COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
by rob hutchinson website
www.ispectrummagazine.com
hat happens to our private opinion if we are forced to do or think something that contradicts the way we think? Quite surprisingly evidence suggests that we change our private opinion so that it corresponds more with the opinion we are forced to deliver. For example, if we are told to improvise a speech supporting a point of view that we disagree with, this creates contradicting thoughts in our head. To resolve this contradiction, we shift our opinion so 18
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that we actually agree with the content of the speech, in essence convincing ourselves to change our mind and bringing the conflicting thoughts to an end. This also works the other way round, in that if we want to resolve the conflict but err more towards our own opinion we will rationalize or disregard information, filtering it so that it agrees with our present opinion.