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The Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance In Social Psychology

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Cognitive Dissonance
According to Webster Dictionary (), cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions. It 's also believed that by adding new cognitions, a person can create a consistent belief system, or alternative by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements.

Leon Festinger was an author, psychologist, and a realm of new light in the late 1950 's. In 1957, he wrote a book called Theory of Cognitive Dissonance where his research for this period was remarkable. His initial theory was introduced to the world in a paper called” Social Communication and Cognition: A Very Preliminary and Highly Tentative Draft" which only his University of Minnesota classmates read. This was the beginning of a social and psychological movement most of the world was un-ready for. (Harmon and Mills, 1999)

About sixty years ago, Fetinger studied social psychology and how determinants of attitude, causes effects of disagreement among people and other important processes. Festinger proposed that cognitions of this theory can be relevant or irrelevant to one another. Further, the magnitude in which, the person 's cognitions depends on the importance of cognitions that are consonant and dissonant. To elaborate, dissonance
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