Decision Making / 4 / 4.4

4.4 COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) gives a partial explanation why failure to learn repeatedly occurs. Cognitive dissonance theory identifies a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions, that is their beliefs and opinions. When there is an inconsistency, or dissonance, between attitudes and behaviours, something must be done to eliminate the dissonance.

It is the inconsistency among their own ideas that makes people uneasy enough to alter their ideas so that they agree with each other, or conflict less. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behaviour. For example, smokers forced to deal with the opposing concepts I actively partake in smoking and health authorities advise that smoking is dangerous are likely to alter behaviour by deciding to quit smoking. Alternatively, one can diffuse dissonance by reducing its importance, by discounting the evidence against smoking, adopting the view that smoking will not harm you personally, or discrediting the expertise of health authorities. Another way of dealing with dissonance is to add new information that gives more weight to particular dissonant beliefs or appears to reconcile them, such as deciding that smoking is less dangerous to one’s health than the stress it helps to alleviate.

For decades, the multinational tobacco companies have actively exploited the cognitive dissonance of smokers by suggesting that the evidence which suggests there is strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer or smoking and heart disease was no more than just that; statistical correlation. Further, this statistical correlation can be interpreted in many different ways. This was used to suggest that there was no hard causal evidence to the detrimental health effects. This made it easier for smokers to reconcile their cognitive dissonance whilst making it acceptable for the tobacco companies to promote their products. The ruse exercised by tobacco companies for so long is now becoming transparent as Law Courts recognise that smoking causes lung cancer and smoking causes heart disease.

For the purposes of risk management, the manifestations of existence of cognitive dissonance are changes in attitudes that result in evidence about risks being dismissed as unreliable, erroneous, or unrepresentative. Changes in behaviour such as ignoring risky situations, can also be a by-product.