Cognitive Dissonance in my world

I recently felt a lot of cognitive dissonance in my world when I had to make a decision on whether or not to buy a certain dress. It was expensive, and I was unsure if I should spend money and buy it. I decided to put the dress on hold at the store, as I looked around to other stores for different and hopefully cheaper dresses. However, I only kept thinking about the one expensive dress and kept comparing every dress to it. The other dresses were simply not as good as the expensive one that I saw earlier. My dissonance was increasing as I really wanted the expensive dress even though I knew I shouldn't spend money. I then convinced myself that it was okay to spend money on a dress since I had not bought anything else that week or spent any type of money. By using a reasoning external factor and changing one of the dissonant cognitions, I helped reduce my dissonance about feeling bad for spending money. Then, the store said that the dress was not returnable. The decision became more permanent (similar to the $2 bet horse racing permanence study), and I soon became more confident and happier in my decision now. My uncomfortable dissonance before did not exist anymore since the decision i had made now was irrevocable and thus more permanent. I was happy with my decision even if I did spend money.

Melissa Karson
A08096719