Cognitive Dissonance Essay

Before I introduce myself to the depth of this question, I would like to say that what we believe in is cognition; the cognitive theory becomes handy when an individual faces two different beliefs driving him to a conflicting state. For instant, someone likes to smoke marijuana, it is 1st cognition for his behavior, and he may or may not be aware of the negative or positive effect that marijuana can cause to his health; now beside that the same individual likes to drink whiskey, this is the 2nd cognition of his behavior. The individual also has awareness on the effect of whiskey to his life. Now both cognition are not related to each other, but should his marijuana smoking habit become dissonant to his habit of drinking whiskey or vice versa, then according to the …show more content…
A typical example of cognitive dissonance; for example have the habit to enjoy playing with venomous snake, but you know that the snake venom is very harmful then that would result in cognitive dissonance. It is reasonable that cognitive dissonance extend to include justification of effort as a product of cognitive dissonance. When an individual is trapped between two beliefs or behaviors, or even attitude, the level of the conflict could be strong at the point that it creates discomfort or loss of harmony within the individual’s life style. Regardless of the awareness whether positive or negative, individual would engage the ambition of taking the risk to defend his beliefs. “The magnitude of dissonance depends on importance or value of the elements (e.g. knowledge, belief, attitudes) that are dissonant” (Metin & Camgoz,