Cognitive Dissonance Individuals sometimes experience a contradiction between their actions and their beliefs— between what they are doing and what they believe they should be done. These contradictions can cause a kind of mental discomfort known as cog

Cognitive Dissonance Individuals sometimes experience a contradiction between their actions and their beliefs— between what they are doing and what they believe they should be done. These contradictions can cause a kind of mental discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. People experiencing cognitive dissonance often do not want to change the way they are acting, so they resolve the contradictory situation in another way, they change their interpretation of the situation in a way that minimizes the contradiction between what they are doing and what they believe should be dong.