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What is Cognitive Dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort you feel when you hold contradictory thoughts, beliefs values, or attitudes as it relates to your decisions and behavior (see my article: Living Authentically Aligned With Your Values).
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| What is Cognitive Dissonance? |
When there's discomfort due to inconsistencies in what you believe and how you behave, you tend to do whatever you can to minimize your discomfort.
You might attempt to relieve your discomfort by avoiding, rejecting, minimizing or explaining away any information that highlights the fact that your behavior and your beliefs aren't in alignment (see my article: Understanding Internal and External Defense Mechanisms - Part 1 and Part 2.
What Are the Telltale Signs of Cognitive Dissonance?
- You feel uncomfortable before you make a decision or take action which goes against your values and beliefs.
- You try to rationalize a decision or an action you have taken (this includes rationalizing to yourself as well as others).
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| Telltale Signs of Cognitive Dissonance |
- You feel embarrassed or ashamed of a decision you have made or an action you have taken so you try not to think about it and you also try to hide it from others.
- You feel regret, guilt or shame about something you have done in the past.
- You do things that are against your values and beliefs due of social pressure and because you don't want to feel left out.
The following are examples of cognitive dissonance, which you might recognize in yourself:
- You know that smoking cigarettes (or vaping) is harmful to your health, but you rationalize continuing to smoke (or vape) by telling yourself that you're experiencing a lot of stress and you'll give up tobacco tomorrow.
- Your doctor told you that you need to stop drinking because you have liver damage, but you find ways to justify continuing to drink by telling yourself you'll give up drinking as part of your New Year's resolutions. But you don't stop by the deadline you've given yourself. Despite the fact you haven't stopped, you tell yourself (and others) you can stop at any time.
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| Cognitive Dissonance Related to Your Health and Well-Being |
- You want to lose weight, but you consistently overeat and tell yourself you'll start the diet next week.
- You value your personal integrity, but you're having an extramarital affair and you're lying to your spouse about what you're doing when you're with your affair partner (see my article: The Allure of the Extramarital Affair).
- You made a commitment to your spouse to tackle a task at home, but while your spouse is out, you spend the day on your computer. When your spouse gets home, you say you'll get started on the project tomorrow, but you keep finding ways to put off doing it. You also get annoyed when your spouse wants you to be accountable.
- You make a commitment to yourself that you'll save a certain amount of money by a specified date, but you spend any extra cash you get before you save it.
- External Pressure and Expectations: You might feel forced to comply with external expectations from your work, school or in a social situation that go against your beliefs, values or attitudes. Here are examples:
- Your boss says you must lie to a client you value and put your relationship with the client in jeopardy in order to increase your sales (see my article: Coping With a Difficult Boss).
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| Cognitive Dissonance and External Pressure |
- You're with friends who are engaging in racial slurs and, even though you feel uncomfortable because racism is against your values, you don't say anything because you fear being ostracized from the group, but you also feel ashamed of yourself.
- You're in a monogamous relationship and being faithful to your partner is an important value to you. But you're at a bar with your buddies, they pressure you to pick up a woman at the bar and take her home. Initially, you refuse and they respond by calling you "whipped" and a "wuss." So, you go along with taking a woman home and cheating on your partner because you can't handle your friends' pressure and derogatory comments. Afterwards, you feel ashamed, but you justify your decision by telling yourself that you're not married so you can sleep with other women--even though you promised your partner to be faithful (see my article: Are Toxic Secrets Ruining Your Relationship?)
- Decisions: You're in conflict about two options when you're trying to make a decision. You can only choose one option, which makes you feel uncomfortable. After you make a choice, you realize you made the wrong decision. You try to make yourself feel better about the conflict by justifying why you made a particular choice.
- New Information: You receive new information about a decision you made that reveals you didn't take into account all the information relevant to your decision. To ward off feelings of discomfort, you either discredit the information or find other ways to justify your behavior--even though you know the choice you made was harmful to you and others.
What is the Impact of Cognitive Dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance makes you feel uncomfortable, and the greater discrepancy between your behavior and your attitudes, beliefs and values, the more uncomfortable you're likely to feel.
Your discomfort can include the following:
- Anxiety
- Guilt
- Shame
- Embarrassment
- Sadness
- Regret
- Anger towards yourself
- Disappointment in yourself
- Stress
Over time, cognitive dissonance can erode your sense of self and impair your self esteem.
You might try maladaptive ways to reduce your discomfort by:
- Engaging in denial by convincing yourself you didn't behave in a way that was against your values or beliefs
- Maintaining toxic secrets and hiding your behavior from your partner, your family and other significant people in your life
- Seeking only information that conforms to your behavior, which is called confirmation bias, and which has a negative impact on your ability to think critically.
So far, I've provided maladaptive examples of how you might be trying to deal with cognitive dissonance.
Here are more adaptive ways of coping:
- Slow Down and Develop Greater Self Awareness: Instead of finding ways to deny your internal conflicts, become aware of these conflicts and the negative impact they have on you and your loved ones. You can try doing this through a mindfulness meditation, journaling or seeking emotional support from a trusted friend who can be compassionate and objective.
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| Coping with Cognitive Dissonance in a Healthy Way |
- Clarify Your Beliefs, Attitudes and Values: Take time to think carefully and make a list about what's important to you in terms of your beliefs, attitudes and values.
- Practice Self Compassion: Instead of beating yourself up, practice self compassion, which is essential for emotional healing.
- Make a Plan For Real Change: After you have clarified what's most important to you, make a plan for real change. For example, if you want to stop smoking (or vaping), make a plan to get help that will be effective and one that you can maintain.
- Engage in Self Care: Reflect on what you need to do to take care of yourself without making excuses and then stick with your plan.
- Get Help in Therapy: Coming to terms with the conflicts between your behavior and your values can be difficult, especially if you're in the habit of making excuses, deceiving yourself and others or finding loopholes for your behavior. A skilled therapist can help you to:
- Discover the underlying issues that have created this problem
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| Get Help in Therapy |
- Develop the necessary internal resources and coping skills to overcome these issues
- Develop a plan to make changes
- Help you to stick with your plan and avoid the pitfalls and obstacles from the past
About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.
I work with individual adults and couples.
To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.
To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.
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