theory of cognitive dissonance
E615420
The theory of cognitive dissonance is a foundational psychological framework explaining how people experience and reduce mental discomfort when their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors conflict.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| theory of cognitive dissonance canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6752846 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: theory of cognitive dissonance Context triple: [Leon Festinger, knownFor, theory of cognitive dissonance]
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A.
Allais paradox
The Allais paradox is a famous decision-making puzzle in behavioral economics that shows how people's choices under risk often violate the expected utility theory, revealing systematic inconsistencies in rational choice models.
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B.
Die Krise der Psychologie
Die Krise der Psychologie is a seminal work by Karl Bühler that critically examines the theoretical foundations and methodological problems of early 20th-century psychology.
-
C.
Situationism
Situationism was a mid-20th-century radical artistic and political movement, led by the Situationist International, that critiqued consumer society and sought to transform everyday life through experimental practices and subversive interventions.
-
D.
A Theory of Human Motivation
A Theory of Human Motivation is the seminal 1943 paper by psychologist Abraham Maslow that introduced the hierarchy of needs as a framework for understanding human behavior and motivation.
-
E.
Ellsberg paradox
The Ellsberg paradox is a famous problem in decision theory and economics that demonstrates how people’s choices often violate expected utility theory due to ambiguity aversion.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: theory of cognitive dissonance Target entity description: The theory of cognitive dissonance is a foundational psychological framework explaining how people experience and reduce mental discomfort when their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors conflict.
-
A.
Allais paradox
The Allais paradox is a famous decision-making puzzle in behavioral economics that shows how people's choices under risk often violate the expected utility theory, revealing systematic inconsistencies in rational choice models.
-
B.
Die Krise der Psychologie
Die Krise der Psychologie is a seminal work by Karl Bühler that critically examines the theoretical foundations and methodological problems of early 20th-century psychology.
-
C.
Situationism
Situationism was a mid-20th-century radical artistic and political movement, led by the Situationist International, that critiqued consumer society and sought to transform everyday life through experimental practices and subversive interventions.
-
D.
A Theory of Human Motivation
A Theory of Human Motivation is the seminal 1943 paper by psychologist Abraham Maslow that introduced the hierarchy of needs as a framework for understanding human behavior and motivation.
-
E.
Ellsberg paradox
The Ellsberg paradox is a famous problem in decision theory and economics that demonstrates how people’s choices often violate expected utility theory due to ambiguity aversion.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
psychological theory
ⓘ
social psychology theory ⓘ theory of attitude change ⓘ |
| appliedIn |
attitude change research
ⓘ
consumer behavior research ⓘ health psychology ⓘ organizational behavior ⓘ political psychology ⓘ |
| author | Leon Festinger NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| coreConcept |
cognitive dissonance
ⓘ
consonant cognitions ⓘ dissonant cognitions ⓘ irrelevant cognitions ⓘ |
| defines | cognitive dissonance as psychological discomfort from inconsistent cognitions ⓘ |
| describedIn | A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| developedBy | Leon Festinger NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| explains |
mental discomfort from conflicting attitudes
ⓘ
mental discomfort from conflicting behaviors ⓘ mental discomfort from conflicting beliefs ⓘ motivation to reduce inconsistency between cognitions ⓘ |
| field |
psychology
ⓘ
social psychology ⓘ |
| hasKeyExperiment | Festinger and Carlsmith 1959 induced compliance study NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasKeyPhenomenon |
decision dissonance
ⓘ
effort justification ⓘ forced compliance ⓘ induced compliance ⓘ selective exposure to information ⓘ |
| influenced |
attitude theory
ⓘ
persuasion research ⓘ theory of planned behavior ⓘ |
| influencedBy | Gestalt psychology NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| predicts |
effort justification
ⓘ
insufficient justification effects ⓘ people avoid information that increases dissonance ⓘ people seek information that reduces dissonance ⓘ post-decision dissonance after difficult choices ⓘ spreading of alternatives after decisions ⓘ |
| proposesMechanism |
addition of new cognitions
ⓘ
change of attitude ⓘ change of behavior ⓘ selective exposure to information ⓘ trivialization of dissonant cognitions ⓘ |
| publicationYear |
1957
ⓘ
1957 ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
balance theory
ⓘ
consistency theories ⓘ self-perception theory NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| status | foundational theory in social psychology ⓘ |
| testsTheory | theory of cognitive dissonance NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: theory of cognitive dissonance Description of subject: The theory of cognitive dissonance is a foundational psychological framework explaining how people experience and reduce mental discomfort when their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors conflict.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.