Cognitive dissonance

What's that I hear you ask?

It's a really fancy name for that feeling all of us experience from time to time when our belief systems conflict with our actions. It's the feeling of discomfort we experience while trying to simultaneously hold on to two contradictory ideas or incompatible attitudes. I may believe that I am a good, caring person, but I make fun of someone and ridicule them or their actions, thus hurting them. I try and rationalize my actions to myself; it's then that I experience cognitive dissonance. 

My self-belief in my "goodness'' has been held up to the spotlight by my hurtful actions. My actions have hurt someone, but that can't be right because I'm a good person. If I am like most people, I am deeply uncomfortable with that contradiction. So I am faced with some choices. I can choose to believe that the other person was not really hurt by my actions, which will enable me to continue to believe that I am a good person.   

Or I can choose to believe that the other person deserved to be treated badly, which gives me another excuse to continue to believe that I am a good person. I try to justify and excuse my behavior: I wasn't really bad if I was just being mean to a mean person. 

 Alternatively I can decide that in light of what I did, I must have been wrong about being a good person, and now believe myself to be a bad person. I just thought I was a good person, but that was not true. All along I must have been bad. Any one of those choices will resolve my tension and eliminate the dissonance. Either I am bad or I am good; either the other person is hurt or not hurt.



However just trying to eliminate the tension doesn't get at the truth. The only way to get at the truth is to be willing to revise my belief in light of my experience, and that's really hard. We generally don't like revising our beliefs. It's often embarrassing, we can appear to be "flip flopping" and not being consistent. Sometimes we will fight to the death to defend a belief just because we can't bring ourselves to revise it.This is the conflict between "flesh" and "spirit" between habits of "holiness" and habits of "self". To quote the 'Sermon Bible Commentary' Such an internal dualism—such a strife of opposites—such a comparative impotency to realise the good they propose, are standing characteristics of saintliness, if we may judge saints by their most secret confessions and self-examinations.


The Apostle Paul  put it this way;  For I don't do the good I want to do, but instead do the evil that I don't want to do. Romans 7:17 MKJV

Peer pressure is probably the most common cognitive dissonance that we will all experience; in order to conform to the group we go along with the group even when we a diametrically opposed to that group action. Why? Because we want to be seen to conform, rather than draw attention to ourselves by standing opposed to the group. However in taking this course of action we fall into the trap of allowing others to do our thinking for us! When a large group of individuals partake in such action it can very quickly degenerate into mob rule.  

Christians can feel particularly guilty as a result of this confused thinking: Which of us has not felt the tension, anxiety or guilt when our actions fall far short of what or who we believe we are, or would like to be?  Remember Peter? What did our Lord say of Him?

 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to you. And whatever you may bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven, and whatever you may loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in Heaven. Matthew 16:18-19 MKJV

How did Peter react?

And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked on him and said, And you also were with Jesus the Nazarene. But he denied, saying, I do not know nor even understand what you are saying. And he went out into the forecourt. And a cock crowed. And a servant woman saw him again and began to say to those who stood by, This one is of them. And he denied it again. And a little after, those who stood by said again to Peter, Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean, and your speech agrees. But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I do not know this man of whom you speak. And the second time a cock crowed. And Peter remembered the word that Jesus said to him, Before a cock crows twice, you will deny Me three times. And thinking on it, he wept. Mark 14:67-71 MKJV

All of us are wrapped up in preconceived notions of class, race, gender, and every other construct we  make for ourselves. Most of us are still more interested in what sets each one of us apart than what unites us. Each one of us bears the mark of our ancestral biases, even if we are not consciously aware of them. To reach the Kingdom of God, those must be challenged and defeated.

Jesus commanded us to love others as we love ourselves.... "And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'' Matthew 22:39 NIV


“If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it — and live a blessed life.” John 13:17, The Message