In what was one of the most influential and important concepts ever published in the broader psychological field, Leon Festinger's creation of cognitive dissonance completely changed the way psychologists understood decision-making and behavior. The desire to have cognition's that are consistent with our behavior and who we are as a person can be argued to be equally as strong as the desire for basic human needs such as food and shelter. Festinger's theory states that all humans have these basic cognition's, which can be understood as bits of knowledge that can pertain to any variety of thoughts, values, facts or emotions. .
The multitude of our cognition's as we know them, shape who we are, how we act, and how we perceive the world around us in every day life. While most of these cognition's are not related, such as the idea I am a man, and I like chocolate, the important cognition's we focus on in this theory are the ones that are in fact related. For example, the cognition that I like chocolate, and an interconnected cognition of I must watch my weight, are opposite yet related cognition's that create the dissonance we strive to evade. The basic underlying belief of cognitive dissonance theory is that humans experience these dissonant cognition's routinely, and will do whatever it takes to remove these inconsistencies in their lives. While this is a simple idea, the various ways in which people do in fact deal with, eliminate, and even use cognitive dissonance to make decisions, justify actions, and grow as humans is a complex task that is applicable to situations of every kind from the psychological perspective.
The most important part of Festinger's theory lies within the ultimate application of the idea, and the ways in which it can lead us to justify our actions, reduce conflict, or even teach us ideals and values. People can choose to ignore dissonance, produce new cognition's that validate the dissonance, or change their behaviors to create consistency between the opposing cognition's.