Cognitive Dissonance

What Cognitive Dissonance is

Cognitive Dissonance (التنافر المعرفي) is a theory in social psychology which assumes that a person feels psychological tension when holding two cognitive elements that are inconsistent, such as a belief that the person’s own behaviour contradicts, or a decision at odds with what the person believes, and that this tension drives the person to reduce it in some way. The theory is attributed to Leon Festinger and his book “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance”, published by Stanford University Press in 1957.

It is a theory of internal consistency within the individual. It is neither a measurement tool nor a procedure for an organisation. Dissonance is an internal state that cannot be observed directly. What can be observed is what the person says and does afterwards, and the same observation can have possible explanations other than dissonance. The concept is described in general terms, with no judgement on any particular employee or on the behaviour of workers in Saudi Arabia.

Where does the theory come from?

The theory originates in Festinger’s 1957 book. We checked the bibliographic data of his works, and of works that followed them, in Crossref. Those data establish that the works exist, not what they contain:

• Festinger. The book “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance”, Stanford University Press, 1957.
• Festinger and Carlsmith. The article “Cognitive consequences of forced compliance” in The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, volume 58, issue 2, 1959, pages 203 to 210.
• Aronson and Mills. The article “The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group” in the same journal, volume 59, issue 2, 1959, pages 177 to 181.
• Nuttin. The article “Attitude Change After Rewarded Dissonant and Consonant Forced Compliance: A Critical Replication of the Festinger and Carlsmith Experiment” in International Journal of Psychology, volume 1, issue 1, 1966, pages 39 to 57.
• Harmon Jones and Mills. The chapter “An introduction to cognitive dissonance theory and an overview of current perspectives on the theory” in the book “Cognitive dissonance: Reexamining a pivotal theory in psychology” (second edition), American Psychological Association, 2019, pages 3 to 24.
• Two authors with the surname Harmon Jones. The article “Cognitive Dissonance Theory After 50 Years of Development” in Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, volume 38, issue 1, 2007, pages 7 to 16.

We have not read the text of any of these works, so we take no figure and no finding from them. The account of the ways of reducing dissonance, and of the 1959 experiment, comes from secondary summaries on the web that we reached by searching. We opened none of them in full, and they differ on some details. The titles of the recorded works show that the idea was still a subject of research half a century later, and they show no more than that.

How do summaries describe reducing cognitive dissonance?

The secondary summaries state that Festinger held that a person reduces dissonance in one of three ways: by changing one of the two conflicting elements, by adding new elements consistent with one of them, or by lowering the importance of the conflicting element. Other summaries count changing behaviour as a separate fourth way. The number therefore differs between sources, and we do not settle it. We have also not compared any of these summaries with Festinger’s text.

The summaries further state that the strength of dissonance depends on how important the elements involved are and on the proportion of dissonant elements to consistent ones. The assumption is that a conflict over a minor matter troubles a person less than a conflict over something that touches the person’s values or livelihood. That is a description of a theoretical assumption, and we know of no test of it that we rely on.

A hypothetical case from the workplace: an employee who believes that accuracy comes first is asked to hand in an incomplete report against a tight deadline. On the account the summaries give, the employee either tells themselves “the deadline matters more than perfection”, which adds an element that eases the conflict, or refuses to hand the report in, which changes the behaviour. The case is illustrative and is not a real event.

What do the summaries describe about the 1959 experiment?

The summaries describe participants who carried out a dull task, after which some were paid one dollar and others 20 dollars to tell a waiting participant that the task was enjoyable. They state that those paid one dollar rated the task as more enjoyable than those paid 20 dollars. The explanation attributed to the experiment is that the higher payment gives a person an external justification for what they said, so dissonance falls, whereas the lower payment gives no such justification, so the person revises their opinion of the task itself.

Pay in the 1959 experiment is an extrinsic motivator, the category contrasted with intrinsic motivation in Work Motivation. Some summaries indicate that the change in attitude is stronger when the behaviour is freely chosen. The recorded title of Nuttin’s article shows that the experiment was the subject of a critical replication, and we do not know what that replication concluded.

How does cognitive dissonance differ from nearby concepts?

• Overconfidence: The definition of Overconfidence Bias describes a gap between how accurate a judgement is and how much confidence is placed in it, measured by comparing the judgement with what actually happened. Dissonance, by contrast, is an internal tension assumed to come before a change of attitude, and it is not measured by comparing a judgement with an outcome.
• An unconscious leaning: Some hiring decisions are explained after they are made. The account of Implicit Bias notes that an interviewer can favour a candidate who resembles the interviewer, and that the preference is later explained as the candidate being “the best fit for the team”. A bias is a leaning its holder is not aware of, whereas dissonance is a tension its holder is assumed to feel, even when the two come together in one decision.
• How employees respond to change: When employees are asked for something that runs against what they believed about their work, our reading is that part of their response is a possible easing of dissonance. Reading part of a response to change as an easing of dissonance does not contradict the point in Resistance to Change that the term describes what shows at work rather than judging anyone stubborn, and that sound reasons, or a flaw in the change itself, sometimes lie behind it.
• Attachment to the organisation: The recorded title of the Aronson and Mills article makes the severity of initiation into a group, and liking for that group, subjects of research. Liking for a group studied against the severity of its initiation is a different matter from the attachment that rests on wanting to stay, the definition of Affective Commitment. In our view, the question about an employee who made a great effort to stay remains open, and we do not claim that the effort raises the employee’s attachment.

A hypothetical example: a selection committee after its decision

Suppose a hypothetical committee of 5 members rated two candidates, A and B, out of 10 before the decision. A’s scores were 6, 6, 7, 5 and 6, a total of 30, so the average was 30 ÷ 5 = 6.0. B’s scores were 6, 7, 6, 5 and 6, also a total of 30, so B’s average was 6.0 as well. There was no difference between them, and the committee chose A.

A week later the members were asked for a new rating. A’s scores were 7, 8, 7, 7 and 7, a total of 36, so the average was 36 ÷ 5 = 7.2. B’s scores were 5, 6, 5, 6 and 5, a total of 27, so the average was 27 ÷ 5 = 5.4. A rose by 1.2 and B fell by 0.6, and the gap between them became 7.2 minus 5.4, which is 1.8, the sum of the two changes, 1.2 + 0.6.

The figures, the candidates and the committee are hypothetical and set out for illustration. They represent no study and no real committee. Treating this shift as what the theory expects after a decision between two close options is our own interpretation and not a statement found in a source. The cause may be new information that emerged during the week, a different recollection of the interviews, or indifference to the second rating. The example raises a question: what changed between the two ratings, and did the reasons stay the same?

How is cognitive dissonance misunderstood?

• Treating every change of opinion as dissonance: An opinion may change because of new information, and dissonance is one possible explanation, not an inevitable one.
• Taking it for hypocrisy: The theory describes a tension the person feels, and it does not judge the person’s sincerity.
• Assuming that low pay raises enthusiasm: As the summaries describe it, the experiment concerned a statement made to another participant, not the pay of an employee working for months, and it cannot properly be generalised to salaries.
• Using it to explain the behaviour of a colleague one is watching: Diagnosing an internal state without a conversation with the person concerned is guesswork.

What is the role of HR?

HR can use the idea as a question rather than a verdict. If a committee’s or a manager’s rating changes after a decision, HR can ask about the reasons that existed before the decision and about the new information that emerged after it. If something in a change request runs against what the team is used to, HR can ask what employees believe about their work before interpreting their response.

Selection and appraisal decisions rest with the managers who hold the authority to take them, and HR does not base a decision about an employee on a theory whose text we have not read. Reasons recorded in the minutes of a decision at the time it is taken can make it easier, later on, to compare the original reason with an explanation offered afterwards.

What does the evidence allow us to say?

We do not claim that dissonance changes employees’ attitudes or decisions in an organisation, nor that cutting or raising pay produces any particular result. We have read neither Festinger’s book nor the articles recorded in Crossref. In the sources we reviewed, we found no Saudi study on cognitive dissonance in Saudi organisations that we rely on. We have not examined any tool that measures the strength of dissonance in an employee at work either, so we offer no score and no threshold. We therefore attribute no effect and no figure to a source.

We think it is better to treat cognitive dissonance as an idea for describing a possibility: that a person revises an opinion to fit what they have done. Any change of opinion is then judged by the facts of the case itself: what was there before the decision and what came up after it.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.