Cognitive dissonance: a logical argument?

Question

Is cognitive dissonance a logical argument? Is it theoretically plausable?

Answer 1

Cognitive dissonance is a concept in psychology, not logic formalism. It recognizes that people frequently function while holding incompatible thoughts or beliefs. For example, one may be told frequently that he is a superb athlete so that he believes he is one, and yet out on the playing field, he's finding out he's not doing well. Until he recognizes that both cannot be true, his judgment could be clouded. There many more subtle examples of such cognitive dissonance where the subject isn't even directly aware of a conflict, but through his subconscious mind his judgment can be affected by it. The main interest of this phenomenon to psychologists is the role it can play in human perception and decisions, or how they may be resolved, such as through rationalization. But it has little or nothing to do with the formalism of logic theory, except that it does involve some kind of a contradiction.