Jessica thinks of herself as a health-conscious person. As she is eating a steak one evening, she sees a news report that consuming red meat increases the risk of breast cancer by over 50 percent!
At this moment, she is experiencing a large amount of cognitive dissonance. State the three ways people can reduce dissonance, and apply these techniques to Jessica's dissonance; that is, give an example of each of the three dissonance reduction techniques Jessica could use.
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: The three ways of reducing dissonance are: changing the behavior to be consistent with the cognition; changing at least one cognition to justify the behavior; and justifying the behavior by adding more cognitions. Jessica could change her behavior by ceasing her consumption of all red meat. Alternatively, she could view her behavior as healthy because beef contains protein and iron. Finally, she could add the cognition that her family has no history of any type of cancer, and a long history of longevity.
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