I have experienced cognitive and emotional dissonance on a couple different occasions. Cognitive dissonance is when facts are presented to a person who holds different beliefs which leads to mental conflict. A good example of cognitive dissonance that I have experienced was when I took a class entitled “Genetics and Evolution”. As most public science classes do, this class was taught from an evolutionary perspective as opposed to the creation perspective that I hold to be true. It was difficult at times to listen to the professor teach about Evolutionary theories that, in my opinion, are simply false and ridiculous. However, in order to get a good grade in the class I chose to learn the concepts and try to apply them to the test questions in order to give an answer that the professor was looking for. I believe the most conflicting thing about taking this particular class was that I was being graded on information that I believe to be false in the first place. On several occasions, even if I answered a question correctly from the professor’s perspective, in my heart I knew that the answer I gave was incorrect due to what I believe in.
Whereas cognitive dissonance is a difference in beliefs...
