Assignment Task: Read the following article: How Cognitive Dissonance Affects Your Relationships and then discusses the following questions:
1. Share your understanding of cognitive dissonance before reading chapter 5. How have your thoughts changed? Has your knowledge deepened regarding the subject?
2. Discuss your opinion of the article you read. Talk about an insight from one of the relational categories discussed in the article that stood out to you and why.
3. The textbook states that cognitive dissonance can be reduced by either changing behavior, by convincing ourselves that the behavior was not so negative, or by creating new consonant cognitions. How might someone appropriately decide which reducing tool is most efficient for their given situation where dissonance is occurring?
4. Using the relational examples given in the article, discuss how you have seen cognitive dissonance play a role in your relationships and what reducing tools you have seen the most success with.
5. Think about how persuasive communicators can influence levels of cognitive dissonance in another person. For example, a friend who always takes your side... even when you are in the wrong, or your significant other who enables and justifies your overspending when you've expressed wanting to save money, etc. Your textbook states that "In general, persuasion will be greater when the communicator appeals to our self-interest." Explain the dynamic between cognitive dissonance and the usage of persuasive communicators that can exist in relationships.
6. The article states that cognitive dissonance "impacts relationships in every way possible, both positively and negatively," Talk about some of the positive ways that cognitive dissonance can benefit and contribute to the healthiness of a relationship.