Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Racism

Since the field of complaisant psychology first began its investigation into the phenomenon of racism and loss, a number of epochal theories drive been constructed in an campaign to effectively think prejudice and provide theoretical acumen into the various ways in which we as a society, individuals, and psychologists argon to help form this estimable global issue. Such social mental theories include: sniffy Personality Theory, The Frustration onset Hypothesis, Realist Conflict conjecture, brotherly individuality Theory, Social Learning theory, Social Cognition and Cognitive noise theory. Each of these theories has provided theoretical perceptivity into various fundamental factors that be germane(predicate) to the formulation, maintenance, and expression of prejudice. However, of altogether the social psychological theories that have attempted to effectively conceptualize prejudice and in so doing develop ways of reduce its grossly harmful do on the individua l and society, Festingers (1957) theory of Cognitive Dissonance seems wiz of the most relevant to the clinical applications of working with racist individuals, in the first place because the theory provides clinicians with both crucial conceptual and practical brainwave into deuce of the primary psychological elements that be most relevant to the process of helping clients change their racist or detrimental viewpoints in treatment, namely the relational process that exists between an individuals learnings and the behavioral consequences that follow as a result. \nThe theory of cognitive dissonance, gibe to Festinger (1957), postulates that pairs of cognitions can be both related or unrelated to iodin another. If two cognitions are related to one another, they are considered then to be any consonant or at variance(p). For two cognitions to be consonant one must follow in a flash from the other; they are considered dissonant if the inverse of one cognition follows from th e other....