====== Cognitive Dissonance ======

By [[yiler-huang| Yiler Huang]]

Cognitive Dissonance is the situation in which a person holds two conflicting beliefs at the same time. It often makes us uncomfortable because it makes us unsure about our own beliefs. It can be especially uncomfortable when it is related to a person's self image, because it makes us doubt our behaviors and thoughts.

One very common example of this effect happens when a person eats junk food. They know that eating these food might be bad for their body, but they still decide to eat them. This creates a dissonance between the person's thought and their action, which can be uncomforting sometimes. To resolve this dissonance, they might choose to change their action: stop eating junk food, or they might choose to change their thoughts: thinking that maybe junk food isn't that bad. 

Another example is pirating content on the internet. A person who does this might believe that they are ethical and moral, but still decides to pirate content illegally. This creates a dissonance as "being ethical" and "doing illegal things" are two conflicting ideas. A person might resolve this by stop stopping themselges, or accept the fact that they are not ethical and even convince themselves that the act of pirating content is actually not that bad.

When facing cognitive dissonance, there are a number of ways to avoid or get out of it. One way is to change your behavior, which means stop doing the thing that creates the dissonant thought. Or you can change your beliefs by examining the two choices and decide which one might be the better one. It is an important skill to learn to resolve cognitive dissonances because they happen frequently in a person's life and can be very bothering if they are unresolved.