What is Cognitive Dissonance?
1.
A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat.
This child is going through a state of cognitive dissonance as he imitates his hero while physically beating his friends.
2.
Knowing you made the wrong choice but are too stubborn to correct yourself and therefore deny it by saying everyone else made the wrong choice.
PS3 fanboy: PS3 KICKS 360'S ASS ANYDAY.
Xbox fanboy: Uhhh...Okay. Cognitive dissonance. I'll just go back to playing Halo 3.
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3.
Cognitive Dissonance States that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions.
You do a boring job, but is paid $30/hour, so you say that is a nice and interesting job....'well, it is not cognitive dissonance, I think is a great new job!!'
You are deciding about two movies, your girlfriend wants to see the most boring one so after the cinema, you think it was a good movie and cool after all.
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