Cognitive Dissonance is a central theory in social psychology that describes a state of flux in a person when they see, hear or read something that conflicts with their belief about the world and the way it works. You could also read it as confusion – however it’s not a good thing for your business.

First coined in 1957 by American psychologist Leon Festinger, the theory has been adopted by the creative industry to describe the feeling of when two things do not properly align and cause stress on the viewer.

It is used in conjunction with another social psychology theory on ‘MAYA’ (most advanced, yet acceptable), that describes the space that a new asset should aim to occupy but not cause the viewer to refuse acceptance.

An obvious example of this is creating a new logo, yet finding it’s not widely accepted when you don’t get the right colour, line width, texture or composition that helps it to ‘land’ in the correct mental space for the viewers. It could be that the brand professes to be high quality yet does not reflect that in its visual shopfront, using outdated words, colours, fonts or a combination of all of them!

How do you mitigate the destructive effects of cognitive dissonance?

Firstly, seek feedback from those that have nothing to lose from giving it. In our experience, organisations (such as start-ups) that do not have a creative or branding director are most at risk from inadvertently creating cognitive dissonance – as design decisions are made purely from bias, emotion or personal choice, rather than driven by data and research.