit it:

- changing behavior - quit smoking;

- changing knowledge (convince yourself of the exaggerated danger of smoking or convince yourself that all information about the dangers of smoking is completely unreliable);

- taking any messages about the dangers of smoking with caution, in other words, simply ignoring them.

However, such a strategy can often lead to fear of dissonance, prejudice, the emergence of personality disorders, and sometimes to neuroses.

What does cognitive dissonance mean? In simple words, its definition is as follows. Dissonance is a certain state in which a person feels discomfort caused by the presence of two or more contradictory knowledge (beliefs, ideas) about one phenomenon. Therefore, in order not to feel cognitive dissonance painfully, you should simply accept as a fact that such a phenomenon simply takes place. It is necessary to understand that contradictions between some elements of a person’s belief system and the real state of affairs will invariably be reflected in existence. And accepting and realizing that absolutely everything can be completely different from your own thoughts, positions, ideas and beliefs allows you to avoid dissonance.

Parameter name	Meaning
Article topic:	Dissonance and consonance
Rubric (thematic category)	Art

Irrelevant relationships

Two elements may simply have nothing in common. In other words, under such circumstances, when one cognitive element is not transferred anywhere

intersects with another element, these two elements are neutral, or irrelevant, By attitude towards each other.

For example, let us imagine a person who knows that a letter from New York to Paris, sent by regular sea mail, can take 2 weeks, and that a dry, hot July is very good for a rich grain harvest in Iowa. These two elements of knowledge have nothing in common with each other, i.e. they are irrelevant in relation to each other. Of course, it is difficult to say anything definite about such irrelevant relationships, except that they exist. The focus of our attention will be only those pairs of elements between which relations of consonance or dissonance arise.

In many cases, however, it is very difficult to decide whether two elements are irrelevant. Often this is simply impossible to determine without taking into account the knowledge of the individual. Sometimes it may happen that, due to the nature of the actual behavior of a given person, previously irrelevant elements can become relevant in relation to each other. This could happen even in the above example. If a person living in Paris were trading grain in the United States, he would certainly want to know the weather forecast for Iowa, although information about the delivery times of mail from New York to Paris would still remain for him insignificant.

Before we proceed to define and discuss the relations of consonance and dissonance that exist between relevant elements, it would be useful to emphasize once again the special character of those cognitive elements that are relevant to the behavior of the individual. Such a “behavioural”

a cognitive element, being relevant to each of two irrelevant cognitive elements, can make them actually relevant to each other.

Relevant relationships:

By this point, the reader has probably already formed an idea of ​​the nature of the phenomenon of dissonance. Two elements are dissonant with respect to each other if for some reason they do not correspond to each other.

We can now move on to attempt a more formal conceptual definition.

Let us consider two elements that exist in human knowledge and are relevant in relation to each other. Dissonance theory ignores the existence of all other cognitive elements that are relevant to either of the two elements being analyzed and treats only these two elements separately. Two elements taken separately are in a dissonant relationship if the negation of one element follows from the other. We can say that X and Y are in a dissonant relation if X does not follow from Y. So, for example, if a person knows that only friends are in his environment, but nevertheless experiences fears or uncertainty, this means that there is a dissonant relationship between these two cognitive elements. Or another example: a person, having large debts, buys a new car; in this case, the corresponding cognitive elements will be dissonant in

attitude towards each other. Dissonance may exist due to acquired experience or expectations, or because of what is considered proper or accepted, or for any of a variety of other reasons.

Drives and desires are also factors that determine whether two elements are dissonant or not. For example, a person playing cards for money can continue to play and lose, knowing that his partners are professional players. This last knowledge would be dissonant with the awareness of his own behavior, namely, that he continues to play. But in order to identify these elements as dissonant in this example, it is extremely important to accept with a sufficient degree of probability that the individual is trying to win. If, for some strange reason, this person wants to lose, then this relationship would be consonantal.

I will give a number of examples where dissonance between two cognitive elements arises for various reasons.

1. Dissonance can arise due to logical incompatibility. If an individual believes that in the near future a person will land on Mars, but at the same time believes that people are still not able to make a spaceship suitable for this purpose, then these two knowledge are dissonant with respect to each other. The negation of the content of one element follows from the content of another element based on elementary logic.

2. Dissonance may arise due to cultural customs. If a person at a formal banquet picks up a chicken leg with his hand, the knowledge of what he is doing is dissonant in

in relation to knowledge that defines the rules of formal etiquette during an official banquet. Dissonance arises for the simple reason that it is this culture that determines what is decent and what is not. In another culture, these two elements may not be dissonant.

3. Dissonance can arise when one specific opinion is part of a more general opinion. Thus, if a person is a Democrat but votes for the Republican candidate in a given presidential election, the cognitive elements corresponding to these two sets of opinions are dissonant with respect to each other, because the phrase “being a Democrat” includes, by definition, It is extremely important to support Democratic Party candidates.

4. Dissonance can arise based on past experience. If a person gets caught in the rain and, however, hopes to stay dry (not having an umbrella), then these two knowledge will be dissonant with respect to each other, since he knows from past experience that it is impossible to stay dry while standing in the rain. If it were possible to imagine a person who has never been caught in the rain, then the specified knowledge would not be dissonant.

These examples are sufficient to illustrate how the conceptual definition of dissonance can be used empirically to decide whether two cognitive elements are dissonant or consonant. Of course, it is clear that in any of these situations there may be other elements of knowledge that happen to be in a consonantal relationship with either of the two elements in the pair in question. However, the relationship between two elements is dissonant if, ignoring all other elements, one from elements of the pair leads to the denial of the meaning of the other.

The definition of the relations of consonance and irrelevance follows from the definition of the relations of dissonance. If in a pair of elements one of them leads to confirmation of the meaning of the other element, then the relationship between them is consonantal. If neither the negation nor the confirmation of the meaning of the second element of the pair follows from the first element, then the relationship between them is irrelevant.

The conceptual definitions of dissonance and consonance do not, however, provide a sufficient basis for creating a valid instrument for measuring the degree of dissonance. If we strive to confirm the theory of dissonance with empirical data, it is necessary first of all to ensure the accurate identification of the phenomena of dissonance and consonance. It is hopeless to attempt to obtain a complete list of all cognitive elements, and, even if such a list were available, in some cases it will be difficult or simply impossible to determine a priori which of the three possible types of connections occurs in a given case. Much more often, however, the a priori definition of dissonance is clear and precise. (Let us also remember that two cognitive elements are dissonant for a person living in one cultural environment, but not for a person living in another, or for a person with one past experience, but not for a person with another experience.) We will return to This major measurement problem will be addressed in more detail in the chapters that discuss empirical data.

Dissonance and consonance - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Dissonance and Consonance" 2017, 2018.

Four Categories of Dissonance

Dissonance as a result of decision making

For example, a student is preparing for a lesson. In order to get a “5”, he must solve more complex problems than those at “3”. But at the same time, his friends call him to play on the street. At this moment he has a cognitive dissonance: solving more complex ones in order to get an “A” or go play with friends.. This is cognitive dissonance: first we make a choice, after which the positive aspects of the rejected one come into conflict with the negative aspects of the chosen one, leading to psychological discomfort.

Dissonance as a result of forced actions

Go to classes, do homework, learn poems - we always have to do things we don’t want to do. If you look at it, a person has to force himself not only every day - several times an hour. Starting from the very morning: getting up, exercising, breakfast, studying... “The collision of two opposing knowledge about the same object” begins from the very moment of awakening. The object, that is, you, is, on the one hand, a physical organism. And he, this body, needs another 2-3 hours of sleep in the morning. On the other hand, you are a social organism that needs to learn. Typical cognitive dissonance. You can skip the unpleasant moments of the educational process; it’s enough that we are not allowed to sleep while studying. Closer to the night, when the body finally wakes up and begins to demand adventure, the mind reminds that it is time to sleep. We are again dissatisfied and do not know who to be offended by - either our physical self or our social one.

Dissonance as a result of decision making

Let's take a textbook situation: a girl bought tickets to the theater, but that same evening her friends are waiting for you to watch football. Regardless of your choice, remorse and regret await you after making a decision. The rejected alternative will equally well poison your life both in the second-tier box and in the chair in front of the TV. After devoting an evening to the theater, you will come to the conclusion that all the performances are rubbish, and the girl becomes obsessive. Having given yourself over to sports passions, you will decide that the game turned out to be boring, and your friends are limited people. This is cognitive dissonance: first we make a choice, after which the positive aspects of the rejected one come into conflict with the negative aspects of the chosen one, leading to psychological discomfort. A similar effect occurs with almost any choice from equivalent options. Without noticing it, you may experience slight dissatisfaction both when you choose a tie in the morning and when you make a purchase. The most clear illustration of such a struggle is the famous monologue about “big ones of five” and “small ones of three.”

Dissonance as a result of forced actions

Participate in the ritual weeding of potatoes, use reliable contraception, pay taxes - we always have to do what we don’t want to do. If you look at it, a person has to force himself not only every day, but several times an hour. Starting in the morning: getting up, exercising, shaving, breakfast. “The collision of two opposing knowledge about the same object” begins from the very moment of awakening. The object, that is, you, is, on the one hand, a physical organism. And he, this body, needs another 2-3 hours of sleep in the morning. On the other hand, you are a social organism that needs to go to work. Typical cognitive dissonance. We will omit the unpleasant moments of the work process; it is enough that we are not allowed to sleep at work. Closer to night, when the body finally wakes up and begins to demand adventure, the mind reminds that it’s time for a treat. We are again dissatisfied and do not know who to be offended at - either our physical self or our social one. At such moments, a collision occurs in our minds of the positive aspects of the desired with the negative aspects of the forced action. We curse the country in which we were born, snap at loved ones, break dishes, in short, we experience disharmony in our inner world.

Disagreement with the beliefs of a social group

Each of us has many social groups. These include family, friends, and work teams. And in each group there are certain rules, beliefs, and norms of behavior. Disagreement with the beliefs of one's social group is another source of cognitive dissonance. For example, all your friends have long ago acquired cars. Cars became the main topic of their conversations, cars entered their lives with rights that not every girl had in your life. And, of course, they, your friends, are offended that you do not share their insanity. Perhaps you don't own a snorting piece of hardware simply because you don't need it. A car ride to work takes 45 minutes, and 20 by metro. You don’t know what a technical inspection is, you don’t face the Saturday dilemma of “to drink or not to drink,” and you’re not haunted by nightmares about engine overhaul. But on the other hand, you also don’t know the special joy of passing a technical inspection. You do not participate in discussions about the advantages of Tavria over Oka; traveling out of town and transporting things is a problem for you. And no, no, and the thought will come: “maybe they are right?” In such situations, an individual, even if he is absolutely sure that he is right, inevitably worries about the discrepancy between his own opinion and the opinions of others. Moreover, resisting the majority can be much more difficult than changing one’s own position.

Dissonance resulting from unexpected consequences of an action

Any action implies a goal. Achieving a goal is the expected result of an action. But sometimes the result deviates from what was planned. You go home with the goal of making everyone happy with your promotion. But instead of joyful exclamations, you hear: “You already spend all your evenings at work, and now, presumably, you are going to move there?” You, remembering your youth, want to return the ball to the guys with a deft blow, but instead you hit the head of a sitting old woman and lose your shoe. Or, for example, in response to the original remark “Girl, can I meet you?” you receive explanations of the route to such distant lands that you forget where and why you were going. It is at this moment that you fall into the trap of two mutually exclusive knowledge. On the one hand, the tactics you used always led you to victory, on the other hand, it was precisely this that caused failure. Any unexpected result carries with it this contradiction between what was expected and what was received. It is not surprising that in the end you get upset, angry, surprised, in general, you find that very state of “psychological discomfort”.

Three ways to effectively combat cognitive dissonance

However, the very fact of the existence of cognitive dissonance is, in essence, of little interest. We already know that the problem of choice or an unpleasant outcome does not bring positive emotions. It is much more interesting to observe how our consciousness copes with such situations. Working in 1957 on the theory of cognitive dissonance, the American psychologist Festinger came to the conclusion that a person cannot remain in a state of stress for a long time and strives to restore internal harmony, as mentioned above. Experiments with patients have shown that there are three main ways to deal with conflicting knowledge.

O change one of the elements of dissonant relationships

Two knowledge about the same thing turns into two knowledge about different things. For example, after an unsuccessful attempt at dating, an individual tells himself that, on the occasion of a good mood, he just wanted to make fun of the unfortunate girl. After which disappointment gives way to satisfaction - the joke was a success. If you commit a forced act, convince yourself that it was precisely this act that you wanted to do.

O adding new elements consistent with existing ones

It is very easy to introduce a harmonizing element into a theatrical football situation; it is enough to buy tickets for another performance immediately after the match. You've been promoted, but your family isn't happy. What knowledge could be added here to make everything fall into place? Geniuses never found understanding in the family. And getting up early would be simply terrible if it weren’t for the certainty that after a couple of years of hard work you will forever be freed from the need to wake up before one in the afternoon. And in general, when faced with any dilemma, like Ilya-Muromets before a stone, think whether it is possible to find a compromise solution. For example, go not straight, not to the right, but somehow diagonally, in order to save the horse and stay alive, or, in spite of fate, take some completely fourth option - turn the horse towards the familiar stove.