The Role Of Cognitive Dissonance In The Workplace

Cognitive Dissonance can be found everywhere in our lives. It can be anywhere from our personal beliefs and thoughts to issues in functional and dysfunctional workplaces. Many people fight with cognitive dissonance on a daily basis to make our lives feel right even if our original beliefs felt it is wrong. Cognitive dissonance should be removed as much as possible from everyday life to reduce the amount of stress and arguments in personal lives and workplaces.
Cognitive dissonance is experienced by many people at some point in life. Cognitive dissonance is “when a person holds two beliefs that are relevant to one another but are inconsistent” (Ganser). Cognitive dissonance is also when an “individual’s actions contradict with his or her values …show more content…
At my workplace there is cognitive dissonance from ownership all the way down the line to employees. The owner (Dennis) made his son-in-law (Jon) the general manager with no experience he only worked in construction. Dennis has been told several times that Jon is not fit to be general manager, Dennis knows that he is not the best option but ignores that fact and keeps saying he will become a better manager. The same thing is happening where Jon knows that the newest manager (Walynn) should not be a team leader or manager but he disregards his beliefs to fit all of the other managers beliefs about Walynn because they are his brothers and friends. Then it moves to the employees that recognize the dissonance down the line of leadership. The employees are usually the ones that point out when there is something wrong with the actions of a manager but, they are told they are wrong. When they are told they are wrong they usually feel like they have to change their beliefs on the manager or employee to fit everyone else’s beliefs. Then there are the people who will not change their beliefs to fit others. They start to be ignored because the others do not believe the same thing as that specific …show more content…
It makes us change our actions and beliefs which is not always for the right reason and can cause more problems. It can also ruin workplaces because of the stress it can put on other employees which causes the best to leave. When employees have to argue with managers on what is right and wrong it is going to push them away and not want to make them stay. We need to stop dissonance from changing our lives to make ourselves try to feel better for what we are doing or to make others