Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort one feels when he/she is having a hard time making a choice or decision; specifically, as soon as one makes a choice he/she immediately starts to question whether or not he/she should have made a different selection. Here’s a real world example–say you are shopping for a camera. You research the options, features, costs, etc., and you narrow it down to camera A and camera B. You finally choose camera B and buy it. As soon as you commit to that choice, you start thinking that maybe you should have gone with camera A instead. You have regrets, you start to doubt your decision–that’s cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is an idea put forth by social psychologist Leon Festinger. Basically, if your beliefs are challenged, you will experience an uncomfortable feeling of “dissonance,” which you will then resolve, often by changing your perception of reality.

The famous experiment is where a person is asked to lie about a boring task he just did, by telling an unsuspecting person that it’s really a lot of fun. If the subject is paid well for lying, his true opinion remains the same. If the subject isn’t paid well, he begins to rationalize his statements by thinking that the task was actually pretty interesting. In real life you would see this with people who do something as a hobby versus people who get paid to do it: getting paid makes something a lot less fun.

Other instances include the “buyer’s remorse” described by the previous person. This is often resolved by changing your preferences so that you like the one you chose better.

The feeling of “dissonance” is actually accompanied by an increase in skin conductance (a measure of emotional arousal).

As I’m sure you are thinking, this doesn’t happen all the time. But the idea is useful in explaining the times when it does happen and cause us to act irrationally.

Cognition is thinking or acknowledging in your mind. Dissonance means not agreeing. In simple language, it means that someone is trying to think or acknowledge two conflicting ideas or beliefs. It is a psychological term. Cognitive dissonance can cause anxiety and/or depression in some people.

thinking disorder or crazy way of thinking or wrong way of thinking