Select one (1) of the options below to complete your discussion task for this we

Question

Select one (1) of the options below to complete your discussion task for this week:

1. Cognitive Dissonance

- What are the three basic ways to reduce cognitive dissonance?

2. Action Justification

- Think about a past goal (visiting a friend in another state, going on vacation, buying an expensive item) that you wanted to achieve. List two things you had to do to achieve this goal. Were the goal and your action to achieve the goal justifiably? Why or why not?

3. Attitude Change

- How can external factors such as social influence and internal factors such as emotions and confidence change attitudes?

Explanation / Answer

Cognitive Dissonance: It is the situational conflict between a person's attitude, belief, and behavior. When a person holds a belief of something and it turns out surprisingly different or opposite in their behavior, that is a state of Cognitive Dissonance. The number of dissonant beliefs and their importance to a person is the two factors that define the strength of the Dissonance. For example, if a person knows that he did all questions right in a test and ends up scoring distinctly low, he would not be able to bridge it and will suffer from Cognitive Dissonance.

Three basic ways to reduce Cognitive Dissonance are:

(1) Reducing the importance of the dissonant beliefs. With respect to the example above, this way of approach would be to understand that a single test does not decide anything.

(2) Adding harmonious beliefs that overpower the dissonant beliefs. Understanding that there may have been some mistakes you did in the test and did not notice or the examiner might have been strict on evaluation, may bring harmony to dissonance.

(3) Changing the dissonant beliefs so that they are not inconsistent anymore. Knowing that a test would not decide or judge what you are, you may no longer depend on tests to measure you and that's how the dissonant belief is changed.

Cognitive Dissonance is, in fact, a great opportunity for positive change and growth. The way a person deals with and resolves a Dissonance well reflects the person's mental health.

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