Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort experienced when a person holds inconsistent beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours. This discomfort motivates the person to reduce the inconsistency, sometimes by changing an attitude rather than changing the behaviour.
How Cognitive Dissonance Works
Festinger proposed cognitive dissonance theory in 1957. For example, a student who believes cheating is wrong but cheats on a test experiences inconsistency between their belief and behaviour.
The person may reduce dissonance in several ways:
| Strategy | Example |
|---|---|
| Change the behaviour | Stop cheating in future tests. |
| Change the attitude | Decide that cheating is acceptable under pressure. |
| Add a justification | Claim that the test was unfair. |
| Minimize the inconsistency | Argue that one test does not matter. |
A key principle is insufficient justification. When there is no strong external reason for behaviour, people are more likely to change their internal attitude to make the behaviour seem consistent.
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) demonstrated this mechanism. Participants completed a boring task and were then paid either \1$20$1$20$. The small payment provided insufficient external justification, so participants reduced dissonance by changing their attitude toward the task.
Although dissonance is an internal cognitive mechanism, it is relevant to the sociocultural approach because social expectations, group membership, persuasion, and socially induced behaviour can create the inconsistency that produces dissonance.
A common misconception is that cognitive dissonance simply means feeling confused or uncomfortable. It specifically involves discomfort caused by inconsistency between cognitions or between attitudes and behaviour.
Exam Technique
In an IB response, define cognitive dissonance precisely, explain the inconsistency-reduction mechanism, and explicitly link Festinger and Carlsmith's findings to insufficient justification. For an essay, evaluate the artificial laboratory setting and possible demand characteristics, while recognizing that experimental control supports a cause-and-effect conclusion.
