MOST OF US have experienced conflicting beliefs at one time or another. For instance, you know that drinking too much alcohol is bad for your health, but you pour yourself a second glass of wine ...

All of us fall prey to cognitive dissonance. My cheerful wife occasionally offers me, shall we say, suggestions for improvement. And after 50 years I have learned that she is usually right. How I wish ...

Do you have a case of cognitive dissonance? Cognitive what? You may wonder why we’re asking if you have a case of cognitive dissonance. We’re asking because it’s common and uncomfortable. It’s a term ...

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term that describes the discomfort you feel when your beliefs don’t line up with your actions. Or it could refer to the tension of holding two conflicting ...

One of the great mysteries in both religion and politics is why people continue to hold on to fervently cherished beliefs in spite of evidence contrary to those beliefs. I will give some examples in ...

Do you keep second-guessing your decisions after you’ve made them? Immobilizing yourself? Berating yourself when you finally decide on something? This can be a normal albeit painful way to make ...

Conversation among us is peppered with observations of the division within the American population. The division is revealed in a number of forms. It may be the acknowledgement of the political gap ...

"We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness." –Daniel Kahneman Cognitive dissonance, a psychological phenomenon first identified by Leon Festinger in 1957, refers to the ...

Thomas Plante (@ThomasPlante) Augustin Cardinal Bea, SJ professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, is a faculty scholar with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and an adjunct clinical ...