Ep 95 Cognitive Dissonance: When Your Brain Calls Bias Intuition

In this episode of The Chief Psychology Officer, Dr Amanda Potter and Kristian Lees-Bell explore cognitive dissonance, the mental discomfort we feel when our beliefs, values, and behaviours do not align. From everyday choices to high-pressure leadership decisions, they discuss why the brain often rushes to reduce discomfort by rationalising, justifying, or reframing decisions, even when those decisions may not be the most effective.

Amanda and Kristian also examine how cognitive dissonance influences decision-making, bias, self-awareness, and workplace behaviour, particularly during periods of stress, ambiguity, and organisational change. They explore the links between cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, anchoring bias, optimism bias, and resilience, highlighting why leaders need to create space for reflection rather than defaulting to the path of least resistance.

This practical conversation offers insight into how we can notice cognitive dissonance, challenge our assumptions, and make better decisions by becoming more honest with ourselves about the gap between what we believe and how we behave.

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Transcript

Welcome And How To Connect

Kristian 0:05

Welcome to this episode of the Chief Psychology Officer with Dr. Amanda Potter, chartered psychologist and CEO of BeTalent by Zircon. I'm Kristian Lees Bell, senior consultant and business psychologist, and today we'll be looking at the topic of cognitive dissonance, how it influences our decision making and how we can reduce it in our daily lives. But before we jump in, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you want to keep the conversation going, connect with us on LinkedIn. Just search for Kristian Lees Bell or Dr. Amanda Potter. Plus, check out the CPO.co.uk website for more resources. And if you like what you hear, please give us a five-star rating so that more people can discover our research and thinking.

Dr Amanda Potter 0:48

Five-star rating would be amazing, wouldn't it?

Kristian 0:50

It would be.

Dr Amanda Potter 0:57

So let's hope people enjoy this episode too. This is a potential favourite of mine because cognitive dissonance is my favourite bias. I'm prone to it.

Kristian 1:06

Is it?

Dr Amanda Potter 1:07

Yeah. Are you prone to it, Kristian? Do you say?

Kristian 1:09

I would say definitely not. No, I mean I think I am. After doing this podcast and redoing the research, um, yeah, I would say I might be prone sometimes to it.

Dr Amanda Potter 1:20

Very good. Very good. Let's find out

Defining Cognitive Dissonance Simply

Dr Amanda Potter 1:22

what cognitive dissonances for them and when it appears.

Kristian 1:26

Fantastic. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. Let's start simple then, Amanda. What is cognitive dissonance?

Dr Amanda Potter 1:31

So it's a bias, and it's when you have a mental discomfort that arises from having two conflicting beliefs.

Kristian 1:39

Can you give me an example of when that might happen or play out?

Dr Amanda Potter 1:43

I can give you a personal example I'm having right at the moment, which is around my renovation of my house. So I'm living in the most beautiful location, and I'm absolutely so happy with my new home. And I've completely pulled it apart, taking down seven walls, and oh my goodness, even just downstairs, taking all the walls down and upstairs as well. On the one hand, I'm trying to commit to a strict budget, but I keep falling in love with these incredible tiles, and I've just found some beautiful antique mirror tiles for the downstairs looking. Oh nice. Yeah, and I keep telling myself it's an investment in my future and I'm gonna live there forever. And on the other hand, I keep finding all these fabulous things that I adore. So that's an example of cognitive dissonance in my personal life.

Kristian 2:25

I love that example. I think I remember buying an expensive watch, also thinking to myself that it was gonna be an investment, and after 20 years it would actually gain in value. I think it went down in value a little bit, but I still got lots of enjoyment from it. But I kept on saying it's an investment, it's a watch.

Dr Amanda Potter 2:42

It's a watch, yes.

Kristian 2:43

Yeah, I love that example. And your behaviour and your belief sounds like they didn't align. So your brain, so you had that confliction, so your brain is kind of, I guess, stepping in and justifying it. Where did the concept come from then?

Dr Amanda Potter 2:57

It was developed by Festinger back in the 50s, and so it's an old one. I can't believe what year we're in now. It's bunkers, isn't it? So it's pretty old, but its core comes from the idea that as individuals we have an inherent motivation to sustain consistency in our brains. We we talk about it a lot on the pod, don't we? That we like predictability, we like control, and because of that consistency for our thoughts and our attitudes, we want our beliefs to be aligned. We don't want to be in this position of discomfort. So that's really where that comes from, which is we are governed by simplicity, consistency, and traditional views because of our brain looking for patterns. So when there's conflict, our brains don't like it.

Kristian 3:40

I remember reading something about First Inger mentioning that behaviour is sometimes less about, I suppose, rational choice, as you said, but and more about trying to avoid the discomfort of that internal conflict.

Dr Amanda Potter 3:52

Yeah, totally. And it's when we have these two conflicting beliefs that we feel uncomfortable. So the discomfort propels us to make a decision. Now that's the bit that's really important, actually, because cultivative dissonance is there to create action. But what action are we going to create on the

Tiles Watches And Self Justification

Dr Amanda Potter 4:10

back of it? Am I going to go for my beautiful glass antique tiles or am I going to go with the budget?

Kristian 4:15

Well, and which one might give you more of a dopamine boost as well? It might be the tiles potentially. Well, it was the tiles one. Dopamine won out.

Dr Amanda Potter 4:26

That's so interesting, isn't it? Because actually, if the decision had not been dopamine fueled, had actually been about securing a current status, we would go for that rather than going for change. Because actually, our brains seek consistency. So if option two was feeling uncomfortable, we would be more likely to stick with the original plan. Of course, I was going towards beauty rather than financial security. Absolutely. You know what I mean?

Kristian 4:55

Yeah, I do. What's happening in our minds then when we're wrestling with these conflicting beliefs?

Dr Amanda Potter 5:01

What it means is it means we have to alter our belief or idea and challenge our current views on a situational tradition. In other words, we have to start telling ourselves a new rhetoric, we have to tell ourselves a new story. So that's the thing. We have to tell ourselves something new rather than continuing what we were telling ourselves prior to the dissonance.

Kristian 5:22

And by telling ourselves that story, I suppose it then reduces the cognitive load of sort of wrestling or holding these different contradictory thoughts or beliefs, which can be quite stressful, I suppose, if you're having to balance that out for a sustained period of time.

Dr Amanda Potter 5:38

Yeah, exactly. That's great.

Kristian 5:39

So we changed the belief of our thinking rather than changing our behaviour, it seems. Can you give me an example of that?

Dr Amanda Potter 5:47

So imagine you were going to focus on your professional development, Christian. So you're telling me that actually you really value professional development, and because we're a psychometric business, you really would like to do some advanced stats.

Kristian 6:00

Oh, lovely.

Dr Amanda Potter 6:01

Actually, I can't imagine you ask me this. But there's a part of you that doesn't really like stats, and that you might realize that you might struggle with some of the technical elements. So that's an example, whereas you know you ought to do psychometrics because we're a psychometrics business, and you ought to do these advanced stats in order to advise clients, yet, actually, there might be a fear response or there may be a logical response, which is you just don't like maths, you just don't like stats at all. So that would be an example.

Kristian 6:28

Yeah, that's a great example. I might have had that initial surge of adrenaline or anxiety, you know, if I was told that I had to go into the advanced stats course literally tomorrow, but I would hopefully rationalise that and uh tell myself that it was good for me, good for my career, but I could see how my mind would feel a bit stressed.

Dr Amanda Potter 6:46

So you can see here with the example that we're trying to reduce the sense of discomfort. So we start rationalizing, we start justifying. So whichever path we go down, we usually try to create a story around it to say actually this is the right decision.

Kristian 7:00

I can see that. And so I might say, for example, that if I might tell myself, Amanda,

Why The Brain Hates Conflict

Kristian 7:05

that I don't have time to do the advanced stats course.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:07

Well, it's not necessary.

Kristian 7:08

Yeah, I'm supposed to be I'm busy delivering.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:11

And when you have that kind of core belief where you know you're lying to yourself, because that's fundamentally what we do, that also creates another kind of sense of discomfort. There's almost another dissonance because you know that actually, even though you've gone with the path, you know it's the wrong one.

Kristian 7:27

Yeah, it really is. I know, and I'm can be a victim of sometimes eating junk food.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:31

Okay.

Kristian 7:32

I can tell myself that because I do some exercise, that balances that out.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:36

So it's absolutely the Yorkie man, aren't you?

Kristian 7:38

I've just remembered. Is it Yorkies that you like? That was years ago, I think. I told you that. I think I haven't got one yet for my birthday or anything. Yeah, I do like the Yorkis.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:47

I just remembered. I do have a food memory. Yeah, I love food. So I have a food memory. I remember pretty much every restaurant I go to and everything I eat. But food's a great example of cognitive dissonance, actually, and particularly for me, because people listening will know that I'm someone who fights hard to stay healthy and I train every day. So I love exercise, luckily, because I love food.

Kristian 8:09

It's a great example, isn't it? And obviously, we could talk about food and dark chocolate and yucky bars all day. But yeah, I suppose it's also useful to hear from you and to talk about why we want to touch on this topic today in the light of what we do and what our clients are challenged by.

Dr Amanda Potter 8:26

Well, from a professional perspective, cognitive dissonance is a bias or a mental shortcut that occurs every day for everyone in so many different situations. We're constantly faced with competing ideas, beliefs, or decisions. And we should really think about how this impacts our ability to make good, rational decisions because it's not about the speed of decisions that's important, it's about the effectiveness of those decisions and preparedness to commit.

Kristian 8:53

And that's so it can affect things like decision quality, can't it?

Dr Amanda Potter 8:57

It can. Again, back to that simplicity and predictability.

Kristian 9:01

Yeah. So how does cognitive dissonance affect businesses in particular? We know what are you seeing?

Dr Amanda Potter 9:08

What has been found is that cognitive dissonance has been a major source of stress, particularly for roles that are more people-oriented, so HR roles or risk roles, because those types of roles are inherently involving a balancing act, balancing the organization's objectives with the employees' objectives and their well-being. And so, depending on the culture and the values of the organization, these can often really be at conflict, be at odds with one another. Because the organization, if you're highly commercial and profit-driven and target-driven, and growth-driven, will be really focusing on numbers. Whereas, of course, they need to make sure they look at their after their employees at the same time.

Kristian 9:48

So it sounds like it really does affect decision-making ways of working. I remember working with uh a senior leader who worked in a very collaborative way, was really compassionate. One of their strengths was enabling other people to develop professionally. So they had a lot of their strengths

Stress And Decision Quality At Work

Kristian 10:05

were around supporting others. But they were going through a lot of stress, a lot of pressure at that time, a lot of organizational change. And through our coaching, he mentioned to me that he found himself closing things down quicker and finding it harder to listen to sort of different views in the way that he had before because of that pressure that was on him. So when you talk about the effects of cognitive dissonance and the fact that we might make less effective decisions under stress, that's really interesting.

Dr Amanda Potter 10:34

So that's a great example. So the dissonance came from just personal desire to be empathic and considerate for others, yet there's an organizational pressure to operate at pace and to be more driving in his behaviour or her behaviour. That's a really good example.

Kristian 10:50

Yeah, from what you've said, yeah, that really makes a lot of sense now. So it affects decision making. We've talked about that. Are there any other biases that might influence us when making decisions, Amanda?

Dr Amanda Potter 11:01

There's so many. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on biases, but spend the whole time just listing 100 and describing them, which wouldn't be that engaging or fun. But a few that particularly relate to cognitive dissonance are, I would say, anchoring bias, confirmation bias, and optimism bias. So anchoring is when a person is influenced by the very first piece of information that they're shown, and this creates a really narrow or tunnel view of the world and situation. So therefore, any additional information there's dissonance. The next one is confirmation bias, so that's involving being favourable about certain information or beliefs or preconceptions, so have confirming something exists already. So therefore, if there's anything new, it's dissonance, and then optimism bias. So that's when we focus only on the positives, and therefore we have dissonance if there's anything that's more critically evaluative, or if there's something that's a bit more negative or even realistic about outcomes, we start, we want to just see the good that's happening.

Kristian 12:01

Yeah, we have a whole array of mental shortcuts that can be really important and effective, but then also can hijack our thinking and effectiveness by the sounds of it.

Dr Amanda Potter 12:10

Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, we are slave to the way in which our brains are connecting and forming. And what I love about the resilience research that we talked about on previous pods and neuroplasticity is that we build our resilience by facing into stress and learning how to cope with stress. And if we don't face stress and cope with stress, then the next time we get stressed, we don't know how to deal with it because neuroplasticity is all about learning. And it's the same with this as well. If we don't face into cognitive dissonance and acknowledge that our brains are looking for tradition, simplicity, and what's always been, we're not going to learn in the future how to challenge ourselves to go for the new option or the new idea. So neuroplasticity in dealing with bias is absolutely key. Otherwise, we'll never change, we'll never grow, we'll just stick with what we know.

Kristian 13:01

I like that last line there, I think it rhymed as well.

unknown 13:04

It did.

Kristian 13:06

You didn't even write that one down, it just came.

Dr Amanda Potter 13:09

It just came out of my brain.

Kristian 13:11

We're in the flow, we're in the zone.

Angela 13:16

Understanding how we make decisions can help us to avoid the pitfalls of some cost thinking. RBPS Verified Decision Styles Questionnaire is a great way to get leaders thinking about why they make the decisions they make and if there's anything they would like to do differently. Visit the CPO.co.uk to learn more about the BTalent Suite of Psychometrics. I'd love to talk you through how we are constantly improving our norm groups, collecting data from all across the world to ensure our reporting is valid and reliable. We ensure our products are accessible for all users. Contact me on LinkedIn. That's Andela Malik, M-A-L-I-K.

Kristian 13:54

What happens

HR And Leadership Under Pressure

Kristian 13:55

in the brain when we experience cognitive dissonance?

Dr Amanda Potter 13:59

Well, I must say I love Keshaya because she does all of this amazing research around the neuroscience. So thank you, Keshaya, for doing this. I think the key thing is that decisions don't happen in a vacuum. You can't make a decision without thinking about all the additional other information that's going to be influencing. And so how we respond to a situation and make a decision is very much shaped by the state of mind we're in at that time and by how much information the brain is able to manage in that moment. So if we're stressed, of course, and we're feeling really overwhelmed, we're not going to be able to think laterally or expansively or be open to alternatives or to that dissonance. We're just going to be in the protection mode. So biases already influence how we judge situations, but when we're stressed, it's even more so because we try to remove that feeling of dissonance and we get even less capacity to sit with that complexity or that discomfort to weigh things up. We just want to get rid of it. We just want to get out of that discomfort and just make a decision. So decision making when we're in that stress situation is narrower, quicker, more focused, but not necessarily the best.

Kristian 15:07

Sounds like pressure depletes our cognitive and mental resources to actually resolve the dissonance in the first place.

Dr Amanda Potter 15:15

Beautifully articulated.

Kristian 15:16

And organizations and people that are going through a lot of change. A lot of our clients are wrestling with inherently lots of ambiguity and uncertainty. People respond and are more resilient in some cases to that pressure. But then there's also, I suppose, the more pressure can create a feedback loop where those decisions under stress, there's less clarity, there's less ability sometimes to regulate our prefrontal cortex. So therefore, we're less able to then resolve the cognitive dissonance. So I suppose it can be a bit of a vicious cycle unless we accept, as you say, some the fact that we have that sort of those competing feelings and beliefs and we can try and do something about it.

Dr Amanda Potter 15:56

It's true and learn from it as well.

Kristian 15:58

And learn from it, yeah.

Dr Amanda Potter 15:59

And this conversation is growing because it's helping us realise actually the size of the decisions we have to make at work are so impactful sometimes on the direction and future of organizations. So understanding that when we are faced with really challenging decisions, that there is a real mental discomfort that comes with it, and being able to sit with that discomfort and sort through it and weigh it up and sit with that complexity without trying to avoid it is so key because it's then that we're going to really understand the situation.

Kristian 16:32

And I don't know about you, but working with clients, whether that's coaching, whether it's um assessment or development and workshops, we find that we work with leaders who have lots of experience. So they're using some of their well-lived intuition to make decisions. But you know, if sometimes under pressure or under intense sort of visibility and stress, they might tell themselves that the intuition always

Anchoring Confirmation And Optimism Bias

Kristian 16:55

works and they're making the right decision. But might it sometimes be that it's discomforting or it's uncomfortable to really sit with the contradictions?

Dr Amanda Potter 17:04

It really is, and so that's why we try and do something about it. We try to avoid. It'd be interesting to really kind of explore some of the things that's really happening in the brain because Keshire again helped us with this.

Kristian 17:14

What happens then in the in the brain areas? Because you know, Keshire is an expert in the neuroscience, and I think we are budding experts, but a long way from being that.

Dr Amanda Potter 17:24

Yeah, I'm not sure. We are definitely learning from her, which is brilliant. So the neuroscience data suggests that dissonance is associated with a number of brain regions from fMRA scans, and that includes the inferior frontal gyrus, which I can't pronounce, and the anterior insula. So they have emotional relationships with the dissonance process. Because when we experience dissonance, the brain appears to be dealing with a mix of discomfort and conflict and control or need for control all at once, which we've talked about. And the anterior insular is associated with that uneasy, uncomfortable feeling. So that's the second one, that's that uneasy, uncomfortable feeling, while the inferior frontal gyrus appears to be helping with the mental effort of trying to sort it all out. So the interior frontal is sorting out, and the interior insular is the discomfort.

Kristian 18:15

It sounds like the brain has some clever ways of trying to calm itself down and to rationalise and to be able to resolve this dissonance.

Dr Amanda Potter 18:24

Yeah, in particular, it's during the dissonance process when we're trying to get an attitude shift to restore that cognitive balance that we see an increased activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus, which of course is the trying to sort it all out, and a decreased activation in the anterior insula, which is the discomfort. Once we've got the attitude shift and we've started to restore the balance, it goes in the right direction. The discomfort reduces, the clarity increases, which suggests, therefore, that after we've made a difficult choice, we start adjusting our attitudes to be more aligned with the decision. What it means is our brain's registering that the discomfort has

Neuroplasticity And Learning Through Discomfort

Dr Amanda Potter 19:10

started to reduce, and therefore it says, Okay, well, that must be the right decision.

Kristian 19:14

That was a good decision. So confirmation bias then.

Dr Amanda Potter 19:17

Yeah, the brain's telling you that's okay. We'll release the discomfort because you've made a decision.

Kristian 19:21

That makes sense. So even a purchase that you maybe invested in a lot or you might have potentially regretted. I know there's been some examples in my life. I remember telling myself after buying that or investing in it, I found a lot of ways to convince myself that it was the right thing and it wasn't a mistake. Because if I'd have lived in that and sort of discomfort, I would have really regretted making the purchase for years to come.

Dr Amanda Potter 19:45

Yeah. We talked about that on that sunk cost pod, didn't we?

Kristian 19:48

Yeah, that's related, isn't it? Yeah, that's definitely closely related. So cognitive dissonance activates, as you said, the areas linked to emotions, emotional discomfort and threat. So when something doesn't align, our brains actually treat it like a problem to solve and to resolve quickly. So I suppose this explains why we default to, I suppose, justifying our behaviours rather than reflecting on things really deeply.

Dr Amanda Potter 20:13

Yeah, and that's key to survival, actually. It's when our instincts come into play that we really experience this cognitive dissonance and try to resolve it. It's because the brain is trying to register a sort of a mismatch as something that's uncomfortable and maybe therefore it's aversive, and therefore it means it's not good to sit with that discomfort very long. So it's all about protection. We're evaluating difficult situations and helping to ourselves to avoid negative outcomes. So rather than staying with attention and examining it in depth, we seem to want to move very quickly towards reducing it to avoid that discomfort. Like you say, therefore, it might mean justifying decision, reframing what's happened or shifting our attitude so that things feel consistent again. So justification feels like it's the brain's fastest route back to psychological comfort, whereas a deeper reflection, which is actually what is needed a lot of the time, will want us to stay with the discomfort for longer.

Kristian 21:11

Is that harder, do you think, in organisations where pace and decisiveness are valued arguably more highly than slowing down or pausing or reflection?

Dr Amanda Potter 21:24

Completely. And it really makes me think about John Bircher from Salt and Light and his colleague Mark Herbert, who have both been on the pod and both eloquent when it comes to decision making,

Decision Styles And Psychometrics Plug

Dr Amanda Potter 21:35

because they often talk about decisiveness, it's not about speed, it's about clarity, and it is about that sitting with that discomfort. They don't necessarily use the tag language of cognitive dissonance in their decision making workshop, but it is all about that. It's all about that deeper reflection and not going towards justification and speed.

Kristian 21:56

Interesting. And I suppose it's not necessarily fast versus. Slow, but how do we create space to think and sit with those contradictions and sometimes that discomfort that might be involved in the decision making? How can we deal with cognitive dissonance? Is the big question.

Dr Amanda Potter 22:15

Yeah, I think the first thing is we need to be aware of it. You know, sometimes we don't even acknowledge that we've got two completing beliefs or ideas. We just feel uncomfortable. And in that discomfort, we therefore get to a position of making a quick decision without necessarily acknowledging. So the first one is raise our awareness. And that then we once we've got it, then to challenge our beliefs. So I'm going to go back to the really simple example of me and my tiles. So where are my core values? What's important to me? How aligned are my decisions with my values and what's important to me? And how much of a risk is it to actually go with one option versus another? It's a really simple example, but it's just in that small example, it's an easy one to understand and interpret. And so finally, we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to look for what's not necessarily the easiest answer, but what is the kind of the more enlightened answer.

The Neuroscience Behind Dissonance

Kristian 23:10

So going forward, are you going to carry on buying the beautiful tiles?

Dr Amanda Potter 23:14

Yes.

Kristian 23:17

Because you can probably visualize just how much more beautiful then more tiles will be, right?

Dr Amanda Potter 23:22

Yeah, well, I've justified it that I only want to do it once. And that is my home for life, I hope. And it will hopefully see me out for decades in future. So I have justified in my mind that actually I'd rather buy something that's buy once, buy beautiful. So yeah, maybe it's not the best example because I didn't stick to my basically I didn't stick to my budget.

Kristian 23:44

But I think after we've had this podcast now, we've got this recording, and then that's it. You've got confirmation that um yeah, there's no more need for cognitive dissonance on this because you've made a decision and it's a home for life, so it deserves the best tiles you can afford. Promise we weren't going to talk about tiles in the next podcast, okay, everybody. Exactly, exactly. We've driven the point home.

Dr Amanda Potter 24:05

So, Kristian, have you got an example of when you've experienced cognitive dissonance?

Kristian 24:11

That's a good question. Probably many occasions. Um, I think about feedback actually, particularly around receiving feedback, Amanda. When I really think about it, when there's people who particularly that I really respect that have given me feedback, whether that's a manager over the years about a performance or a delivery piece, then I think initially sort of try and find ways of telling myself that maybe they might not understand the context. Okay, so deny. Deny, yeah. And I think I'm open to feedback because I know there's always room for improvement. So I have that belief, and that always sits there. But I suppose that's that initial response when I reflect on it of yeah, but that's not the whole story, or maybe you might be wrong in this particular area. And then what usually happens is I'll kind of sit for it for a while, and then usually that belief of feedback is good for me. You know, I'll start to see, I'll use my prefrontal cortex, and I'll think, well, actually, yeah, there's an element of truth there. And then I might kind of lean towards completely agreeing or at least taking on board the feedback and thinking about it in a bit more of a nuanced way. So, yeah, that's been a recurring thing for me.

Dr Amanda Potter 25:26

What the listeners can't see is me nodding. So I was nodding slowly while you were doing that, because that's such a brilliant example, because the belief is that feedback is good and it's helpful, yet there's also the belief that that person doesn't know you as well as you know you and they don't know the context and the situation.

Kristian 25:43

Absolutely, yeah.

Dr Amanda Potter 25:44

Which is that kind of defensive. So that's a really great example, actually. And the fact that you had to work through that discomfort.

Kristian 25:50

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the fact that they might be right can be uncomfortable. So that was probably the reason for the uh cognitive dissonance.

Dr Amanda Potter 25:58

It does sound like then cognitive dissonance is something that we face into every day. So, in summary, what's happening is the brain experiences it as a discomfort. We're motivated to remove that discomfort very quickly and be avoidant of it. So, therefore,

How To Reduce Dissonance Daily

Dr Amanda Potter 26:15

we are propelled to make quick decisions, but not necessarily good decisions. So, I think the real key message with this podcast is that in those situations where we are facing an uncomfortable truth or an uncomfortable conversation or uncomfortable decision, don't make the quickest one. Maybe talk it through and challenge yourself that the path of least resistance is not necessarily the right path all the time, and actually, it may be the more difficult path is the right way forward.

Kristian 26:47

So ultimately it's not something to get rid of. You as you say, we need to notice it because it might be pointing to a gap between who we say we are and what we're actually doing. So knowing this is where the real opportunity uh for change is.

Dr Amanda Potter 27:01

Absolutely. I think this all comes back to being more self-aware, challenging ourselves, and then being honest with ourselves. So back to those three steps to really face into that dissonance. And it comes down to decision making. You know, we don't want to be experiencing some cost bias, you know, throwing good money after bad as an example from our previous pod. And that's a great example of when people are experiencing dissonance. They know I'm throwing more money at this, more time or energy at it, but it's not necessarily giving me any reward. This is a great example of dissonance. So facing into it is the first step.

Kristian 27:36

Yeah, and I think through our examples, some work-based, but also our stories about tiles and my stories about Yorkie bars and feedback, I'm I'm confident that our listeners will actually see maybe a bit about themselves in our conversations and some examples that I think yeah, really bring this topic to life for

Feedback Example Key Takeaways Close

Kristian 27:55

them. So I think it's been a practical one, really insightful and fascinating for us both as we work through this together. It's great.

Dr Amanda Potter 28:01

Thank you, Kristian. I've enjoyed prepping and enjoyed recording.

Kristian 28:04

So have I. And thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you, Amanda. And as always, if you've enjoyed this podcast and others, then please tell your colleagues and friends. And we'd love to have you join us on our next podcast.

Dr Amanda Potter 28:18

Thank you, Kristian. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you have a wonderful and successful day.