Glossary
Cognitive Dissonance
What is Cognitive Dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that arises when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their behavior conflicts with their self-concept. First described by Leon Festinger in 1957, the theory predicts that people are motivated to reduce this discomfort — typically by changing one of the conflicting cognitions, adding new consonant cognitions, or reducing the perceived importance of the conflict. A smoker who believes smoking is harmful may feel this conflict and respond by quitting, downplaying the risks, or emphasizing a perceived benefit such as stress relief. The theory proposes conditions under which people may change an attitude or reinterpret an action; inconsistency does not guarantee a particular response.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory: The $1 and $20 Experiment
Festinger and James Carlsmith demonstrated the theory's counterintuitive predictions in their classic 1959 experiment. Participants performed an extremely boring task (turning pegs on a board) and were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell the next participant that the task was enjoyable. The $1 group subsequently rated the task as more enjoyable than the $20 group. The authors interpreted this result as attitude change under insufficient external justification: a smaller payment offered less reason for making the statement. The researchers inferred this explanation from the pattern of results. They did not directly observe each participant reasoning through the conflict.
Does the IKEA Effect Demonstrate Cognitive Dissonance?
Effort justification is often used to explain attachment to things people worked to obtain. However, the original IKEA-effect studies found that higher valuation depended on successful completion, and subsequent experiments identified feelings of competence as an explanation. So a person valuing something they built does not, by itself, demonstrate dissonance.
Why it matters
Cognitive dissonance is one account of some forms of rationalization and resistance to change. To use it as an explanation, compare it with other plausible reasons for the same behavior.