Can someone please explain Cognitive Dissonance??

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#1 May 31 - 6PM
sara-smile
sara-smile's picture

Can someone please explain Cognitive Dissonance??

I know what it means and I've read about it but I'd like for someone to "dumb it down" a bit for me. :) You know....take out all the psychology babble that is hard to understand! I think it would help others to understand it too!

Thanks!!

Sara

Jun 1 - 12PM
dudette
dudette's picture

Cogdis

as I call it: My head: You have had a lucky escape, this man is a violent psycho control freak who abuses women and sucks them dry of their heart money and soul My heart: But he was nothing but good to me... well, apart from the lies, the cheating, the cruel triangulation, the non accidental pregnancy and the silent treatment.... all adds up to: May be it was my fault and his ex wife's fault after all.may be with New GF if she is nice, kind, good and patient enough with him, may be he will be good to her and marry her and be they will be happy ever after.... Essentially, another form of mindfuck that you are left with as a lovely memento of this lovely successful mature relationship that you have just got away from... but hang on, should you be pleased that you have got away? Let's revisit all the statements above obsessively for months on end.... Here we go again.....
May 31 - 9PM
Arwen
Arwen's picture

So, I will tell you in

So, I will tell you in musical terms what it is. Consonance is when two or more notes make a pleasing harmony, a sound that is perfect and easy to listen to and makes sense. Dissonance is usually two notes right next to each other that are played together in order to make a cacophony, a sound that is unresolved. When you lower one of those clashing notes by one step, you then have the harmony or the consonance again in the sound. So dissonance in terms of what the narc is, is a cacophony, a trainwreck of sound in your brain that is made because these two competing notes are unresolved in your brain...you can only choose one way to resolve the clash of sound and regain harmony.
May 31 - 8PM
Jannie In the Sun
Jannie In the Sun's picture

CD = WTF?

F'ed in the head because someone's feelings, thoughts and actions don't align. They could be the N or the NS, and in my case both.
May 31 - 7PM
Hunter
Hunter's picture

Sara Smile

Come on you know what it is. Its the love hate thing, Is he or isn't he? He fucked with you and you don't know what end is up or what to believe. You know in your head he's a jackass but your heart in still in love with the masked man :( Hunter
May 31 - 7PM
Lobo555
Lobo555's picture

It's where your heart can't meet your head

You have the heart idea: He loves me. This competes with the head idea: He's lying, cheating, devaluing, discarding me. It makes your brain short circuit because they can't match up. They're opposites, yet they both exist at the same time. Another example is the good side they show during the idealization phase that totally clashes with the horrid side they show during the d&d phase. In other words, how did that turn into *THAT*??? Cognitive Dissonance = The main course of the meal the narc serves to you. The first course is word salad. The dessert course is D&D a la mode.
May 31 - 7PM
michele115 (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Simply Put

Taking to radically different thoughts that no matter how you try to fit them together will NEVER make sense and trying to do it anyway. It is the brain's natural ability to fight such action...hence the mental cluster eff... That is about as simple as I can put it. CD is knowing two plus two equals four but really trying to make it equal five.
May 31 - 7PM
enpsychopedia r... (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Sara

I'm not sure if I have this right, but I think cognitive dissonance means trying to reconcile opposites in your mind. Can't happen and people go batty trying, so they are forced to choose one or the other. So, sociopaths, narcs and other hideous individuals present as both angel and devil. Which is real, what is the truth? You're forced to choose. So much easier, in one sense to choose to believe they are angels who are just hurting or misunderstood, or fill in the blank. The ultimate cog dis would be having your mother lovingly pat your head and send you off to school. When you come home for lunch you catch her in the act of chewing the head off your cat...just for example. Which version of Mom will children choose? Kids will even do swift historical revisions where they simply can't remember the cat incidence the next day, as it doesn't fit any established pattern and it's so at odds with the "good mother". As morbid and harsh as the "eating the head off the cat" story is, it is by no means any more difficult to conceptualize than being DandD'd by someone who was formerly ultra loving.