19.7: Dissonance Reduction and Bad Reasoning

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Over the short run, dissonance reduction often allows us to see our views as well-founded and our actions as compatible with our ideals, but it doesn’t make for good and independent reasoning. Indeed, some of the ways dissonance reduction works will be familiar to students of fallacies. When someone offers arguments for views we don’t like or evidence suggesting that we are wrong or that our actions are harmful, there are several common ways of reacting. All these can help us reduce dissonance.

Distort the person’s position or argument or evidence so that we don’t have to take it seriously (e.g., the straw man and either/or fallacies).
Shift the focus away from the person’s position, argument, or evidence so that we don’t have to think about it (e.g., ad hominem and red herring).
Overestimate the quality of the arguments or evidence supporting one’s own position (e.g., appeal to a suspect authority and appeal to ignorance).
Rationalize that “everybody does it,” so we might as well too.

While such strategies may protect our attitudes and self-image, being unwilling to confront the facts does not promote clear and independent thinking. In the following exercises, we will encounter examples of the importance of cognitive dissonance and dissonance reduction in the real world.