Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance—the psychological discomfort of holding conflicting realities (Festinger, 1957). The old version of our life no longer exists, but the new version ...

It is the subject of a new theory based on experiments showing that the grass is usually not greener on the other side of the fence and that grapes are sourest when ...

At the heart of this spectacle lies a form of cognitive dissonance so profound that it would have fascinated Leon Festinger, the social psychologist who developed the theory. In his book A Theory ...

As the pioneering social psychologist Leon Festinger argued, when confronted with overwhelming evidence contradicting deeply held beliefs, people do not necessarily change their views; instead ...