Cognitive dissonance is an individual's psychological discomfort caused by two incoherent thoughts. It refers to a situation involving contradictory attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This then produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. People can experience different types of dissonance depending on how much they value a belief and how inconsistent their beliefs are. More personal cognitions, such as beliefs about the self, tend to result in greater dissonance. We often see this in children who tend to struggle with cognitive dissonance, when it comes to doing the right or wrong thing and knowing better. Particularly in social contexts where the influence of another child could lead to unfair or average behavior towards that child. An example of this theory would be a small child who pushed another child on the playground when asked if he would also like to be pushed to the ground; a child's typical answer will be no; immediately the child will feel mental discomfort. This is the result of them believing one thing but displaying the opposite behavior. To get rid of this discomfort, the child forms a new thought to get rid of this discomfort, he will change his belief by justifying that the child deserved to be pushed. The importance of cognitions; things that involve highly valued beliefs generally result in stronger dissonance. We often notice this stronger dissonance with religious people who follow a specific doctrine on how they should live their lives. A good example would be a religious man whose religious view says that having premarital sex is a sin, but who practices this act despite his views on premarital sex. It is likely that he will alleviate this discomfort with a new thought, that the practice of premarital sex is not so bad if practiced within the context of a committed relationship. The stronger the dissonance, the stronger the pressure to relieve uncomfortable feelings. A question I hope to answer by the end of this research paper is: how does society play a crucial role in dehumanizing its citizens by using cognitive dissonance to justify injustice done to members of different social classes? This topic is relevant to psychology because it helps understand the concepts of dehumanization as it relates to cognitive dissonance; with a clear understanding of how society plays a crucial role in the oppression of different groups of people. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Cognitive dissonance is a concept that was introduced by Festinger in (1957). Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort (dissonance) caused by two incoherent thoughts. According to this theory, we feel uncomfortable when we notice an inconsistency between what we believe and what we do. When attitudes and behaviors conflict, we can reduce cognitive dissonance in two ways: changing our behavior to fit our attitudes or changing our attitudes to fit our behavior. There are many ways to resolve dissonance, with the manual specifically devoted to justifying effort; this is when a person finds justification for work0000079