Cognitive Dissonance: When You Challenge What You Believe

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological disturbance we feel when our cognitions and actions are contradictory. That is, there is an inconsistency between what we believe and what we do. Ultimately, this results in changing either what we think or what we do to get the variables back in alignment. These could be misalignments of feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, actions, and parts of our environment. Cognitive dissonance is ad litteram experienced as psychological stress. People will do all in their power to reduce this dissonance and get back to consistency.

Human beings strive for consistency. It’s a requisite for normal mental functioning. When we’re in misalignment, we’ll do all sorts of things to justify the stressful behavior. We will rationalize it, take in specific information while rejecting contradictions, and avoid circumstances that disagree with what we believe to be true. This is one of the reasons people stick to consistent habits and routines and maintain order throughout their lives. From preferring a specific seat at the cafeteria to eating meals at consistent times, any disturbance can result in mental unease.

Coping with contradictory ideas is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with opposite things, even if they are objectively true. There is always some degree of dissonance present in day-to-day living. This is because our knowledge and expectations are dynamic and ever-evolving. And in vivo, we try to reduce it. We might change the behavior or cognition—we stop eating the pizza. We could try to justify it instead—we tell ourselves cheating on our diet every once in a while is fine. We may stack behaviors or cognitions on top of it—we will, of course, exercise off the slice of pizza by running for an extra thirty minutes tomorrow. Or we might be in denial of the dissonance—the pizza isn’t that bad.

Cognitive dissonance sounds complex, but, boiled down, it’s pretty simple: hold two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, and feel psychological discomfort. To resolve the tension, you will change your behavior, rationalize it, or ignore conflicting data. A smoker who believes smoking is harmful experiences discomfort on inhale. The smoker might quit smoking, downplay the health risk, or convince themselves that life is short and smoking is acceptable. However stupid this sounds, you do it too. For instance, after making a big purchase, you might concentrate on the product’s positive qualities to justify it’s high, unacceptable price.

Real-world instances of cognitive dissonance:

• Health and lifestyle: somebody who enjoys fast food might downplay it’s health risks or engage in extreme exercise regimens to justify their eating habits;

• Education: a student could rationalize terrible study habits by convincing themselves that the material is easy, despite their grades telling a different story;

• Work: employees might justify staying in a job they dislike by overemphasizing its benefits, like job security or automatic savings, to resolve the conflict between the desire to be psychologically fulfilled and their current, substandard situation;

• Politics: people cling to political beliefs even when presented with contradictory evidence, dismissing or rationalizing away opposing viewpoints.

How you might handle cognitive dissonance: (1) increase your situational awareness, recognizing situations where dissonance dictates your decisions, as this can prompt you to critically examine the relationship between your beliefs and actions; (2) seek balanced information, looking for perspectives that challenge your beliefs or outright prove you wrong to stay objective and nuanced in your understanding; (3) reflect on your choices and why you made them, asking if you were just rationalizing to reduce discomfort or if your actions genuinely reflected what you believed to serve your best interests; (4) understand that discomfort is part of the change process, and that you will have to face dissonance when adjusting beliefs or behaviors; (5) practice compassion, knowing that everyone deals with dissonance from time to time.

Cognitive dissonance is a natural part of everyday life. Receiving new information, experiencing social pressure, or eliciting change can trigger cognitive dissonance. Don’t be angry at it. Getting enough exercise might trigger yours. Picking up after your dog does his biological deeds could inaugurate dissonance. Or being unproductive at work. Whatever it is, reflect on how important it is to resolve the dissonance. Maybe it isn’t at all. Move on. Ignore it. Change is good.