What is cognitive dissonance, and what choices do people have to alleviate the psychological discomfort associated with cognitive dissonance? Give an example.

Cognitive dissonance is the stress and discomfort individuals experience when they face an inconsistency among their own beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. People have a number of choices to reduce cognitive dissonance, including change the behavior, change the belief or attitude, or rationalize the inconsistency. For example, if a person believes that men make better bosses than women, he might experience cognitive dissonance when he is pressured to promote a woman into a leadership position. He may reduce this cognitive dissonance by refusing to promote a woman into a leadership position (changing the behavior), read research that suggests women sometimes make better bosses than men (changing the belief or attitude) or reminding himself that he only made the promotion because he was forced to do so (rationalizing the inconsistency between his belief and behavior).