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Results for “Cognitive Dissonance”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1991

Cognitive dissonance in tobacco smokers.

The knowledge and beliefs about smoking of smokers, non-smokers, and ex-smokers were examined within a cognitive dissonance framework. The 186 respondents completed a questionnaire concerned with smoking habits, knowledge of the effects of smoking, beliefs about smoking, and estimates of risk of lung cancer to themselves and to the average Australian smoker. Smokers estimated their risk of contracting lung cancer as greater than the risk non-smokers or ex-smokers saw for themselves, but less than the risk for the average Australian smoker. No differences were found in the amount of factual knowledge about the effects of smoking. However, smokers endorsed significantly more rationalisations and distortions of logic regarding smoking than did non-smokers or ex-smokers. Smokers may experience cognitive dissonance as a result of using tobacco despite its well-publicised ill-effects, and it may be that interventions targeting rationalisations for smoking will be useful in smoking cessation.

Adult↗

PubMed1976

Cognitive dissonance in the placebo treatment of insomnia -- a pilot experiment.

Insomnia in 11 general hospital in-patients was treated by a placebo. The conditions of administration of the placebo were experimentally varied, and a hypothesis derived from Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory was tested. Consistent with this hypothesis, it was found that patients who were required to make meaningful decisions concerning their treatment derived significantly greater hypnotic (therapeutic) value from it than did patients whose treatment was simply administered to them and who were not required to make such decisions. The power of cognitive dissonance theory to explain the placebo effect, and the therapeutic potential of this approach are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Cognitive dissonance in behavior therapy: some basic treatment strategies.

As the behavioral model becomes liberalized and more encompassing very different frameworks may offer treatment resources. Several treatment techniques derived from cognitive-dissonance theory are discussed in the context of relevant theoretical postulates. Most of the techniques may be applied as needed regardless of the orientation of the practitioner.

Behavior Therapy↗

PubMed1991

Morality and pretextuality, psychiatry and law: of "ordinary common sense," heuristic reasoning, and cognitive dissonance.

The thesis of this paper is that we will not make significant progress in understanding the tensions between the legal and mental health systems until we look carefully at a series of dissonances that affect both systems. We must consider the way that the law frequently condones pretextuality as a way of dealing with troubling or cognitively dissonant information, and the way that mental health professionals encourage a self-referential concept of morality as a way of subverting legal doctrines with which they disagree. These dissonances must be considered contextually in connection with the ways that courts generally read social science data and the ways that jurors and legislators employ such cognitive devices as "ordinary common sense" and heuristic reasoning in their judgments of cases involving mental disability questions. To ameliorate the current dilemma, we must redefine institutional and professional roles, reconsider the way we privilege expertise, recalibrate our allocation of "moral jurisdiction" over these matters, and consciously confront the way our simplifying thinking mechanisms distort the underlying social and political issues.

Forensic Psychiatry↗

PubMed1978