The psychologist Leon Festinger came up with the concept in 1957. In his book “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” Festinger proposed that two ideas can be consonant or dissonant.

Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at Stanford University, was studying how and why rumors spread when he read about the aftermath of a severe earthquake that shook India in 1934.

We humans probably always have, though it wasn’t until the 1950s that the social psychologist Leon Festinger outlined its theory and named it. Since then it’s become one of the most ...

The truth sounds good in theory, especially if it's truth with which we agree or that positions us in a favorable light. It's when we hear truth that isn't so pleasant that we start to resist. I ...

A s the psychologist Leon Festinger wrote in 1956, “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. Cooper, J. (2007). Cognitive dissonance: Fifty years of a classic theory. Sage Publications.

Cognitive dissonance, a psychological concept coined by psychologist Leon Festinger, refers to the state of discomfort or unease that arises when conflicting beliefs, ideas, or values are held ...

For those not waiting for the world to end in a storm of fire and light it is easy to write off the believers as deluded, but Festinger was not so wide of the mark when he suggested that we adapt ...

Ever since Stanford psychologist Leon Festinger’s pioneering work on doomsday cults in the 1950s, the concept of cognitive dissonance has been well established in psychology and even, to some ...

His interest piqued, the psychologist, whose name was Leon Festinger, read on. “Lake City will be destroyed by a flood from Great Lake just before dawn, Dec. 21.” The message came from a ...