What is cognitive dissonance?
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To add to the examples: let’s say you hate how your roommate leaves dishes everywhere. But you decide to plonk your plate on a chair instead of loading it into the dishwasher. You feel like a hypocrite because you’ve criticized your roommate doing that — does it mean that you should also criticize yourself? This is only your first time doing it, it’s a stressful week, etc. But now you’re wondering why you’re allowed to excuse it for yourself and not allow your roommate to excuse when they do it.
All that discomfort you’re feeling as you’re trying to resolve two conflicting viewpoints (it’s bad for your roommate to leave dishes around, but it’s fine when you do it) is cognitive dissonance. You’ll see a lot of people on Reddit misuse it to refer to you simply having conflicting opinions, but that doesn’t quite capture it. Cognitive dissonance should encourage you to resolve your conflicting viewpoints, either by adjusting a viewpoint (it is also bad when you leave dishes around), or abandoning it (it’s not bad to leave dishes around, period).
To add to the examples: let’s say you hate how your roommate leaves dishes everywhere. But you decide to plonk your plate on a chair instead of loading it into the dishwasher. You feel like a hypocrite because you’ve criticized your roommate doing that — does it mean that you should also criticize yourself? This is only your first time doing it, it’s a stressful week, etc. But now you’re wondering why you’re allowed to excuse it for yourself and not allow your roommate to excuse when they do it.
All that discomfort you’re feeling as you’re trying to resolve two conflicting viewpoints (it’s bad for your roommate to leave dishes around, but it’s fine when you do it) is cognitive dissonance. You’ll see a lot of people on Reddit misuse it to refer to you simply having conflicting opinions, but that doesn’t quite capture it. Cognitive dissonance should encourage you to resolve your conflicting viewpoints, either by adjusting a viewpoint (it is also bad when you leave dishes around), or abandoning it (it’s not bad to leave dishes around, period).
Cognitive dissonance is a scenario where you have some sort of conflict in your views and beliefs. This is usually (a) a disconnect between your supposed beliefs and your actual actions, or (b) two or more conflicting beliefs.
These days it seems to be commonly used in political type debates and arguments: e.g. you passionately support party/candidate X, but then they say or do something you strongly disagree with. You are a strong believer in some sort of policy or idea, but it will disadvantage many people or cause some negative side effect. You condemn ‘The Other Side’ for doing something but then dismiss/downplay/whitewash ‘Your Side’ for doing the same thing.
The dissonance occurs because deep down, you know all this is ‘wrong’ on some level, which may cause you great distress, confusion, disappointment or anger.
In some cases, this may cause you to temper your beliefs and ideals “OK so this isn’t as clear cut and perfect as I thought, there’s all these conflicting things in there, maybe I need to think about this more”. This is mostly a normal healthy response.
But it can sometimes lead people into denialism and extremism. “I believe passionately in something, this challenges my belief in this something, therefore it must all be a lie!”. This is often how conspiracies and similar crazy theories can develop; people don’t know or don’t want to deal with their cognitive dissonance, so dive down increasingly narrow and extreme rabbit holes to keep from having their views challenged.
Cognitive dissonance is a scenario where you have some sort of conflict in your views and beliefs. This is usually (a) a disconnect between your supposed beliefs and your actual actions, or (b) two or more conflicting beliefs.
These days it seems to be commonly used in political type debates and arguments: e.g. you passionately support party/candidate X, but then they say or do something you strongly disagree with. You are a strong believer in some sort of policy or idea, but it will disadvantage many people or cause some negative side effect. You condemn ‘The Other Side’ for doing something but then dismiss/downplay/whitewash ‘Your Side’ for doing the same thing.
The dissonance occurs because deep down, you know all this is ‘wrong’ on some level, which may cause you great distress, confusion, disappointment or anger.
In some cases, this may cause you to temper your beliefs and ideals “OK so this isn’t as clear cut and perfect as I thought, there’s all these conflicting things in there, maybe I need to think about this more”. This is mostly a normal healthy response.
But it can sometimes lead people into denialism and extremism. “I believe passionately in something, this challenges my belief in this something, therefore it must all be a lie!”. This is often how conspiracies and similar crazy theories can develop; people don’t know or don’t want to deal with their cognitive dissonance, so dive down increasingly narrow and extreme rabbit holes to keep from having their views challenged.
State of stress due to holding conflicting views/attitudes/behaviour at the same time. A textbook example of cognitive dissonance is the fable of the fox and the grapes. Fox desires grapes hanging high from a tree. After attempts to get the grapes and failing , he says that they are sour rather than admitting he has failed. In doing so he reduces his cognitive dissonance (his stress for a) desiring grapes and b) frustration at not getting them). he has reduced cognitive dissonance by trying to give rationale for his failure.
State of stress due to holding conflicting views/attitudes/behaviour at the same time. A textbook example of cognitive dissonance is the fable of the fox and the grapes. Fox desires grapes hanging high from a tree. After attempts to get the grapes and failing , he says that they are sour rather than admitting he has failed. In doing so he reduces his cognitive dissonance (his stress for a) desiring grapes and b) frustration at not getting them). he has reduced cognitive dissonance by trying to give rationale for his failure.
Cognitive dissonance is when two or more thoughts or feelings you have are in conflict, or a thought/feeling and an action. Our brains like consistency, and our egos especially like self-consistency, so this conflict feels unpleasant. Its like if you pointed out something someone did wrong, and someone said “well you do that too”. All of a sudden your brain is like “shit, i think doing that is wrong but i did it”, and that feels uncomfortable. Often times the solution is to justify the conflict by pretending there isnt one, for example by saying “its okay when i do it because…”
Cognitive dissonance is when two or more thoughts or feelings you have are in conflict, or a thought/feeling and an action. Our brains like consistency, and our egos especially like self-consistency, so this conflict feels unpleasant. Its like if you pointed out something someone did wrong, and someone said “well you do that too”. All of a sudden your brain is like “shit, i think doing that is wrong but i did it”, and that feels uncomfortable. Often times the solution is to justify the conflict by pretending there isnt one, for example by saying “its okay when i do it because…”
It is having an ingrained belief that is challenged by reality or an experience but still cannot be changed – as in, your brain cannot overwrite what it thinks it “knows” no matter what is presented to you, so you reject or twist new information to make it make sense in *your* reality.
So like everyone else is on reality 2.0, but your brain stays in beta, rejecting crucial updates.
It is having an ingrained belief that is challenged by reality or an experience but still cannot be changed – as in, your brain cannot overwrite what it thinks it “knows” no matter what is presented to you, so you reject or twist new information to make it make sense in *your* reality.
So like everyone else is on reality 2.0, but your brain stays in beta, rejecting crucial updates.
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