cognitive dissonance

The following experience cognitive dissonance in our lives, when we experiencing this dissonance, we are likely to do one of the two things: Changing one of our ideas, or make new rationalization for holding two illogical ideas. Let me illustrate cognitive dissonance with a couple of famous examples. Ok, one of the examples comes the old fable by Aesop called the Fox and the Grapes. The fable describes a fox that sees some grapes hanging just out of his reach and he wishes to eat them, however after several minutes he can’t think a way to get these grapes, as a result, he decides that grapes are not worth eating because they are probably too ripe or too sour. This is a example of resolving cognitive dissonance by creating new rationalization to justify two conflicting ideas: wanting the grapes but not be able to get them. Another famous example comes from a 1956 American Psychological study of Doomsday cults, which are religious cult to his members who believe that world is about to end. The study found that most members of the cults do not bend their groups even when their expectation for the end of the world met. Instead cult member invented new reasons for the world’s failure to end such as claiming that their leader was not a true prophet or that the leader got the end of the world deep wrong.