Do you ever feel a nagging sense of discomfort when your actions don't match your beliefs? For example, you might tell a small white lie even though you value honesty. That uneasy feeling is known as ...

With the expanding knowledge of neuropsychology, what was previously speculation is now being confirmed through the use of imaging studies such as functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) to track brain ...

A police officer once told me that most crimes are solved because the criminal mind, as he put it, was “stuck on stupid.” At Stanford back in the late ’50s, Leon Festinger developed theories and tests ...

Do you ever get that nagging feeling of discomfort when your beliefs and actions don't quite line up? Like when you swear you'll stick to your budget but can't resist buying that new pair of shoes? Or ...

One of the great mysteries in both religion and politics is why people continue to hold on to fervently cherished beliefs in spite of evidence contrary to those beliefs. I will give some examples in ...

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Cognitive dissonance, or having conflicting attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, is affecting how people respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent article for The Atlantic, social scientists Elliot ...

A discussion on how turn-earning at ski areas presents a unique setting, and a complicated psychological landscape, for the human-powered skier. Our skis skidded and chattered as we descended each ...

For years, I have tried to understand how and why so many of my family and friends, good and intelligent people, buy into the Trump-MAGA promise of quick ...

Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one ...