Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The term cognitive is defined as "of or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and volitional processes." The word dissonance means "disagreement or incongruity." Cognitive Dissonance Theory, therefore, is the theory of how and why we lie to ourselves. According to an experiment published in a 1959 edition of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, which was conducted by L. Festinger and J. Carlsmith, "If you change a person's behavior, his thoughts and feelings will change to minimize dissonance [disagreement or incongruity]."

According to Festinger's writing, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, "dissonance and consonance [accord, agreement] are relations among cognitions that is, among opinions, beliefs, knowledge of the environment, and knowledge of one's own actions and feelings. Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit together; that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, considering only the particular two items, one does not follow from the other".

In his cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger believed an individual deals with conflicting thoughts in one of three ways. The first, change the opinion or belief. Second, seek out new knowledge that will help alleviate the disagreement or dissonance. Third, attempt to forget about the original thought or at least decrease its importance.

A harsh but very real example would be a case of domestic violence. A wife believes that her husband loves her, yet he abuses her. She remains in the relationship when she begins to convince herself that he beats her because she has hurt or disappointed him in some way. Therefore, she begins to change her behaviors to please him, even when the behavior goes against her own beliefs. She's knows the abuse is wrong, but she convinces herself that its okay because he loves her and doesn't really mean it. And once she learns how to "please" him, the abuse will stop. Another example is drug addiction. An addict uses over and over, all the while believing that it's not an addiction because he or she can quit anytime.