Dissonance in conflicts may be the strongest of any contrasting cognition's, and in this case, ideas may be created that discredit or even dehumanize the opposition in order to keep consistency between their beliefs and actions. Most people involved in such conflicts are very closed-minded due to the unpleasant idea of listening to contradictory ideals, or the profound belief they are right. Examples of this could include the Israel Palestine conflict, a presidential debate, or even pro-life against pro-choice, cognitive dissonance can be found in all. While cognitive dissonance can create negative ideals, it can also be used to enlighten and teach people about the values of divergent stances, causing an acceptance or justification of opposing cognition's. By introducing cognitive dissonance or pointing out the conflict between what people know and do, we can thus encourage a change in thought or action.
In my personal experience, cognitive dissonance has played a large role in many different situations throughout my life that I may have not realized before the new understanding of social psychology I have acquired. As pointed out earlier, cognitive dissonance may be most strongly intertwined with the problems of conflicts between groups, or in my case, the conflict between individuals and a group. Upon my acceptance to college, I had already experienced the struggle to justify dissonant cognition's in a situation during high school. As most hockey players know, the team you play for and the individuals that make it up is the most important aspect of the sport that I had come to love. Since a young age, I had been on the ice every day doing what made me happy and joining teams of friends that I learned to love due to the experiences we faced together as a larger group. The cognition's of my love for hockey, and the importance of joining successful and close teams were not only related, but perfectly consistent with who I was as a person, and my behavior as a hockey player.
