As human beings, we tend to maintain internal coherence. To do this, our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors must be aligned, keeping us in balance. However, in our daily lives we are presented with different events, crises or problems that make us falter. This generates an internal conflict that, normally, we want to avoid at all costs.
This is when the ability we have as people to return to a state of harmony and internal calm comes into play, which is what cognitive or psychological consistency is all about. After this imbalance, different mechanisms are put in place to reduce tension or cognitive dissonance. Do you want to know more about this topic? Keep reading this article to know in detail what is consistency and cognitive dissonance and some examples, providing the theories of Festinger and Heider.
What is cognitive consistency
To understand what cognitive consistency is, we must understand that the relationship between thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and behavior can produce motivation. This motivation can be considered as a state of tension with aversive characteristics and the ability to activate the behavior of a subject, reducing tension.
These two processes represent homeostatic models, in which the separation of appropriate values (imbalance, inconsistency, conflict) motivates the subject to carry out some behavior with which regain balance and consistency.
That is, cognitive consistency is the ability to give consistency to our own world by activating our behavior to recover our state of calm in the face of cognitive stimuli that produce a feeling of incoherence.
What is cognitive dissonance
This term states that there must be consistency between beliefs, attitudes and thoughts with manifest behavior. In other words, to know what cognitive dissonance is, it is necessary to also know the concept of psychological or cognitive consistency.
So the subject tends to behave in a way that minimizes the internal inconsistency between your interpersonal relationships, between your intrapersonal cognitions, and between your beliefs, your feelings and your actions. The resulting relationships can be: consonant, dissonant or irrelevant.
But what generates cognitive dissonance? Here is the key piece to understanding the link between cognitive dissonance and psychological consistency. And it is only when there is dissonance that produces motivationwhich aims to resolve dissonance and maintain the consistency of the elements.
Heider and the theory of equilibrium or balance
To better understand what consistency and cognitive dissonance are, it is essential to look at the scientist Fritz Heider (1946,1958), who formulates his balance theory referring to the tendency that exists among human beings to establish balanced or balanced relationships with other human beings, with other objects or with both.
To the extent that the relationships are unbalanced, an imbalance will appear in the subject that produces a motivational state; The imbalance and motivational state are reduced and disappear when relationships become balanced again.
Heider says that relationships can be positive or negative, when the product of the three relationships is positive, there is balance; when it is negative, there is no balance. Heider’s theory has motivational connotations from a gestalt perspective.
In summary, the main postulates of Heider’s equilibrium theory are the following:
- The balanced structures They are more durable and stable, since this type favors the process of change based on motivation more, compared to the case of an unbalanced structure.
- unbalanced structures They are uncomfortable and produce a lot of tension.
- The states of equilibrium They are comfortable and promote learning and recognition, since they are easier to predict.
Festinger and cognitive dissonance
The theory of cognitive dissonance was created by the psychologist Leon Festingerwho defended the idea that human beings need consistency in their beliefs, ideas, behaviors and/or attitudes and that, furthermore, this should be maintained over time.
In the event that there was a crisis or conflict that affected internal balance and a misalignment arose between beliefs and behavior, the person would do everything possible to regain coherence. This is how the scientist expressed it in his book “Theory of Cognitive Dissonance”, which had great relevance in the academic world.
Therefore, if we talk about Festinger and cognitive dissonance, we will be talking about one of the main theories that build this study on psychological consistency and dissonance. If you want to know it in more detail, consult our article.
On the other hand, according to the postulates developed by Festinger (1957), the contradictory beliefs that a subject has produce a state of psychological tension, in such a way that the subject will carry out some activity to reduce or suppress said tension. Along these lines, we can identify several reasons why cognitive dissonance may occur:
- When an expectation is not met.
- When there is conflict between thoughts and socio-cultural norms.
- When there is conflict between attitudes and behavior.
Examples of cognitive dissonance
If you need examples of cognitive dissonance to fully understand its meaning, here are some models:
Optimistic bias
It occurs when the subject mistakenly believes that will not suffer any crisis, problem or disaster. This thought or idea usually occurs in people in a very common way. That is why, when we face a situation like this, we experience a trauma produced by the awareness that means realizing that something unpleasant may happen to us.
Another example of cognitive dissonance within this same model would be when we tend to only recognize positive experiences when we remember our past. This is why we believe that only “good” things can happen to us in the future by making positive predictions. This bias is known as Pollyanna effect.
Accessibility heuristic
This example about cognitive dissonance is about how we perceive and construct our world from past experiences. That is, we configure our knowledge through more accessible information or close, and we believe that any event that comes later will be very similar to what we have already experienced.
This gives us a false idea of what life is like because, in addition, we tend to believe with greater conviction that the experiences that we have lived with more intensity, such as a trauma, a wound of rejection, etc. will be repeated with maximum probability in the future.
Crisis effect
It happens when a person has experienced a crisis situation, such as attacks, catastrophes or natural disasters, and has the perception that an event of the same nature will be repeated at any time. However, when the conflictive context is over, the opposite happens and the belief sets in that you will never experience something similar again.
How to work on cognitive dissonance
Dissonance occurs when there is conflict between two cognitions of the subject. The greater the number of conflicting or dissonant elements, the greater the total dissonance. There are three ways to deal with cognitive dissonance:
- Add new cognitions or change existing ones.
- Search for information consistent with existing cognitions.
- Avoid information inconsistent with existing cognitions.
The objective pursued is to turn cognitive dissonance into consonance or consistency. However, cognitive dissonance is not negative if helps us reflect about the agreement of our actions and thoughts.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Cognitive Consistency and Dissonancewe recommend that you enter our category.
References
- Environmental Psychology. Cognitive consistency. Environmental Psychology, basic elements. Retrieved from: http://www.ub.edu/psicologia_ambiental/unidad-2-tema-4-5-2-1
- International University of Valencia. Cognitive dissonance and self-deception. International University of Valencia. Recovered from https://www.universidadviu.com/es/actualidad/nuestros-expertos/la-disonancia-cognitiva-y-el-autoengano