Examples Of Cognitive Dissonance

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Provide an example of cognitive dissonance from your own life.
There have been many situations in my life that falls under the theory of cognitive dissonance, but I will narrow my example down to when I use to smoke marijuana. A cognitive dissonance is the discomfort that is caused when two cognitions (beliefs, attitudes) conflict, or when our behavior conflicts with our attitudes (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, Sommers, 2013, p.158). For some people smoking marijuana not produce discomfort, but for me it did, because I was smoking it for the wrong reasons. For example, the only reason I smoke marijuana was when I needed to satisfy my uncomfortable reasons, such as dealing with difficult life decisions that took my life upside down instead of finding Christ to give me peace in the mist of my uncomfortable situations.
How did you reduce the dissonance? …show more content…
The three ways that we can reduce dissonance are we can change our behavior, attempt to justify our behavior through changing the dissonant or justify our behavior by adding new cognitions (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, Sommers, 2013, p.158). As I continued to smoke, I looked in the mirror one day and decided this wasn’t the self-image that I wanted to portray. I begin to focus on my good qualities in spite of the bad decisions I had made, therefore, I simply changed my behavior by stop smoking marijuana with self-affirmation (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, Sommers, 2013,

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