Cognitive Dissonance

Discomfort from holding conflicting cognitions, resolved by changing attitudes or beliefs to restore consistency.

Specifications & Metrics

Festinger's 1957 theory proposed that inconsistent cognitions create aversive arousal that motivates resolution.
Its paradigms include induced compliance, effort justification, and free-choice reevaluation of options.
Dissonance theory became one of social psychology's most generative frameworks, spawning thousands of studies.