Cognitive Dissonance: What It Is and How To Cope

Cognitive dissonance is a state of psychological discomfort you experience when you hold on to two or more conflicting beliefs or values, or when your actions contradict those beliefs.

Cognitive dissonance involves feelings of discomfort, angst, guilt or shame in response to the decisions you’re making or the beliefs you’re questioning. And it can occur with a wide range of behaviors and beliefs, like quitting smoking, eating healthier or defining your intentions.

“When you’re consistently making choices that go against your beliefs, it can cause a lot of stress and unhappiness,” says psychologist Kia-Rai Prewitt, PhD. “You’re feeling this discomfort because you’re trying to figure it out and actively work through this conflict.”

Cognitive dissonance examples

This psychological phenomenon can have a direct impact on you and your relationships. Here are some examples of how cognitive dissonance can play out.

Health and wellness

• Smoking: You’re trying to quit smoking, but you sneak a cigarette on a particularly stressful day. You feel ashamed and justify the action because you’re stressed or anxious.
• Healthy eating: You’re trying to eat healthy, but you pick fast food because you don’t have a lot of time in between appointments. You rationalize this decision by telling yourself you’ll do better next time.
• Exercising: You make a New Year’s resolution to exercise regularly, but a couple of weeks in, you stop exercising even though you value the activity.

Relationships

• Social pressures: Your friends do something you don’t agree with and you feel forced to follow or excuse their actions because you want to avoid conflict.
• Cheating: You hook up with another person, even though you value monogamy and you’re in a committed relationship. You feel ashamed and anxious because you’re torn between different values.
• Lying: You tell a lie to avoid conflict or hurting someone’s feelings, but you feel ashamed for not being honest when you value honesty and integrity.

Regretting decisions

• Parenting: You want to attend your child’s recital or practice, but feel forced to choose work instead because of a conflicting schedule or undue pressure from your boss.
• Finances: You charge your credit card for something you want, but know that you have financial difficulty. You do it anyway, thinking it will bring joy, but you end up stressed and anxious about building debt.
• Lifestyle decisions: You believe in the importance of recycling, but don’t have access to a recycling program, forcing you to throw things out with the regular trash.

Work

• Frequent complaints: There’s a lot you don’t like about your job, but you force yourself to stay anyway because you need the money.
• Conflicting values: Your values and priorities aren’t in line with the company’s values, making it difficult for you to show up in an authentic way.
• Scheduling conflicts: You’re often asked to overperform or overwork with late nights and on the weekends. This disrupts other areas of your life that you hold more important.

Ethics

• Purchasing power: You give money to a company that doesn’t support the values you believe in, and you hide this activity or feel ashamed because it doesn’t suit who you really are.
• Exams and tests: Unprepared, you decide to cheat on a test even though it’s more important for you to understand the material. Procrastination has set you behind, so this is your solution, even though it isn’t in line with what you would normally do.
• Dangerous behaviors: You’re aware of the risks and don’t want anything bad to happen, but you misuse drugs, alcohol and other substances anyway.

“Sometimes, you may decide to do something that goes against a strongly held belief because of cognitive flexibility or because the behavior has low risk,” notes Dr. Prewitt. “In some situations, someone may not always have the opportunity to make a decision that aligns with their values.”

Signs of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance creates a lot of discomfort and doubt. It can feel very similar to anxiety and stress. You may be experiencing cognitive dissonance if you:

• Question or second-guess your own decisions or beliefs
• Experience discomfort because your values don’t coincide with your actions or your environment
• Feel guilty or ashamed because your decisions aren’t in line with your beliefs
• Feel like you’ve lost control of situations or events you care deeply about
• Have difficulty rationalizing or justifying your actions or the actions of others
• Have difficulty recognizing the person you’ve become and feel a lost sense of self
• Rationalize the decisions you’ve made in order to feel better about them

“If you feel you have to justify those actions in order to be OK with them, or you’re carrying around guilt because of what you did, those are signs you’re having cognitive dissonance,” says Dr. Prewitt.

Why it happens

This psychological phenomenon can occur for several reasons, but perhaps some of the most common causes include:

• Learning new information that challenges your beliefs
• Social pressures to think or act a certain way
• Acting in a way that helps avoid conflict even though it goes against your values

“You’re more likely to feel guilty or upset if you’re doing something that goes against your values,” reiterates Dr. Prewitt.

How to minimize cognitive dissonance

When you’re caught between conflicting ideas or behaviors, there are ways to minimize the impact of cognitive dissonance. You can:

• Take a break and reflect on your values and priorities.
• Set your intentions and be assertive about your values.
• Explore and understand the source of doubts when faced with new information.
• Try to be positive and open-minded.
• Avoid rationalizing or justifying behavior that doesn’t reflect your values.
• Change your behaviors so they’re more in line with how you really feel and think.

“As young people evolve into adulthood, they often question what gives them meaning,” reflects Dr. Prewitt. “As they gain more independence, they might realize some of the beliefs they developed during childhood could be holding them back, so they start reevaluating.”

But cognitive dissonance isn’t always a bad thing. If you’re feeling discomfort about your actions or beliefs, it may be a sign that you need to check in with yourself.

Bottom line? Everyone experiences cognitive dissonance at some point in their lives. What matters is how you respond to it. You can think of cognitive dissonance like a crossroad — what you decide to do with those conflicting beliefs and behaviors will determine where you’re headed next and who you want to be.