Meera is fond of her colleague Anjali, and Anjali likes Meera too. Anjali strongly supports organic farming, but Meera thinks organic farming is a waste of money. Both of them know about this difference. Meera's cousin Suresh has read that smoking causes lung cancer, which is fatal. Yet he smokes every day. Holding both ideas together makes him feel uneasy, as if his thoughts about smoking do not fit with each other.
Suresh's uneasy feeling is best explained by which of the following concepts?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Cognitive dissonance
Option (1) Learning through reward and punishment — Incorrect. Reward and punishment explain how attitudes are learnt, as when a child is praised.
Option (2) Imbalance in the P-O-X triangle — Incorrect. The P-O-X triangle needs another person (O) whose attitude matters to P. Suresh's unease comes from two of his own ideas, with no other person involved.
Option (3) Two-step attitude change — Incorrect. In the two-step concept a target identifies with a source and copies the source's changed behaviour. No source is involved in Suresh's case.
Option (4) Cognitive dissonance — Correct. Suresh holds two ideas that do not fit: smoking causes fatal cancer, and he smokes. Two cognitions that are dissonant in one attitude cause this discomfort, as Festinger proposed.
NCERT (2026-27): “Process of Attitude Change … “Cognition I : Pan masala causes mouth cancer which is fatal.” “Cognition II : I eat pan masala.” “Holding these two ideas or cognitions will make any individual feel that something is ‘out of tune’, or dissonant, in the attitude towards pan masala. Therefore, one of these ideas will have to be changed, so that consonance can be attained. …” |