022 Cognitive Dissonance

A state of mental discomfort due to incompatible attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs.

• Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental stress due to conflicting thoughts or values. It also occurs when new information conflicts with existing thoughts or values.

• When a person is in a state of cognitive dissonance, they seek to make their incompatible thoughts or values compatible with one another.

• For example, diamond sellers urge consumers to demonstrate their love by buying diamonds, creating cognitive dissonance in consumers—i.e., dissonance between the love that they have for another, and the pressure to prove that love by buying diamonds.

• Consider cognitive dissonance in persuasion contexts. Alleviate cognitive dissonance by reducing the importance of conflicting thoughts, adding new confirmatory thoughts, or changing the conflicting thoughts to appear compatible.

See Also Expectation Effects • Framing • Sunk Cost Effect

Benjamin Franklin was a formidable social engineer. He once asked a rival legislator to lend him a rare book, which he did. The rival greatly disliked Franklin, but had done him this favor. How to alleviate the conflict? The two became lifelong friends.