Cognitive Theories

Running head: COGNITIVE THEORIES
Cognitive Theories
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Cognitive Theories
Introduction
Leon Festinger, a US psychologist introduced a whole new concept in the field of social psychology in 1956. He named this concept as the theory of cognitive dissonance. According to this theory, individuals experience discomfort or tension in times when their expectations do not concur with their behaviors. Naturally, individuals always seek beliefs and perceptual consistencies. In a state of cognitive dissonance, individuals are faced with unpleasant experiences and change is critical whenever our beliefs don’t match with the previously held belief. This change is meant to reduce or eliminate dissonance. The same cognitive view of motivation was maintained by Jean Piaget who stressed on the principles of assimilation, equilibration, accommodation and the formation of schemas (Haynes, 2010). Like Festinger, Piaget held that children naturally have an intrinsic need to maintain the sense of balance and organization in their environment. This balance may only be experienced if the child assimilates the new experiences by relating to the already existing schemes (Huitt, 2001). Alternatively, children may have the balance by modifying the existing schemes in case the new experiences are totally different. The two theorists present striking views on this subject and this paper identifies the similarities and differences in their positions on cognitive theory of motivation.
From both Festinger and Piaget’s reasoning, individuals (adults or children) require some force to make them to be organized in their feelings, thoughts, and actions lest feel uncomfortable. However, Piaget provided a contrasting viewpoint from that of Festinger by focusing on children as active formulators and not the always confused passive recipients of their own experiences (Haynes, 2010). Puzzled on how schemata develop among individuals, Piaget explained the concept of genetic epistemology whereby he maintained that geneti...