http://thorsteinn.substack.com/p/it-isnt-cognitive-dissonance-its
Cognitive dissonance is when people feel discomfort due to discrepancies in their own thoughts or beliefs. As an example, someone who takes pride in being honest, feels such discomfort when he tells a lie.
Another example of cognitive dissonance is the discomfort felt by members of a cult when they seek to explain how the end of the world was postponed, as their apocalyptic prophecy did not come true. The term was in fact coined by psychologist Leon Festinger in his studies of such cults in the 1950s.
The opposite of cognitive dissonance is doublethink, a word that first appeared in George Orwell’s 1984. Doublethink is the ability to accept two contradictory beliefs at the same time, while being totally unaware of the contradiction.
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