What's that sound?
Mar. 16th, 2006 01:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pphaneufTo make a quick summary, cognitive dissonance is a state of perceived inconsistency between two (or more) elements of knowledge, attitude, emotion, belief, value, goal, plan or interest. In geeky sci-fi, you'll sometimes see artificial intelligence complain that it "does not compute" when they experience one (whiners!).
I find that they are a source of internal stress, proportional to how important some of those elements involved in the inconsistency are important to me. If I like the taste of tomatoes (like in sauces or toppings), but not their texture, that's not so bad, I just skip having whole tomatoes and stick to tomato sauce in my pasta (real life experience!). If I had an attraction for someone else than my SO and I'd be monogamous, that would be quite a bit trickier (that's just an example, by the way!).
Well, okay, contradiction is bad, particularly when you're on both sides of the argument, seems like you can only lose. Pretty obvious stuff. What's to do about it, so I can be happy?
I try to find and identify the protagonists of the contradiction. Now, that's one of the reasons it's important not to repress one's feelings. Repressing is easy to do, short-term, but has a fatal flaw: while the direct discomfort an emotion might bring is hidden (sometimes only temporarily), the cognitive dissonance remains, indirectly affecting me, in the background, eventually driving me nuts. Finding what it is can be easy (I like this girl, but she smokes and I dislike smokers), but sometimes can be much harder, as your subconscious tries to "help" by being dishonest to yourself about your own feelings, not to mention contradictions involving a cycle of more than two things. See, it's hard enough by itself, if you repress, it's totally insane, you'll never figure it out!
Now, I have to fix it. It's arguable which is the hardest of identifying the dissonance's actors or resolving it. How do I do that? Sorry, no recipe for you, you'll have to figure that part for yourself!
Seems like I'm always struggling with a few of those, no matter how hard I work on them. I do get easier ones, in the sense that while I'm having a hard time fixing them, they're not too much in my face, and I can live with them easily (for example, my favouring free speech and dislike of censorship, versus hate speech).
I find that they are a source of internal stress, proportional to how important some of those elements involved in the inconsistency are important to me. If I like the taste of tomatoes (like in sauces or toppings), but not their texture, that's not so bad, I just skip having whole tomatoes and stick to tomato sauce in my pasta (real life experience!). If I had an attraction for someone else than my SO and I'd be monogamous, that would be quite a bit trickier (that's just an example, by the way!).
Well, okay, contradiction is bad, particularly when you're on both sides of the argument, seems like you can only lose. Pretty obvious stuff. What's to do about it, so I can be happy?
I try to find and identify the protagonists of the contradiction. Now, that's one of the reasons it's important not to repress one's feelings. Repressing is easy to do, short-term, but has a fatal flaw: while the direct discomfort an emotion might bring is hidden (sometimes only temporarily), the cognitive dissonance remains, indirectly affecting me, in the background, eventually driving me nuts. Finding what it is can be easy (I like this girl, but she smokes and I dislike smokers), but sometimes can be much harder, as your subconscious tries to "help" by being dishonest to yourself about your own feelings, not to mention contradictions involving a cycle of more than two things. See, it's hard enough by itself, if you repress, it's totally insane, you'll never figure it out!
Now, I have to fix it. It's arguable which is the hardest of identifying the dissonance's actors or resolving it. How do I do that? Sorry, no recipe for you, you'll have to figure that part for yourself!
Seems like I'm always struggling with a few of those, no matter how hard I work on them. I do get easier ones, in the sense that while I'm having a hard time fixing them, they're not too much in my face, and I can live with them easily (for example, my favouring free speech and dislike of censorship, versus hate speech).
