Cognitive Dissonance: Where Weve Been and Where Were Going International Review of Social Psychology

First, other potential factors contributing to discontinuous usage intentions among pan-entertainment mobile live broadcast platform users were not examined. These factors could include the quality of content, the reliability of the platform, and the level of user engagement. Future research could investigate these factors to gain a more comprehensive understanding of discontinuous usage intentions. Second, the study used a cross-sectional survey design with a single source of data, which limits the ability to establish causality and the changes in discontinuous usage intentions over time.

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In principle, the vicarious hypocrisy procedure can be adapted for an entire social group. Vicarious dissonance predicts that all of the group members would experience hypocrisy and the entire group would be motivated to adopt the healthy behavior that is the focus of the intervention. Fazio and I concluded that dissonance is ubiquitous but its conceptualization is incomplete. Actions have consequences and it is the perception of those consequences that drives the dissonance process. As cognizant human beings, we assess the results of our actions, including the valence. We typically strive to engage in situations with consequences that are desirable and acceptable.

Dangers of Cognitive Dissonance for Substance Abusers

This often leads to justifying addictive behaviors and minimizing the negative consequences they have. Furthermore, emotional and cognitive conflicts arise in addiction due to cognitive dissonance. Emotionally, individuals may feel guilt, shame, or anxiety as a result of their addictive behaviors conflicting with their personal values. Cognitively, they may experience internal debates and justifications, which further exacerbate the psychological struggle. When participants were asked whether messages received from peers on social media differ from those received from prevention sources, two themes emerged. Participants discussed congruencies and cognitive dissonance addiction incongruencies between formal prevention messages (i.e. drug education and PSAs) and peer posts.

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For example, Ye, Cho, Chen, and Jia 11 found a positive relationship between users’ perception of information overload and discontinuous usage intention in social media platforms. Moreover, the literature has widely documented the negative effects of user addiction on cognitive dissonance 90,91. Pan-entertainment mobile live broadcast users experience information overload, service overload, and user addiction, leading to cognitive dissonance and resulting in discontinuous usage intention. Homogeneous content domain overload and heterogeneous information impact contribute to cognitive dissonances, such as anxiety, guilt, and regret, while the platform’s functions may exceed individual cognitive and processing abilities. The individual heterogeneous cognitive structure and negative effects of user addiction can also trigger cognitive dissonance, which can be alleviated by the behavioral intention of stopping use or uninstalling it.

International Review of Social Psychology

The mental state of cognitive dissonance can actually have a very powerful effect on our thoughts and behaviors. We will do a number of things to try to restore harmony between our conflicting thoughts and behaviors. One study compared this feeling of dissonance to the sensations of being hungry or thirsty—we want to get rid of that discomfort, so we eat or get a drink of water (Cooper and Carlsmith, 2002). One example of this type of psychological research is the studies originally done by Leon Festinger in the 1950’s.

Cognitive Dissonance and Addiction: The Psychological Struggle of Addictive Behaviors

• We can all engage in habits that cause harm to ourselves or the world, and that can cause cognitive dissonance.
• When cognitive dissonance and addiction collide, it’s like adding fuel to an already raging fire.
• Moreover, individuals who suffer from mental disorders abuse drugs at higher rates than the general population.
• Another study documented memory deficits in 10-year-old children who had been exposed prenatally to alcohol or marijuana (Richardson et al., 2002).

Treatment options for individuals experiencing cognitive dissonance in addiction include therapy, residential treatment programs, and intervention planning services. One-on-one therapy is particularly effective in addressing cognitive dissonance and helping individuals shift their beliefs and behaviors. The psychological struggle of addictive behaviors is rooted in the impact of cognitive dissonance on the perception of addiction. Individuals may downplay or rationalize their addictive behaviors to maintain consistency with their self-image or personal values. This process allows individuals to minimize cognitive dissonance by justifying or denying the negative aspects of their addictive behaviors. In school environments, harm reduction has shown to increase youth engagement and endorsement of content compared to abstinence-only messaging 21, 40, 41.

Strategies for Tackling Cognitive Dissonance in Recovery

• Paul Wong and Peter Adams made critical revisions of the manuscript and contributed to the literature review as well as the qualitative data analysis.
• Recovery is indeed possible, and there are numerous resources available to assist in the journey toward a healthier and happier life.
• People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes unpleasant feelings of unease or discomfort.
• Camille Cox is the Family Advisor, Continuing Care Supervisor at Elevate Addiction Services South Lake Tahoe campus.
• They also share the negative emotions (Mackie & Smith 1998), which we predicted would include cognitive dissonance.

Consequently, this internal conflict gives rise to negative emotions and discomfort. To maintain a positive self-image, individuals may align their beliefs with their actions, even in the presence of evidence pointing to harm. Furthermore, they may devise justifications for their addictive behaviors, deceiving themselves and avoiding the harsh reality of their addiction.

• The time is right for dissonance to show its mettle as a principle for real world change.
• Alcohol expectancies are shaped by numerous factors, including perceptions of peers’ and close friends’ drinking 31, previous drinking experiences 32, and media portrayals 33.
• In the context of information systems, self-efficacy has been studied in relation to various aspects of user behavior, such as technology adoption, usage behavior, and satisfaction 99.
• Almost all participants (27/30; 90.0%) had been exposed to peers using substances, online or in-person.

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The difference in how close they came to Oz served as our measure of success of the therapy. As predicted by dissonance, participants in the high choice condition came more than 10 feet closer to the snake after the therapy, but in the low choice and test-retest control conditions, there was no improvement. In the New Look perspective, the arousal state is not caused by inconsistency, but rather by the perception of having been responsible for bringing about an aversive event (Scher & Cooper, 1989). Cognitive inconsistency is relevant because having inconsistent representations often produces unwanted consequences – but not always. Scher & Cooper (1989) compared the role of consistency between cognitions with the role of consequences. We found that dissonance was aroused whenever a course of action produced unwanted consequences, regardless of whether behavior was consistent or inconsistent with attitudes.

What Influences Cognitive Dissonance?

But the way they do it looks like it’s a necessity to be a part of a certain acts, like let’s say a party. I think even if you see someone smoking, the chances of you going and also smoking are quite less compared to if you see the effects or you see what harm it can do. The heterotrait–monotrait ratio of validity, also known as the ratio of between-trait to within-trait correlations, is used to assess the discriminant validity of different constructs. It compares the average correlations between indicators of different constructs to the averages between indicators of the same construct. As shown in the Table 4, the results indicate that the HTMT values between each pair of variables in this study are below 0.85, indicating good discriminant validity for each variable.

Cognitive Dissonance and Addiction: Unraveling the Mental Struggle in Substance Abuse

This is not to say that dissonance has Halfway house remained a laboratory science without practical application. To the contrary, When Prophecy Fails (Festinger et al., 1956) was an analysis and prediction of what would happen to real people in the real world who had committed themselves to a prediction that would be contradicted by reality. Cooper, Darley and Henderson (1974) studied the impact of dissonance on political election campaigns. Staw (1974) used dissonance theory to understand the reactions of Americans to the lottery that determined whether they would be drafted for the Vietnam War.