COMM 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Balance Theory, Leon Festinger, Counterargument

• School: Ohio State University
• Department: Communication
• Course: COMM 1100
• Professor: Simon Lavis

Document Summary

Cognitive dissonance: an incongruity among thoughts, mental elements; two opposing cognitions battling one another. Balance theory is between 2 individuals, and a common target. We can model idea of dissonance similarly: 1 individual, 2 targets. We are compelled to reduce feeling of dissonance if it arises. Trained under kurt lewin: lewin considered founder of social psychology, festinger most successful students. Earlier research focused on sociality in groups. Cognitive theory is a drive or feeling caused by holding two or more inconsistent beliefs, or performing a behavior inconsistent with your beliefs. Drive-like state: we feel compelled to reduce that feeling: change our mind/behavior to eliminate inconsistency, remove source of inconsistency. The theory applies to almost any situation with a compelling argument. Consonant: where 2 cognitions are complimentary: psychologically this may be rewarding; at the least, unproblematic, ex: smoking is bad for health and i don"t smoke .