The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic

This article would be suitable for both psychology and sociology and explores the role of cognitive dissonance in understanding more about ourselves, and how others behave/think during the pandemic.

The term cognitive dissonance refers to the idea the "discomfort people feel when two cognitions, or a cognition and a behaviour, contradict each other" and uses the example of smoking. We may know that smoking is bad for us, but we may continue smoking and justify this by saying that "It helps keep me thin...".

We often to have sit with opposing ideas about ourselves and how we think about events in society, the wearing of masks is another example that the article explores.

This article could be used for the Theory and Methods unit (when discussing how different sociological perspectives view a certain aspect in society).