Vic Chapter 7.2 cognitive dissonance and cognitive bias

• Cognitive Dissonance

  When a person acts in a way that is inconsistent with their attitudes or perception of themselves, with the contradiction usually making them uncomfortable
• The inconsistency is cognitive dissonance
• Reducing cognitive dissonance

  1. Align actions with beliefs

  2. Change beliefs to justify actions
• Cognitive bias


  The flaws that can influence our choices; a systematic error that occurs in our decision-making
• Cognitive biases occur when we attempt to simplify the information we are processing
• Kinds of cognitive bias

  • Actor-observer bias
  • Anchoring bias
• Actor-observer bias

  The tendency to attribute your own behaviours to external factors while attributing other people's behaviours to internal factors
• Actor-observer bias reduces cognitive dissonance by attributing our behaviours to environmental factors
• Anchoring bias


  The tendency to rely on the first piece of information offered when making decisions; judgments are shaped by the anchor
• Cognitive dissonance (Key concept 7.2)

  Experienced when there is a misalignment between our behaviours and our attitudes
• Cognitive biases (Key concept 7.2)

  Systematic errors in judgement that occur when we try to simplify the information we are processing
• Cognitive biases reduce the experience of cognitive dissonance as we process information or arrive at decisions that justify our behaviours or beliefs