Kevin's Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Cognitive Dissonance Theory
By: Kevin Lopina

       When I first received this assignment I had no idea what this theory was and how it was applied to schooling as well as just in everyday life.  The more I researched it, the more I saw that the Cognitive Dissonance Theory is seen day in and day out, both in the classroom and in everyday life.  "Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors.  This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance (simplypsychology.com)."  From the looks of it I believe this to be an embedded theory and one that effects students as well as teachers.  In simple words, this theory is somewhat of a comfort zone created by a person to ease a situation.  An example from the classroom would be if someone did not study for a quiz and they are worried in class, their mind gives them a separate reasoning of why they will be okay, even though deep down inside they are not.  And this applies for any beliefs we have that have some cognition, when something goes against that there is a problem and a discrepancy that fires up inside of us.

The comic above is a basic example of how someone would use this theory to justify what they are doing, even though it may be wrong.  This is the reason it falls under the cognitivism/pragmatism model.  
       This theory can also be applied in a few different ways or steps according to professionals.  First, an individual will try and change one or more attitudes towards a certain topic or person, next that person will now try and acquire new information based on their change of attitude.  By doing this, they will decrease the importance of their cognitions.  So broken down into three parts it looks like this.
1. forced compliance behavior
2. decision making
3. effort

Sometime this theory can be forced onto someone, even when they do not want it to be.  Such as when a student is asked to give a speech, and inside they privately do not want to have anything to do with giving the speech.  This tension creates dissonance and a ripple between the two conflicting parties.  So as I have read more into this theory I see it happening everyday in the classroom and in the work force.  We change situations to make us more comfortable even though we are not and it is very fascinating how we have this mechanism and never have really sat down and thought about why we do the things we do.  

Below I posted links with more information regarding this theory.

http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/cognitive-dissonance.html