Cognitive

8 Pages 2093 Words

on the intensity we feel about each attitude and our pre-disposed positions concerning the attitude. We either have a favorable, neutral or unfavorable opinion concerning ideas. When two attitudes collide, we will attempt to downgrade the favorable position and upgrade the unfavorable position so that we feel a balance. For example, suppose someone thought of Mel Gibson as a good role model. Later on, they come to find out Mel Gibson does not like football. If the person was to like both football and Mel Gibson one of three things would happen: 1) The individual would downgrade their opinion of Mel Gibson, or 2) downgrade football, or 3) downgrade both. The action taken would create psychological consistency in one’s mind. These theories are very interesting and have been quite researched, but none more so than Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance.
Leon Festinger’s theory, unlike the others I have described, deal with quantitative aspects, as well as qualitative. That is what is so different and revolutionary about Festinger’s theory. Robert Wicklund and Jack Brehm (1976), in their book Perspectives on Cognitive Dissonance, write,“ Most notably, the original statement of dissonance theory include: propositions about the resistance-to-change of cognitions and about the proportion of cognitions that are dissonant, both of which allowed powerful and innovative analyses of psychological situations (p.1). The term “dissonance” refers to the relation between two elements. When two elements do not fit together, they are considered dissonant. Cognitive dissonance can be broken down into a number of elements. As Brehm and Cohen (1962) write, “A dissonant relationship exists between two cognitive elements when a person possesses one which follows the obverse of another that he possesses.
A person experiences dissonance, that is, a motivational tension, when he (or she) has cognitions among which there are one or mor...