Topic: Self-Justification and cognitive dissonance
Think about a time in which you experienced cognitive dissonanceafter performing a behavior (e.g., saying something you didn’tbelieve, making a difficult choice, behaving in a way contrary toyour personal beliefs, expending considerable effort to become partof a group that turns out to be worse than you had anticipated,etc.). Describe the situation in a few sentences, and respond tothe following questions:
How did the cognitive dissonance make you feel? Why?
How did you resolve the dissonance? Did you change yourattitude, change your behavior, add new cognitions, or somethingelse?
Did you use external justification or internal justification tohelp resolve your dissonance? If so, how?
Were there any lasting effects of this experience? Explain.
