Cognitie Dissonance

Introduction What is cognitive dissonance? How can it be used in our daily lives? These are some of the questions that social psychologists ask each day to explain people’s behavior. When it comes to how we act as individuals, there are all kinds of words and expressions that we can use. We can use words that can describe us physically, mentally, and emotionally, but when it comes to the way that we describe ourselves in our social worlds, we have a harder time. Dealing with our social worlds and how society affects how we act at certain moments, it is important to always talk about our attitudes and behaviors. What triggers us to engage in behaviors that violate social values, beliefs, attitudes, and morals? Every day, people engage in activities that violate who they are as a person and then make excuses. From lying on their taxes, cheating on a test, speeding, and even calling into work sick when they are not sick, individuals everywhere make decisions that violate who they truly are, After the behavior is violated and excuses are made, people would start to wonder why engage in the behavior if they are just going to justify it later? Social psychologist work every day to answer this question. In this paper, we will be discussing a situation and subsequent behavior that people engage in that violates who they are, we’re going to discuss possible explanations for the behavior using the attribution theory, were going to describe the reciprocal relationship between behavior and attitudes, and were going to explain how the individual could have used the cognition dissonance theory to rationalize his or her behavior.
Situation and Subsequent Behavior: Lying to get off work To start the paper off I am going to describe the situation. I have an older cousin that works for the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). About six months ago, she was given a promotion where she was taken out of the field offices and was given a better position in the DMV-Fresno Call