Has it ever happened to you that you do something or make a decision and even though you try to convince yourself that you did the right thing, you don't feel well at all? Surely this type of situation has happened to you more than once in your life and although for the moment you have left alone, then you keep turning your head to the point of not being able to be at peace with you same. When we do not act in coherence with what we think and feel, it is normal for us to have a feeling of discomfort and discomfort that we cannot avoid no matter how hard we try to deceive ourselves by means of excuses to justify our actions.
In this Psychology-Online article on the Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory, We are going to let you know in detail what exactly this theory refers to.
Index
- Festinger's cognitive dissonance: example
- When does cognitive dissonance occur?
- Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance: conclusions
Festinger's cognitive dissonance: example.
The psychologist Leon festinger He proposed a theory that he called cognitive dissonance and that refers to all those uncomfortable moments where we can come to find ourselves in conflict with ourselves due to the feeling that we are not acting in coherence with our beliefs, ideas and thoughts.
To explain better and in more depth how cognitive dissonance occurs, we are going to show you an example of everyday life that usually occurs very frequently:
Example of cognitive dissonance
One of your personal goals at this time may be to save a certain amount of money each month, spend the first month and everything is perfect, you separate the proportional part of your salary that you want to save and try not to spend more than what you already have calculated. However, the second month arrives and the sales also arrive in all the stores, so you are going to take a walk through the shopping plaza just to "take a look" and see the new clothes that have arrived and are also priced amazing. At that moment you think you would like to buy some clothes because there are sales, although on the other hand you are starting to save and if you start this month spending a money that you did not have contemplated you can misadjust your budget and not make it to the end of the month so you would have to take some money from your savings for the month past.
You think about it many times and finally decide to buy yourself some clothes and right after you have done it you get the remorse because you have the feeling that you did not do the right thing, so you start to have thoughts What: "I shouldn't have done it if I'm supposed to be saving", "It took me so long to take the first step to save so that from one moment to the next I lose what I have", "I'm not going to make ends meet", etc. and to try not to feel so bad about yourself, you start to contradict yourself and think: "I really needed those clothes", “I had to take advantage of the fact that everything was on sale”, “I bought a lot of clothes for that price”, “the following month I will not spend on anything more ”, etc.
This is a clear example of a person who has cognitive dissonance and who despite having done something that he wanted at the time, such as having taken advantage of sales and bought the clothes she wanted, she feels uneasy for not having been consistent with herself and not having met her goal, which was to save money.
Does it sound familiar to you?
This type of situation tends to occur quite frequently in everyday life where our mind tries to calm us down and defend ourselves by trying to Deceive ourselves by convincing ourselves that what we did was not bad at all since the more incoherent we are with ourselves, the less well-being we will have emotional.
When does cognitive dissonance occur?
As we have seen in the example in the previous section, cognitive dissonance occurs when we conflict with ourselves by having chosen one of the options that we had that were not in accordance with what we really wanted or with what was best for U.S. It must be taken into account that there cannot be a cognitive dissonance when the person is forced to perform an action that he does not want and has no alternative but to do so.
Cognitive dissonance in love
Cognitive dissonance is always going to occur when we have freedom of choice and we have 2 or more options to choose from. All people have a series of values, beliefs and ideas that we have acquired throughout our lives and all of them direct our actions. Therefore, when I act against what I feel and think, either because I am not respecting any of my personal values or life goals, I will always get into an internal conflict with myself and the only way to feel better is to convince myself that the action I took made some sense for me. For example, in the case of a infidelity this phenomenon will occur within us.
We must take into account that, on many occasions, we are going to make mistakes and make mistakes due to different reasons such as having acted on impulse for example, therefore that part will always appear in us or that Defense mechanism that despite the mistake he will try to make us see his positive side. So we can use this to our advantage, that is, we can convince ourselves that what we did Although it affected us it also made some sense, to focus on it to feel better but above all to learn from that experience. In this way, we can use self-deception to our advantage.
Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance: conclusions.
It is practically normal that we continually experience these types of situations that lead us to experience cognitive dissonance. In fact, if we did not experience it, we would not feel that little discomfort that, if we want it, leads us to do things better for the next time. On the other hand, if we would not try to convince ourselves of the positive or apparently positive side of our actions after having done them, the discomfort we would experience would be very exhausting.
Let's say that for there to be a good balance between what we do and what we think, we must try to ensure that, as far as possible, we keep in coherence with ourselves and at the same time, each time that does not happen and we begin to see the positive side of a situation that is not can change, we are also aware of what we are doing and for the next one to move more towards what we want and not continue deceiving ourselves.
In conclusion, we cannot consider the cognitive dissonance as something bad or good totally since you have its pros and cons, however the important thing is be knowing that this can happen to us normally, learning to detect it and knowing how to favor.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance: summary, we recommend that you enter our category of Cognitive psychology.
