1. What is cognitive dissonance? Festinger (1957) believed that cognitive dissonance occurs when
    a person becomes aware that his or her attitudes, thoughts, and behavior are inconsistent with
    one another. For example, people love their country, but cooperate with its enemies, or they
    smoke while believing that smoking causes illness. Festinger believed that inconsistency alone was
    enough to produce dissonance. More recently, others have argued that only important or
    self-relevant inconsistencies--actions that compromise moral integrity or threaten a positive view
    of the self--have the potential to arouse dissonance (Baumeister, 1982; Steele, 1988; Steele,
    Spencer, & Lynch, 1993).

    Festinger did more that just suggest that these inconsistencies cause discomfort, he also offered
    that people’s motivation to reduce this discomfort often produces attitude change. Literally
    hundreds of experiments have been conducted on cognitive dissonance that have given support
    and offered refinements to Festinger’s original formulation.

    Even Scott Adams has used cognitive dissonance in his "Dilbert" cartoon. Click here to
    see cognitive dissonance in action.

2. One interesting application of cognitive dissonance involves the dissonance that is generated
    when we make a decision--postdecisional dissonance. Postdecisional dissonance occurs when
    we make a decision and our realization that the decision we made was the wrong one. For
    example, you have decided to buy either a 2000 Camaro Z28 or a 2000 Pontiac TransAm.
    You decide on the TransAm, but once you purchase the car you may still wonder if you made
    the right decision. To reduce this unpleasant arousal, you might decide that the TransAm
    really is the better built car and that the Camaro Z28 is not as sophisticated or aesthetically
    pleasing. Basically, you engage in cognitive-derogation of the alternative selection.

3. A number of factors have been shown to affect cognitive dissonance.