Examples of cognitive dissonance in the following topics:
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- Cognitive and achievement approaches to motivation examine how factors like achievement goals and cognitive dissonance influence motivation.
- Of particular interest is the role of cognitive dissonance on motivation.
- Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person experiences conflict, contradiction, or inconsistency in their cognitions.
- The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance in their cognitions by either changing or justifying their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
- Smoking commonly causes cognitive dissonance.
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- Leon Festinger proposed the cognitive-dissonance theory (1957), which states that a powerful motive to maintain cognitive consistency can give rise to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior.
- According to Festinger, we hold many cognitions about the world and ourselves; when they clash, a discrepancy is evoked, resulting in a state of tension known as cognitive dissonance.
- When we experience cognitive dissonance, we are motivated to decrease it because it is psychologically, physically, and mentally uncomfortable.
- We can reduce cognitive dissonance by bringing our cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors in line—that is, making them harmonious.
- Smokers often experience cognitive dissonance: they know that smoking is harmful to their health, but they continue to do it anyway.
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- The field is also concerned with common cognitive biases—such as the fundamental attribution error, the actor-observer bias, the self-serving bias, and the just-world hypothesis—that influence our behavior and our perceptions of events.
- After the war, researchers became interested in a variety of social problems including gender issues, racial prejudice, cognitive dissonance, bystander intervention, aggression, and obedience to authority.
- Social psychologists theorize about how different cognitive biases influence people's perspectives on the event.
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- "Cognition" refers to thinking and memory processes, and "cognitive development" refers to long-term changes in these processes.
- Major areas of research in cognitive psychology include perception, memory, categorization, knowledge representation, numerical cognition, language, and thinking.
- Cognitive psychology is one of the more recent additions to psychological research.
- Though there are examples of cognitive approaches from earlier researchers, cognitive psychology really developed as a subfield within psychology in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
- Piaget is best known for his stage theory of cognitive development.
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- The word "cognition" is the closest scientific synonym for thinking.
- Human cognition takes place at both conscious and unconscious levels.
- Some of the most important figures in the study of cognition are:
- The study of human cognition began over two thousand years ago.
- These numerous approaches to the analysis of cognition are synthesized in the relatively new field of cognitive science, the interdisciplinary study of mental processes and functions.
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- Critics of the social-cognitive theory of personality argue that it is not a unified theory and does not explain development over time.
- The social-cognitive theory of personality emphasizes both learning and cognition as sources of individual differences in personality.
- One of the main criticisms of the social-cognitive theory is that it is not a unified theory.
- Because of this, it can be difficult to quantify the effect that social cognition has on development.
- Critics of social-cognitive theory argue that the theory does not provide a full explanation of how social cognition, behavior, environment, and personality are related (known as "reciprocal determinism").
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- Cognition changes over a person's lifespan, peaking at around age 35 and slowly declining in later adulthood.
- Because we spend so many years in adulthood (more than any other stage), cognitive changes are numerous during this period.
- In fact, research suggests that adult cognitive development is a complex, ever-changing process that may be even more active than cognitive development in infancy and early childhood (Fischer, Yan, & Stewart, 2003).
- During early adulthood, cognition begins to stabilize, reaching a peak around the age of 35.
- Review the milestones of cognitive development in early and middle adulthood
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- Cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies address the interplay between dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors, and biased cognitions.
- Cognitive therapy (CT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) are closely related; however CBT is an umbrella category of therapies that includes cognitive therapy.
- At the core of cognitive therapy is the idea of cognitive biases, or irrational beliefs that cause distress in a person's life.
- During the 1980s and 1990s, cognitive and behavioral techniques were merged into cognitive-behavioral therapy.
- Discuss the goals, techniques, and efficacy of cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies
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- The Schachter–Singer theory views emotion as the result of the interaction between two factors: physiological arousal and cognition.
- According to the Schacter–Singer theory, emotion results from the interaction between two factors: physiological arousal and cognition.
- These cognitive interpretations—how a person labels and understands what they are experiencing—are formed based on the person's past experiences.
- For example, if you were to see a venomous snake in your backyard, the Schachter–Singer theory argues that the snake would elicit sympathetic nervous system activation (physiological arousal) that would be cognitively labeled as fear (cognition) based on the context.
- The Schachter–Singer theory views emotion as resulting from the interaction of two factors: physiological arousal and cognition.
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- Social cognition, like general cognition, uses schemas to help people form judgments and conclusions about the world.
- Social cognition is a specific approach of social psychology (the area of psychology that studies how people's thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others) that uses the methods of cognitive science.
- Similarly, a notable theory of social cognition is social-schema theory.
- Two cognitive processes that increase the accessibility of schemas are salience and priming.
- Studies have found that culture influences social cognition in other ways too.