Doctor Scratch writes:
Per what definition, Ben? Maybe you can cite a passage from Festinger or something. The thing that immediately strikes me as being problematic with your assertion here is the notion that "beliefs" change. How is something like this measurable? And isn't "shelving" a difficult issue a form of change, arguably?
This is from Festinger's introduction:
Since there will be a more formal discussion of this point later on in this chapter, let us now examine how dissonance may be reduced using as an illustration the example of the habitual smoker who has learned that smoking is bad for his health. He may have acquired this information from a newspaper or magazine, from friends, or even from some physician. This knowledge is certainly dissonant with cognition that he continues to smoke. If the hypothesis is correct, what would the person involved be expected to do?
I. He might simply change his cognition about his behavior by changing his actions; that is, he might stop smoking. If he no longer smokes, then his cognition of what he does will be consonant with the knowledge that smoking is bad for his health.
2. He might change his "knowledge" about the effects of smoking. This sounds like a peculiar way to put it, but it expresses well what must happen. He might simply end up believing that smoking does not have any deleterious effects, or he might acquire so much "knowledge" pointing to the good effects it has that the harmful aspects become negligible. If he can manage to change his knowledge in either of these ways, he will have reduced, or even eliminated, the dissonance between what he does and what he knows.
But in the above illustration it seems clear that the person may encounter difficulties in trying to change either his behavior or his knowledge. And this, of course, is precisely the reason that dissonance, once created, may persist. There is no guarantee that the person will be able to reduce or remove the dissonance. The hypothetical smoker may find that the process of giving up smoking is too painful for him to endure. He might try to find facts and opinions of others to support the view that smoking is not harmful, but these attempts might fail. He might then remain in the situation where he continues to smoke and continues to know that smoking is harmful. If this turns out to be the case, however, his efforts to reduce the dissonance will not cease.
Indeed, there are some areas of cognition where the existence of major dissonance is customary. This may occur when two or more established beliefs or values, all relevant to the area of cognition in question, are inconsistent. That is, no opinion can be held, and no behavior engaged in, that will not be dissonant with at least one of these established beliefs.(pp. 5-7)
and
Indeed, one of the important consequences of the theory of dissonance is that it will help us understand some circumstances where the cognitive elements do not correspond with reality. But it does mean that if the cognitive elements do not correspond with a certain reality which impinges, certain pressures must exist. We should therefore be able to observe some manifestations of these pressures. This hypothesized relation between the cognitive elements and reality is important in enabling measurement of dissonance, and we will refer to it again in considering data. (p. 11)
Festinger provides a much more technical discussion of this from pages 18-28. There are several things that Festinger notes with regards to you last comment. The first is that even with competing cognitions, we don't always see dissonance. After all we probably experience dissonance on some level all the time (but it may be unnoticeable). Festinger deals with this in part by discussing the notion of magnitude (pp. 15-17 of his introduction). When we talk about shelving something easily (and my emphasis is on how easy it is), it is evidence that the magnitude of the dissonance was not significant. If they were significant (or as you put it, if it was a "difficult" issue), then as Festinger notes in the quote above: "If this turns out to be the case, however, his efforts to reduce the dissonance will not cease."
Now, it is true that there might be a change. A person could well increase the magnitude that they assign to an existing cognition to cause the balance between the competing cognitions to shift. But, if that balance starts off heavily in favor of one particular side, then such a shift is even unnecessary in the face of competing cognitions. If you are playing with a red ball, and someone asks you if you like your green ball, unless you have some reason to believe that you are wrong in knowing that the ball is red, you aren't going to adopt the idea that the ball is green. The situation might be modified somewhat if you knew that you (or the other person) was color blind. But in general terms, the cognition of what you see is given a magnitude of weight far above the cognition of what the other person has expressed that they see.
So while an LDS person might encounter new cognitions, if they don't change, and if there is no behavioral shift, then its likely that they haven't experienced the feeling of discomfort identified as cognitive dissonance. And it certainly wouldn't produce something that we could look at and call cognitive dissonance.
Ben M.