The Virtue Of Cognitive Dissonance

Our attitudes and behavior are so intermingled that they can hardly be separated. Nevertheless, we sometimes say things we do not mean or act in a way we do not approve of. This clash creates cognitive dissonance, which causes discomfort and a need for justification. Since human beings do not like discomfort or cognitive dissonance, we then come up with a different perspective on our words and actions or we might even start filtering the information just to get rid of the cognitive dissonance by justifying our words and actions to ourselves. This happens all the time. Most of us have found ourselves saying things we do not mean in the heat of an argument. We later feel discomfort and guilt, so we either try to justify what we said or we admit …show more content…
I have always been brutally honest. When I was younger, I was one of those children whose parents had to warn them not to say anything when it was obvious that someone was lying. For instance, someone at the shopping mall using lies to sell a product or a family friend claiming they had never said something when we all heard it. A lot of things about me have changed over the years, but that one stayed the same. The only difference is that now my friends are the ones warning me not to say anything in such situations. Even though honesty is a valuable virtue and I appreciate it more than anything, it often creates a cognitive dissonance for me. Besides lies, I also hate hurting those around me and the truth can really hurt, especially if it is said at a wrong time. As human beings, we are very complicated and we often ask others for the truth even though we really want them to agree with us regardless of what the truth may be. We have all been in a situation when we would have appreciated a sweet …show more content…
I am a huge perfectionist, which is so annoying and exhausting. Due to my perfectionism, I have a need to be good at everything I do and to make it as close to perfect as possible. For instance, I can take an elective class outside of my major that I could not care less about such as art or music. Even though I do not think that artistic fields are less valuable than psychology and I have always admired artistic people, art is not the field of my interest. Considering my interests, many people with similar interests would only work for a passing grade in such an elective class, but I have this need to be good at it and get an A. This creates cognitive dissonance for me because I find myself wondering why I put so much effort and get frustrated about an art project when I do not even care about art and I am far from being artistic. So, I try to justify my actions by telling myself that there is nothing wrong with trying my best, being ambitious or getting out of my comfort zone. I really wish my brain would use the same effort to justify my failures in something that I do care about when I start beating myself up about not doing that great. In addition, being competitive, which is a trait that I have gained throughout the years of doing track and field, does not help with my cognitive dissonance because I look at other people in art class and think: “If they can do it, I can