The cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of psychological discomfort. His person survives by collision in his mind of two conflicting knowledge about the same event or subject.

People are able to commit actions that do not correspond to their thoughts. At the same time, actions are contrary to beliefs that are part of the value system. In addition, there are situations in which a person becomes an eyewitness of any unpredictable events. In this case, the person commits acts contrary to his plans. All the blame - cognitive dissonance.

Examples of situations can be summarized as follows.

For example, a person has planned a trip outside the city and is sure that the weather will be fine. However, just before his departure, it begins to rain. As a result, a person commits an act that is contrary to his plans - he does not go out of town.

In another case, a certain subject, completely convinced of the uselessness of using an automatic gearbox, finds a very convincing article about its advantages. In this case, cognitive dissonance, albeit short-term, is formed on the basis of new knowledge of an object.

It should be noted that many motivational theories began to appear in the works of ancient philosophers. Today there are several dozens of them. According to the latest concepts, preference for many authors is given to the cognitive (cognitive) approach. In the mainstream of this theory, great importance is attached to human consciousness and knowledge.

Among all theses put forward by the authors, the belief was that the guiding value in the behavior of the individual is the views, knowledge, and opinions about events taking place in the world, consequences and causes. However, knowledge is not considered a simple complex of information. Human representations, the information he owns, project, program his behavior in the future. Thus, actions and their character depend not only on fixed human needs. Of great importance are also the relatively volatile ideas about the real world.

The concept of "cognitive dissonance" was proposed by Leon Festinger. By this definition, he understood a certain contradiction between cognitions (two or more). The term "cognition" is explained by Festinger as follows: it is any opinion, knowledge or belief that refers to the environment, one's own behavior or oneself.

Cognitive dissonance personality experiences in the form of discomfort. Man seeks to get rid of this sensation, to restore inner harmony.

Cognitive dissonance is also characteristic for situations where a person has made a difficult decision. In such cases, there is a need to choose between alternative options that are close to each other in attractiveness. After the choice is made, the person feels discomfort, which is connected with contradictions. In particular, a person thinks that in his chosen version there are negative features, while that in the rejected decisions there was something positive. Thus, the adopted becomes partially bad, but accepted. The rejected is partially positive. However, it is not accepted.

As studies show the consequences of the difficult decisions taken, after acceptance, after a while, there is an increase in the subjective attractiveness of the chosen option. Together with this, the subjective attractiveness of the rejected decision is reduced. Thus, the individual relieves himself of cognitive dissonance, convincing himself that the chosen option is not slightly, but much better than alternative solutions that he rejected.