By: Maeve Brady

Cognitive dissonance, the beauty of the mind. It’s something we all undergo even if we are unaware of this factor. Now, you may have heard of this term before, but do you truly know what it is? If you do, then I hope this provides an even more in depth explanation of its properties. If you don’t, then buckle up, because understanding this is essential to understanding the way we humans think.

Cognitive dissonance is a basic principle in psychology, in which it is where you know you are doing something bad, yet you still do it anyway. That’s the simpler way to explain it, but in other words, it is when your thoughts of consistency and conformity don’t align with your seemingly inconsistent actions. For example: You are sneaking out at night, and in order to get to your needed destination, you steal your parents car. Now you may know deep down that it’s wrong, but your actions are contradicting your thoughts. Now, like many of our cognitive abilities and senses, cognitive dissonance is said to occur in the prefrontal cortex which is located in our frontal lobe. But it is said to occur not only in the prefrontal cortex, but also within the insula cortex.

Deep within the lateral sulcus, also described as a deep ridge and or groove that is located along the surface of our brain’s cerebral cortex, you will find the insula cortex which is responsible for the regulating and processing of our emotions. According to an article written by Thea Buckly, about a lecture given by Keise Izuma, at the University of York in England, “‘Additional studies have revealed that cognitive dissonance engages other brain regions, such as the insula and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The insula, which processes emotions, often becomes more active when people are upset or angry, and the DLPFC is strongly associated with cognitive control.’” This shows us that the insula, as well as the Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, may have something to do with the feeling of cognitive dissonance.

Although more research concerning cognitive dissonance is only more recently coming out, the theory was invented a while ago. In 1957, Leon Festinger presented the theory of cognitive dissonance, in which he had claimed that the inconsistencies between cognitions may generate this uncomfortable and motivational feeling within you, also known as cognitive dissonance. This justified the outlandish feeling people got when they knew they were doing something bad, going against their thoughts of structure and doing what’s right.

Cognitive dissonance also plays a big role in the process of justification and over-explanation. The concept of dissonance, which is a clash between disharmonious principles, results in people feeling that they can justify their inconsistent behaviors. Or in other words, when cognitive dissonance creates this feeling of wrongfulness and guilt, people tend to cling on to the action of explaining themselves in order to lessen that uncomfortable feeling and satisfy themselves. When the intensity of the dissonance increases, many people become desperate to reduce it, finding obscure and desperate explanations in order to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truth.

In an experiment done by Leon Festinger and his colleague James M. Carlsmith in 1959, they tested the theory of cognitive dissonance. In this experiment, they lied to people saying the experiment was about the effects of a task on an individual’s perception, meaning how a task can affect the way one views a situation and environment. But in reality, they wanted to test if people would justify lying to another person about a task. He paid volunteers either one or around twenty dollars to lie about a boring task being fun. According to Jerry Suls, a professor at the University of Iowa, “The subjects who were paid $20 should not have experienced dissonance, because they were well-rewarded and had ample justification for lying, whereas those paid $1 had little justification for lying and should have experienced more cognitive dissonance. To reduce the dissonance, they reevaluated the boring task as interesting and enjoyable.” This was the accurate prediction of Leon Festinger which demonstrated human behavior when lying and just in general.

This proves that when people are put into uncomfortable situations and feel cognitive dissonance, they tend to find any sort of reason to justify their actions to relieve the feeling. But, when people have a plausible reason to hide behind their lies, then they may experience less dissonance because they have a “reason” not to. All this proves that people may be willing to justify even the worst of actions if it means keeping themselves and others satisfied.

Cognitive dissonance is a common theme in our society because everyone experiences it in their own life. Sometimes, it can be a spur of the moment thing and we may not even realize we are doing so until later evaluation. When we experience cognitive dissonance, some may have this immediate want to relieve the discomfort they are feeling within. This results in the person finding ways to justify their wrong action.

Thank you so much for following me along as I explained the basics of a major part of psychology, cognitive dissonance. I hope you gained more insight to what cognitive dissonance is and how it is a common theme in our society!

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/Cognitive-Dissonance-Intro-Sample.pdf