Question

Give an example of two attitudes you hold that have an irrelevant relationship to each other. Cite two consonant attitudes you hold. Do you have any attitudes that are dissonant with each other? If so, have you done anything about them? Explain how your actions fit with the theory.

Answer 1

Example of two unrelated attitudes:

• I dislike spiders.
• Swimming is a good exercise.

Example of related attitudes:

• I enjoy drinking alcohol.
• Alcohol consumption is bad for health.

In the example above, my attitudes are clearly dissonant. On one hand, I personally enjoy consuming alcohol from time to time. However, I am also aware of its ill-effects on my health. This dissonance is reflected in my behaviour to some extent. I tend to extert a personal control to limit how much I should be drinking in a week so that my health is not affected drastically. This is a theoretically expected outcome as cognitive dissonance should lead to a behavioural change to reduce the potential conflict between the attitudes.