Cognitive Dissonance: A drive or feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is discrepant from one's customary, typically positive self-conception
Rationalising behaviour
Changing Cognition
Justification Effect: The tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain. When the amount of effort put into something is not equal to the payoff or result, the individual will experience cognitive dissonance. In an attempt to reduce the dissonance, they will rationalise that the result was indeed worth the effort that they put in, subsequently believing that it was worth it.
Justifying Good vs Bad Deed
The Ben Franklin Effect(justifying good deeds): It is when you are kind to someone whom you would not normally be kind to, and this create dissonance. To decrease dissonance, you would start to rationalise that this person is deserving of your kindness, and start to view them in a more positive light.
Justifying Bad Deeds: Changing your value (this is not too bad of a thing to do) or perception (the people on the receiving end of my bad deeds deserve it) to justify bad things that you have done to reduce the dissonance that you feel when you commit those things
Justifying Reward and Punishment
Counter-attitudinal Advocacy: Changing your cognition to justify behaving in a way that runs counter to your private thoughts and beliefs.
High extrinsic reward for an unenjoyable task: People would still see the task as unenjoyable. There is the presence of external justification for what they did.
Low extrinsic reward for an unenjoyable task: People would feel dissonance as they did something they didn't like without external justification. As such, they would rationalise that they indeed enjoy what they did
Insufficient Punishment
Severe punishment for enjoyable/tempting task: People would still see the task as tempting or enjoyable
Mild punishment for enjoyable/tempting task: People would feel dissonance if they chose not to do something that they wanted to do, even though it warranted mild consequences. As a result, they would rationalise that they didn't want to partake in the activity in the first place.
Changing Behaviour
Post-Decisions Dissonance (Dealing with Difficult Decisions)
After a behavioural commitment has been made to one of two difficult competing options, an individual would feel dissonance arising from the cons of the option that they chose and the pros of the option that they did not choose. To decrease dissonance, the individual would up-play the cons of the option that they did not choose, and the pros of the option that they chose. They would also downplay the pros of the option that they did not choose, and the cons of the option that they did choose.
The irrevocability or permanence of a decision is positively correlated with the amount of dissonance one would feel. The more permanent or irrevocable the decision, the stronger the need to reduce dissonance (the more rationalisation)
Lowballing: A tactic used in sales to create the illusion that the customer has already committed to purchasing an item, and then increasing the price of the item slightly more than what was originally promised. Since the customer already believes or feels that they have committed to the deal, they would experience cognitive dissonance and start to rationalise that the deal is still desirable.
Cognitive dissonance reduces people's feelings of disappointment by helping them to look for silver linings
Impact Bias: The tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of one's emotional reactions to future negative events
Increase Cognition to the extent that the behaviour becomes inexcusable (e.g. If you don't quit smoking you won't be able to see your grandchildren)
Hypocrisy Paradigm (using behaviour to fight behaviour): Have the person advocate the desired behaviour. The person would start to feel uncomfortable with the fact that they themselves are not practicing what they are preaching, and in turn would change their behaviour to the desired outcome as well (hypocrisy induction)
Adding Cognition: Adding a completely different reason to justify discrepant behaviour
People with high self-esteem are more susceptible to cognitive dissonance as as they are more likely to experience discrepancies between their behaviour and their internal regard for themselves
Self-Affirmation Theory: People can reduce threats to their self-esteem by affirming themselves in areas unrelated to the source of the threat
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory: People experience dissonance when someone close to us outperforms us in an area that is central to our self-esteem.
Reduced by becoming less close to the person, outperforming them, or deciding that the area is not that important to us
Narcissism: Combination of excessive self-love and lack of empathy toward others (too much self-esteem)
Terror-management theory: Self-esteem serves as a buffer to protect ourselves from terrifying thoughts of our own mortality