Cognitive Dissonance Theory and our Hidden Biases: Uncover Common Thinking Errors, Discover the Connection Between Motivational and Dissonance Processes and Logically Assess Foolish Beliefs

By Phillip T. Erickson

If You Don't Ever Want To Lose Out On Achieving Super Success In Life on Account of Poor Understanding of Cognitive Dissonance And Our Hidden Biases then Read On!

Are you one of those people who find it difficult to achieve sustained success in life and coping with your surging emotions when it comes to crunch situations in life? Do you feel that your life would change considerably for the better if you could improve your ability to deal with cognitive dissonance and understand your emotions? Have you always been awed at the sight of some people being able to go from success to success in even the most difficult of situations? Would you like to be one of those people? Do you also worry about your inadequate emotional maturity? Does your panicky behavior become a stumbling block in your personal and professional growth? What if you were told that you could find an amazing way of greatly enhancing your ability to manage people and situations? What if we told you that you could leverage your cognitive dissonance to make great decisions? Do you think that there is nothing upon the face of this world that would help you enhance your apparent poor rate of success in life? Then this book is what squarely addresses your concerns. 

You need to look no further than this masterfully created tome about understanding cognitive dissonance. It teaches you time tested and scientifically validated techniques of dealing with cognitive dissonance and understanding your hidden biases. At the same time, it helps you discover the connection between motivational and dissonance processes. It contains everything that you need to know about understanding the genesis of all your foolish beliefs. It explains how you can overcome them by making you familiar with the paradigm-redefining concept of leveraging cognitive dissonance for extraordinary success in life.

By reading this book you get to

• Understand the link between motivational and dissonance processes 
• Understand the link between cognitive dissonance and doing well in life.
• Understand how to enhance both your emotional intelligence and ability to manage people and situations.
• Understand why understanding cognitive leads to stellar success in life.

Sure there are a million articles and many books out there that make similar claims, but those are nothing more than just claims. Understanding how to handle cognitive dissonance and to get over your innate biases involves the study of the human mind, which anyone will tell you, is in the realm of the highest science. This book has referenced the latest scientific advances that are peer validated and accepted as relevant facts by the scientific community.

As a matter of fact, this book is a veritable tome on matters pertaining to cognitive dissonance. It is based entirely on research and evidence and informs the reader about everything there is to learn about the science behind leveraging it for success. There is nothing out there that fills you in about cognitive dissonance and hidden biases and their impact on your overall life. Reading it will make you understand why.

Reading this book will bring about an epiphany of your mind and transform your life. But only if you act now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phillip T. Erickson
• Release date: Sep 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393769576

Book preview

Cognitive Dissonance Theory And Our Hidden Biases

––––––––

Uncover Common Thinking Errors, Discover The Connection Between Motivational And Dissonance Processes And Logically Assess Foolish Beliefs

Phillip T. Erickson

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: What Is The Cognitive Dissonance Theory?

Being Forced To Behave In A Certain Way Against One’s Will

Making Decisions

Effort Gone To Waste

Chapter 2: Uncovering Common Thinking Biases

What’s Good For Me Is Good For The Rest Of The World

Smaller Reward Received Sooner Is Better Than Large Reward Received Later

Confirmation Bias

Hindsight Wisdom

Anchoring Bias

Misinformation Bias

Loss Aversion Bias

Self-Serving Bias

Affect Heuristic

Availability Heuristic

The Bandwagon Effect

Blind Spot Bias

Choice Bias

Information Bias

Outcome Bias

Dunning Kruger Effect

Hanlon’s Razor

Chapter 3: The Connection Between Motivational And Dissonance Processes

Chapter 4: Logically Assessing Foolish Beliefs

Chapter 5: How To Get Rid Of Biases And Foolish Beliefs

Chapter 6: Cognitive Dissonance In The Digital Age

Chapter 7: Celebrities And Cognitive Dissonance

Chapter 8: Growing Less And Less Foolish

Chapter 9: Smart Phones And Cognitive Dissonance

Chapter 10: Mastering The Art Of Best Behavior

Chapter 11: Time To Move On And Ahead

Conclusion

Copyright © 2019 by Phillip T. Erickson - All rights reserved.

This document is geared towards providing exact and reliable information in regards to the topic and issue covered. The publication is sold with the idea that the publisher is not required to render accounting, officially permitted, or otherwise, qualified services. If advice is necessary, legal or professional, a practiced individual in the profession should be ordered.

From a Declaration of Principles which was accepted and approved equally by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document by either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

The information provided herein is stated to be truthful and consistent, in that any liability, in terms of inattention or otherwise, by any usage or abuse of any policies, processes, or directions contained within is the solitary and utter responsibility of the recipient reader. Under no circumstances will any legal responsibility or blame be held against the publisher for any reparation, damages, or monetary loss due to the information herein, either directly or indirectly.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

The information herein is offered for informational purposes solely and is universal as so. The presentation of the information is without contract or any type of guarantee assurance.

The trademarks that are used are without any consent, and the publication of the trademark is without permission or backing by the trademark owner. All trademarks and brands within this book are for clarifying purposes only and are owned by the owners themselves, not affiliated with this document.

Introduction

You may get a little intimidated by the term cognitive dissonance, but at it its core it means nothing more than learning to deal with conflicting emotions. A smoker for example would in all probability know that smoking is bad for health yet wouldn’t want to give up the pleasure of smoking.

He or she would most likely feel conflicted about the situation, yet would seek to justify their behavior––Most people who smoke don’t get cancer, or I doubt that I will be among the small percentage of smokers who get cancer.

Take the case of faith in God. While in no case, espousing the cause of atheism, I would like to submit that ardent believers suffer from a cognitive dissonance when it comes to justifying their faith.

While a very large number of westerners are a more than a little ambivalent about their belief in God, those who are fervent believers are quite strident in the defense of their faith. Any person, who has received a modern education, would be a little skeptical about the truth and veracity of all the stories in the Bible, but not true believers for whom everything in it is the gospel truth (pun intended).

Explain to them that the Biblical notion of creation has long been disproved by science and they will tell you that science knows only that it can observe, and God is under no obligation to prove to scientists that He created the world.

This kind of cognitive dissonance is present equally in die-hard followers of any religion. As a matter of fact, all of us suffer from cognitive dissonance of some type or the other. We likely believe that our parents are the best in the world, our school and college the best educational institute in the world and our country the best country upon the face of the earth. People will stoutly defend their cherished beliefs because it provides them with a feeling of familiarity and comfort. 

That, however, may not be in one’s best interest as this closes your mind to better ways of doing things. Our biases will prevent us from learning from people who might know more than us and thereby foreclose the option of achieving greater progress than we have.

Our brains are partly instinctive and partly rational. The instinctive part makes us easily perceive threats in any kind of challenging situation and advises an over-abundance of caution. The rational part of our brain, on the other hand, would want you to critically analyze the advantages of changing one’s approach to a situation or the way of doing things.

If you understand why you adopt a certain attitude towards things, you may be able to change it. If for instance you were told as a child that fruits grown in the temperate region of the world- like apples, pears, and apricots, etc. are good for you and fruits like mango and pineapple may make you sick because these are grown in the tropics, you would likely be averse to eating these even as an adult.

However, when you realize that there is no scientific basis to your prejudice (there never is!) and actually proceed to eat the forbidden fruit, you would likely take an instant liking to these delicious tropical fruit. You would have changed your attitude towards this in one fell swoop.

Think of the benefits that may come your way if you were able to deal with your cognitive dissonance with regard to a host of things. You may for example have a fear of technology and do nothing to update you skills, and instead justify that by saying that technology would lead to the end of the world!.

Now if somebody were to show you that technology is nothing to fear and that you can learn it quite easily, your attitude would undergo a sea change. You would realize how being conversant with technology opens so many doors for you in life. You could stay in touch with people close to you with far greater efficiency than before and you would likely make your employment options a lot better than before. From a phobia of technology, you now would likely develop a love for it.

This book will show you how cognitive dissonance can be a major stumbling block in your achieving your true potential. It will teach you to motivate yourself to excel in everything you take up and reach your fullest potential.

Chapter 1: What Is The Cognitive Dissonance Theory?

All of us experience conflicting emotions many times which puts us in a bit of a quandary about which side to weigh in on. We usually decide to favor one attitude over another conflicting one and thereby resolve the conflict in our minds.

If you are someone who drinks quite a bit and often worry that you might be becoming an alcoholic, you might quieten your worry by rationalizing your drinking behavior as being nothing out of the ordinary––My father too liked to drink and no one who knew him thought that he could possibly be an alcoholic!

The cognitive

Reviews for Cognitive Dissonance Theory and our Hidden Biases

[Johnathan Reid · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Did an alright job at explaining some of the concepts surrounding cognitive dissonance but the author has some pretty obvious agendas concerning unrelated matter such as atheism, vaccines and global warming.