In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is defined as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly or subconsciously hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. An example of cognitive dissonance might be a friend doing something you completely disagree with (i.e. stealing an item from a store), but still finding a way to square his illegal behavior with the good person you know him to be. When we experience cognitive dissonance, we feel psychological discomfort that must be addressed in order to regain a sense of normalcy, and herein is where things get interesting. What kinds of things do we do to reduce dissonance? Are those actions healthy? Or would it be better to accept truth and reality rather than try to jam a square peg in a round hole?
Breaking down cognitive dissonance
When we experience cognitive dissonance, it often manifests in anxiety, anger, defensiveness, confusion, shame, and a threat to our ego. This discomfort becomes even more unbearable when trying to understand and explain things that are public, our identity is involved, and the information is morally disturbing. You might think about how uncomfortable it is when we learn of a favorite athlete or celebrity who is found to have broken the law, harmed someone, or committed a serious crime. Do you accept reality in situations like this, or is your first (and only?) move to go on the defensive and ignore, deflect, or flat out deny what we know to be true?
The best answer, of course, is to simply admit you were wrong, or had misjudged the person. When we do this, it frees our mind and leads to better mental health. On the other hand, by doubling-down we may gain temporary psychological relief, but the dissonance remains. In these cases we often employ the following defense strategies to tamp down our unrest:
- Denial. Can this incident be completely ignored, like it never happened?
- Minimization. Thinking that it’s not as bad as being reported, and that people are overreacting.
- Source attacks. The media is biased, or the source has been corrupted.
- Whataboutism. Pretty straightforward — instead of processing what happened, it becomes easier to simply point toward similar faults in others.
- Moral licensing. Using previous good gestures to shield from the current negative accusation.
- Conspiracy thinking. Simply slinging stuff against the wall, going down rabbit holes in an attempt to justify reality with some kind of deep conspiracy.
Interestingly, studies have shown that people often know when they are experiencing cognitive dissonance and using defense strategies, yet they still suppress those feelings because the social cost feels too high, they fear losing belonging to a group, and/or they do not see a safe alternative.
Sometimes in life cognitive dissonance is experienced in funny, harmless situations — like if you see your likeable car salesman who works for one car company, drive home in a car from a different company. While you might second-guess your desire to purchase a car from him as he appears disingenuous, this example is not nearly as serious as someone you know well being found to have stolen money from work, or been caught having an extra-marital affair. The point is that while cognitive dissonance can range in significance and severity, we still use the same general approaches to minimize dissonance, and regain comfort and stability.
The best advice? Ward off cognitive dissonance by following reality, facts, and truth. Accept that people are fallible, and that even our most favorite people will make mistakes — sometimes serious mistakes. It is also important to be realistic with our own impression management behaviors by realizing that we often build people up when we like them, sometimes to unrealistic standards and expectations. Behaviors that should be avoided include flat-out denial without investigation and critical thought, re-calibrating your morality scale in accordance with an unwanted act, or immediately going to whataboutism by trying to find something similarly bad in someone else.
Final thoughts
When you see someone mentally struggling to square up two conflicting things, there’s a good chance cognitive dissonance is at play. Psychologists have discovered this unique quirk about humans that allows for irrational thinking to take the place of logic and perception, especially when we run into conflicts relating to people and institutions we admire. Often the work needed to tamp down the anxiety experienced with cognitive dissonance requires us to do unorthodox things, including denial and attacking the source, but these coping efforts are not needed when we work hard to accept reality.
drstankovich.com
