Wow!! such big words>>> NOT REALLY!
Psychologists say that when a person is
confronted by ideas or facts that are at odds with his pre-existing notions,
what results is "cognitive dissonance.
Cognition is simply "a piece of knowledge" and Dissonance is "disagreement or inconsistency"
Not so daunting now, is it?
The term Cognitive Dissonance though relatively new to me and many others is actually an old theory developed by Leon Festinger in (1957) and is concerned with the relationships between cognitions.
The cognitions (pieces of knowledge) of which we speak can be of any kind, can be pieces of knowledge about self, about others, about some thing or another however there can be dissonance or disagreement between two or more pieces of knowledge.
So, How does Cognitive Dissonance tie in with Organizational Communication?
It being that "Cognitive dissonance is the mental conflict that people experience when they are presented with evidence that their beliefs or assumptions are wrong." Montier (2002), cognitive dissonance in communication serves as "static" or noise in a form that distorts the message or prevents it from being received totally.
This is as basic as static during a conversation over a bad telephone line: the message is distorted or not received at all. What cognitive dissonance does is prevents the person from even hearing certain words or phrases which are not in sync with their reality or their perceptions. Simply put a person has a mental block against new information being received which goes against the grain or is inconsistent with the perceptions previously held or rigidly subscribed to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=korGK0yGIDo
Cognitive Dissonance is very present in Organization and is often a major barrier to communication in an organization.
I swear...your edits to the example make it much more acceptable...I was born in an era where Solitaire wasn't played with real cards!
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