up:: [[Social Psychology MOC]] Tags:: #🌿 # Cognitive dissonance theory [[Cognitive dissonance]] occurs when a belief conflicts with behavior or two beliefs conflict with each other. Our response is generally to try and change our behavior, our beliefs, or our judgement of the event to make it less dissonant. In this way cognitive dissonance theory is a theory of attitude change (a motivational theory) where as its greatest anti-theory, [[Self-perception theory]], is a theory of attitude inference (a inference theory). ###### What does cognitive dissonance suggest about commitment and psychological health? It suggests that knowing we are committed to a decision could be psychologically helpful because we know that we can't go back. It wouldn't be a good attitude to go to Cornell thinking that if it doesn't work out you can transfer. Often times the things we are cognitively dissonant on don't trouble us because we don't notice them in the first place. This reminds me of the [[Hidden data problem]]. ###### What theory is cognitive dissonance based on? Balance theory which states our opinions of people, objects, and things come from balancing positive and negative opinions of them. ![[Pasted image 20221110133234.png]] There are [[The three pieces of evidence for cognitive dissonance theory|three pieces of evidence for cognitive dissonance theory]]. ###### How does reversibility change our evaluation of decisions? The more reversible a decision, the less likely we are to experiences post decision dissonance reduction. ###### How did justification play into cognitive dissonance research by Festinger on rumors from an Indian Earthquake? Festinger found that those farther from the epicenter of the Earthquake tended to spread more negative rumors compared to those who were in the epicenter of the Earthquake. Festinger theorized this was because those farther away from the earthquake needed to justify their fear of the earthquake by making it seem worse than it was, while the one's in the epicenter didn't. Related: [[Cognitive dissonance is stronger for Easterner's when other people are involved in the dissonance]] ___ # Resources