Cognitive Dissonance
Individuals sometimes experience a contradiction between their actions and their beliefs – between what they are doing and what they believe they should be doing. These contradictions can cause a kind of mental discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. People experiencing cognitive dissonance often do not want to change the way they are acting, so they resolve the contradictory situation in another way; they change their interpretation of the situation in a way that minimizes the contradiction between what they are doing and what they believe they should be doing.
托福TPO3口语task4题目 Listening Part:
Now listen to part of a lecture about this topic in a Sociology class.
Professor (male) This is a true story from my own life. In my first year in high school, I was addicted to video games. I played them all the time and I wasn’t studying enough. I was failing Chemistry that was my hardest class. So this was a conflict for me because I wanted a good job when I grew up and I believed, I knew, that if you want a good career you gotta do well in school. But I just couldn't give up video games! I was completely torn.
And my solution was to change my perspective. See, the only class I was doing really badly in was Chemistry. In the others, I was OK. So I asked myself if I wanted to be a chemist when I grew up? And the fact is I didn't. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a sociologist. So I told myself my chemistry class didn't matter, because sociologists don’t really need to know chemistry. In other words, I changed my understanding of what it meant to do well in school. I reinterpreted my situation. I used to think that doing well in school meant doing well in all my classes. But now I decided that succeeding in school meant only doing well in the classes that related directly to my future career. I eliminated the conflict, at least in my mind.
托福TPO3口语task4题目 Question:
Using the example discussed by the professor, explain what cognitive dissonance is and how people often deal with it.
托福TPO3口语task4答案解析：
1. Reading keys
(1.1) Term: cognitive dissonance
(1.2) Definition: the discomfort caused by the conflict between our actions and believes
(1.3) Fix: to see the problem from a new perspective
2. Listening keys
(2.1) Example
(2.1.1) Conflict
(2.1.1.1) Playing video games caused him a poor grade
(2.1.1.2) He knew he should stop and study harder
(2.1.2) Perspectives
(2.1.2.1) Old one: doing well in school = doing well in all subjects
(2.1.2.2) New one: doing well in school = doing well in the courses that are related to future career
(2.1.3) Reason
(2.1.3.1) He didn’t want to be a chemist in the future
(2.1.3.2) He wanted to be a sociologist
(2.1.4) Conclusion
(2.1.4.1) Chemistry class was not important to him
托福TPO3口语task4范文：
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by the conflict between our actions and believes. People tend to change their perspective to deal with it. The professor talks about his own experience. He was addicted to video games in high school and that caused him a poor grade in chemistry class. His solution was to change his perspective. Because he didn’t want to become a chemist, he thought that chemistry class was not that important to him anyway. He used to think that doing well in school meant doing well in all classes, but to solve the conflict, he decided that doing well in school meant only doing well in the classes that are related directly to his future career.