Understanding the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Human heart often experiences internal contradiction, followed by internal struggle to achieve a certain balance or consistency (Hall, 1998). Cognitive dissonance serves as a motivation for people to act in a way that effectively reduces discord and restores balance. Leon Festinger's cognitive disharmony theory explores this situation and the follow-up behavior that people take in order to balance between ideals. Cognitive dissonance focuses on people's way to confront contradictions in their minds by actively pursuing consistency.

There are two differences between cognitive dissonance theory and self-recognition theory. First, unlike the cognitive disharmony theory, self-recognition theory does not assume that some motivational state (eg, reduction of discrepancy) is necessary due to a change in self-knowledge. In fact, in self-recognition theory, you only need to guess your attitude and belief by considering the trend of the environment and your behavior, that is, the change in self-knowledge. The second self-perception theory recognizes that if the inner clues of previous convictions are ambiguous or weak, they can use their own actions to infer self-perception. Self-perceived clarity and inconsistency with their free choice of action

Cognitive dissonance theory: In the current perspective (1969), Elliott Aronson associates cognitive dissonance with self-concept: when conflict between cognitions threatens a person's positive self-image, the spirit is created by the pressure created The reinterpretation of the original Festinger and Carlsmith's research, using a paradigm of induction law compliance, suggests that discrepancies exist between the perception that "I am an honest person." "I lied to find an interesting job." Study cognitive dissonance: Personal inference or public place? (1971) maintaining cognitive consistency rather than protecting the individual's self-concept has reported how people protect his or her public self-image

Unadjusted Self-Recognition: If a lawyer has to defend an innocent customer for a customer who is considered guilty, he may experience cognitive dissonance. From the perspective of "Cognitive dissonance theory: current perspective" (1969), if a lawyer's misleading statement about his guilty client contradicts his identity as a lawyer and a sincere person, the lawyer You may encounter recognition. Disorderly. In "Gestalt theory of motivation" (1960), social psychologist Darryl Bem proposed a theory of self-perception, and even if they collide with others, people do not think much about their attitudes. Self-cognitive theory suggests that people develop their attitudes by observing their own actions and conclude that their attitudes lead to behavior observed by self-recognition; in particular, internal clues are ambiguous or weak When. Hence this person is in the same position as the observer and he has to rely on external clues to guess his inner state