A STUDY ON COGNITIVE DISSONANCE REDUCTION STRATEGIES BY CONSUMERS OF ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS

Abstract

The term ‘Cognitive dissonance’ was first coined by Leon Festinger in 1957 in his book ‘The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance’. Leon Festinger (1957) defines cognitive dissonance as the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel "disequilibrium": frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or alternatively by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements. The theory has much wider implication in consumer decision making, especially in consumer behaviour; both in pre-purchase as well as post-purchase situations. Authors have asked to 785 respondents from selected cities of Gujarat State city who are possessors of electronic products using non-probability convenience sampling method. On the basis of past literature, authors have asked questions related to how consumers try to reduce dissonance. In this paper authors have tried to identify what are the factors which affect dissonance reduction and whether there exists any relationship between post purchase cognitive dissonance and dissonance reduction efforts?

Keywords: Cognitive Dissonance, Dissonance Reduction.