International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Cognitive dissonance is a theory developed in the late 1950s by US psychologist →  Leon Festinger , which claims that people tend to avoid information and situations that are likely to increase a dissonance with their existing cognitions, such as beliefs, attitudes, or other value judgments. The author proposed the following basic hypotheses: “(1) The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance. (2) When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance” ( Festinger 1957 , 3). For him, “two elements are in a dissonant relationship if, considering these two alone, the obverse of one element would follow from the other” ( Festinger 1957 , 13). The theory has become by far the most influential of all theories based on the consistency paradigm. At the same time, it was one of the most controversial ones. In 1968 Aronson wrote, “Over the past three years, dissonance theory continued to generate more research and more hostility than any other one approach” ( Aronson 1968 , 5). And other authors noted with irony that the scientific career of the theory proved it to be right because its proponents did not take note of successful falsifications, or its opponents of confirming results. ... log in or subscribe to read full text