What did Leon Festinger's (1957) original formulation of dissonance theory posit? Be sure to ...

Answer: First, cognitive dissonance is a state of unpleasant arousal (like hunger or thirst) that we are motivated to reduce. Dissonance arises when cognitions that we hold are psychologically inconsistent with one another. To reduce dissonance, we can change our behaviors to bring them into line with our cognitions; we can also change the cognitions themselves by changing one or more cognitions to make them more consonant with our behaviors or with one another; or we can add new cognitions that are consonant with our behaviors or other cognitions.