Cognitive dissonance describes the psychological discomfort

Position 1: This drive for consistency exerts a powerful influence on decision-making, often leading people to rationalise choices they have already committed to rather than objectively evaluating alternatives.

Position 2: When inconsistency arises, individuals are motivated to reduce the resulting tension through one of several strategies.

Position 3: Cognitive dissonance describes the psychological discomfort experienced when a person holds two contradictory beliefs simultaneously.

Position 4: They may change one of the conflicting beliefs, acquire new information that reconciles the contradiction, or minimise the importance of the inconsistency.

Position 5: Leon Festinger first proposed this theory in 1957 after observing that people actively seek internal consistency among their attitudes and behaviours.