Difference between revisions of "Cognitive dissonance"

Revision as of 00:12, September 27, 2008

Cognitive dissonance is stress or discomfort caused by simultaneously holding contradictory ideas.

A mother, who believes that her son is a good boy, learns that he has committed a serious crime;
Claiming Global Warming is man-made and admonishing others for "not doing their part" while being hypocritically wasteful;
Railing against America and its government while simultaneously living in the country and reaping all the benefits of freedom and capitalism;

People respond to the uncomfortable feelings associated with cognitive dissonance in a number of ways, including:

Resolution: Identifying the source of the contradiction and adjusting one one or both of the contradicting beliefs to eliminate the contradiction;
Rationalization: Inventing faulty justifications in an effort to maintain both contradictory ideas as true;
Denial: Denying the existence of a contradiction where one exists

George Orwell famously discussed cognitive dissonance in his novel 1984, using the term doublethink.

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 * [[Resolution]]: Identifying the source of the contradiction and adjusting one one or both of the contradicting beliefs to eliminate the contradiction;
 * [[Rationalization]]: Inventing faulty justifications in an effort to maintain both contradictory ideas as true;
-* [[Denial]]: Denying the existance of a contradiction where one exists
+* [[Denial]]: Denying the existence of a contradiction where one exists
 [[George Orwell]] famously discussed cognitive dissonance in his novel [[1984]], using the term [[doublethink]].