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Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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INTRODUCTION OF THE THEORY Cognitive dissonance theory is a theory that developed by Leon Festinger in the year of 1957. Leon Festinger was an American social psychologist. He is well known for cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. He was born in Brooklyn New York City on May 8, 1919. Leon Festinger finished his high school life in Boy’s High School in Brooklyn and finished his degree in psychology in City College of New York in 1939. Cognitive dissonance theory is used widely by the social psychologist for reference to create other cognitively based theories. The cognitive dissonance theory was tested through a famous experiment by Festinger and Carlsmith in the year of 1959. They gather two groups of people which consist of 71 people. These two groups of people had to sit down and do some boring tasks. Some group of people was paid for $1 to tell the next participants that the task that was given was interesting and fun. The other group of people was paid $20 to do the same task. The result found out that the group that was paid $1 felt that the task is more fun than the group that was paid $20. This shows that cognitive dissonance theory works because for most people $1 is not a large amount or reward, so to fix the unlikeness of these people believe that the tasks were actually enjoyable. Hence, the behavior of the participants was not being changed but their beliefs were changed. In conclusion, the experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith was rated as the

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