Communication: cognitive dissonance

COMMUNICATION : COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

2009

The origin of cognitive dissonance theories is frequently attributed to the writings of the American social psychologist Leon Festinger Festinger (1957 ) described the experience of cognitive dissonance as resulting from a need for psychological consistency that follows a "non-fitting relation among cognitions (Festinger , 3 ) that exists between pairs of elements . Elements refer to cognition , which are defined as the things people know about themselves , about their behavior , and about their surroundings . In effect , an element of cognition is knowledge . According to Festinger (1957 , an element represents

knowledge about oneself including actions , feelings , wants or desires , etc , and knowledge about the world in which one lives . For him , these elements of cognition mirror one 's reality . In other words elements of cognition correspond , for the most part , to what a person values , believes , and actually does . Festinger believed that pairs of cognitive elements exist in irrelevant , consonant , or dissonant relations

Cognitive elements are in an irrelevant relation when they have nothing to do with one another , consonant relation if , considering these two alone , one element follows from the other , and dissonant relation if considering these two alone , the obverse of one element follows from the other (Festinger , 1957 , 260 ) Dissonant relations among cognitions create a state of psychological discomfort that motivates the individual to reduce the dissonant state in a drive-like manner - much like he or she would try to reduce hunger , thirst , or pain (Aronson , 105 Situations and information that create inconsistency within the individual are...