FESTINGERS THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
FESTINGERS THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE The most general of all the consistency theories and, as one might expect, the one that has generated the largest body of empirical data is Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. It is also a theory that has generated considerable controversy in the field of social psychology. Dissonance theory holds that two elements of knowledge "are in dissonant relation if, considering these two alone, the obverse of one element would follow from the other" (Festinger, 1957). As with other consistency theories, it holds that dissonance, "being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce dissonance and achieve consonance" and "in addition to trying to reduce it the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance". In cognitive dissonance the elements in question may be (1) irrelevant to one another, (2) consistent with one another (in ...