Cognitive Dissonance

What Cognitive Dissonance means

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of holding two things that do not fit, most often a belief and something we have already done, and the pull to make them fit. We rewrite beliefs to soothe the ache of contradiction. That is the whole definition. Owning it changes where we look for the edit. We start to notice the ache itself, the small flinch when the new evidence arrives, before the story arrives to cover it. We stop trusting the reasons that appear suspiciously fast after a choice we cannot undo. Before, the smoker's grandfather who lived to ninety felt like a fair point. After, we can hear it as the belief bending so the habit can stay, and we know the sound in our own voice.

Not to be confused with

Cognitive dissonance is not confirmation bias. Confirmation bias shapes which evidence we look for. Dissonance is what happens after evidence gets through and clashes with a belief, and the belief gets quietly rewritten to make the ache stop.

Cognitive Dissonance examples: where it shows up

• At work: the hire we championed underperforms, and we find ourselves grading their work more kindly than anyone else's.
• With money: the more a thing cost us, the better we need it to be, and the review we write reflects the price rather than the product.
• In the news: a politician we backed does the thing we said we would never accept, and by the weekend it has become a shrewd move.

Where it sits

Concept 3 of 5 in How People Actually Work, a journey in the course How the World Works.

See where Cognitive Dissonance sits on the sky →

Nearest on the sky

• Anger as a Judgement
• Commitment and Consistency
• Disposition Effect
• Impressions and Judgements
• Loss Aversion
• Narrative Identity

A filled dot marks a star that is already open to walk.