Leon Festinger

Alleviating Cognitive Dissonance In the chapter “Quieting the Mind” of the book, Opening Skinner’s Box, author Lauren Slater examines the theory of cognitive dissonance. Leon Festinger, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, originally introduced the theory of cognitive dissonance to psychology in 1957. The basic way of thinking about cognitive dissonance is that it refers to a situation when two or more cognitive elements (such as behaviors and attitudes/ beliefs) are inconsistent, causing psychological stress and discomfort. Festinger tested his theory by constructing several experiments to observe if participants changed their beliefs to be congruent with their behaviors. The results are that people have an inner drive to hold…

Final Research Paper For the final paper you are to research a specific aspect of cognition, emotion and motivation that most interests you. Integrate a discussion of how you see your research findings as significant to your clinical work or the field of psychology in general. Cognitive Dissonance Psychologist Leon Festinger will be remembered for his theory of cognitive dissonance. His theory and research centered on the subjective feeling of tension or discomfort that occurs when a…

a self-inflicted world they lived in. Only through learning and applying as much as I possibly could throughout this lecture course on social psychology was I able to understand why many things were the way they were. Most importantly the sections of the course that covered ‘The Social Self” and “Social Cognition” helped me finally construct and understand the framework of why these impoverish areas are unchanging and why this mindset is perpetuated. The concepts implemented within the section…

an individual 's behavior and a group 's standards or expectations. This behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. “Loyalty to one 's party everyone is matching wearing the same thing. Compliance refers to the act of changing one’s behavior in response to a direct request. These are act or process of complying with a desire, demand, or proposal. Thanksgiving is nearby please feed the poor and give charity. Obedience is a special type of compliance that involves…

Love Last?, 2012). Defensiveness refers a one’s inability to accept one’s mistakes, which discourages offended partner from communicating with the offending partner (Gottman & Silver, What Makes Love Last?, 2012). Finally, Gottman explains that contempt refers to the hatred that a one develops towards one’s partner. This also hinders effective communication (Gottman & Silver, What Makes Love Last?, 2012). Theory The communication theory that is applicable in this research study is the…

Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory revolutionized the world of social psychology. It did so by focusing on the on-going cognitions in people’s minds, particularly- dissonant cognitions. His model stated that unpleasant feelings produced by dissonant cognitions motivate us to do something to change our state. My essay will focus on the reduction of dissonance, as I noted it to be an interesting phenomena which can be done in a multitude of ways- the most convenient being convincing…

- Bryant, J., Thompson, S. & Finklea, B. W. (2013). Fundamentals of Media Effects (2nd Ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. - In Chapter Nineteen, the authors briefly mentioned Social Comparison Theory that was initially proposed by Leon Festinger in 1954. This theory suggests that individuals often evaluate their own thoughts and capabilities by comparing themselves to others in the society, in order to gain certainty in defining their self. Based on this theory, viewers (primarily…

Social Comparison. The inclusion of social comparison within the TIM stems from social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954). According to Festinger (1954), individuals have an inherent drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities. When objective standards are unavailable, individuals seek out others to make comparisons. The outcome of such comparisons is partially influenced by directionality, that is upward or downward. Upward comparisons are proposed to occur when an individual compares him-…

decrease the comprehension of the ad and in some cases had a negative effect on the success of the advertisement. Almost everything we see today online is some form of advertisement. This topic is worth studying because companies spend billions of dollars on advertising every year. If there was a way to make these advertisement campaigns more effective, that would be very valuable and businesses would take advantage of that information. The communication in this topic is among company and…

Attitudes determine how we act towards those objects, people and in certain situations. There are thought to be three components to attitudes: your thoughts and beliefs (the cognitive component), your feelings about the idea (the affective component) and how you act towards the idea (the behavioral component). These components are not always consistent with each other but it is perceived that when they are inconsistent it makes us feel an uncomfortable mental state that motivates us to reduce…