{"id":4046,"date":"2022-09-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/15-09-2022\/cognitive-dissonance\/"},"modified":"2022-09-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T00:00:00","slug":"cognitive-dissonance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/15-09-2022\/cognitive-dissonance","title":{"rendered":"Cognitive Dissonance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Context<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The Term was in the News. It is important for the Paper IV of the General Studies of UPSC.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>What is Cognitive Dissonance?<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>About:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The cognitive dissonance theory was one of the most influential theories in social psychology first proposed by<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> Leon Festinger in his book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Cognitive dissonance theory explains<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> how individuals or groups rationalise their support and belief toward different religions<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, cults or political parties, partially blinding themselves to reduce the contradictions between their thoughts and behaviour.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Theory proposes that inconsistency between one\u2019s thoughts and\u00a0 behaviours would lead to an uncomfortable psychological or emotional tension (<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Cognitive Dissonance<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Example:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">You know that smoking (or drinking too much) is harmful to your health, but you do it anyway. You rationalize this action by<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> pointing to your high stress levels.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">An IPS officer believes in non-violence but takes the decision to opt for Lathi Charge to disperse the crowd mostly faces<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> Cognitive dissonance.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Resolving dissonance<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Festinger explained that there were different ways in which individuals or groups resolved cognitive dissonance to best suit their situations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Either by changing one\u2019s thoughts, changing one\u2019s behaviour to match one\u2019s thoughts, adding a thought to justify the behaviour or trivialise the inconsistency between thoughts and behaviour.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">In most cases, people tend to justify their behaviour by either adding consonant elements or negating contradictory or inconsistent thoughts. This is because it is easier to change one\u2019s thoughts than to introspect and question one\u2019s belief system.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-qDpk8wcgs8IW9IKf_mqdZ_i72lYY4ONp4LSjVP2PAXW2bWI4acAfHpA3cH7_PjLgXNdfwg1eshd1npP0ZQuKgdLJ3tPZdZG7zPkhT2AfTF68iYKtfr0ohiJ7XTjzI9GMPjbzoVVSMOcCofgnRrFETQZmJ8k-8olm2fMVa2sZ0fG7DlX5vv2ST8ceQ\" style=\"height:278px; width:341px\" \/><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source: <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/specials\/text-and-context\/cognitive-dissonance\/article65886184.ece\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u>TH<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context The Term was in the News. It is important for the Paper IV of the General Studies of UPSC. What is Cognitive Dissonance? About: The cognitive dissonance theory was one of the most influential theories in social psychology first proposed by Leon Festinger in his book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957.\u00a0 Cognitive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[115,29],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs4","tag-thehindu"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1190150Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}