Cognitive Dissonance

I always thought that my dad was able to "tell himself things" or "lie to himself." In other words, I knew the things that he was saying were in no way true, but I knew that he actually thought and convinced himself that they were in fact true. For example, if he drinks this nasty vegetable juice that he drinks, I know he doesn't like it, but he tells us that he loves it. Finally, thanks to Leon Festinger and Mrs. Perl, I came across a term to explain his behavior. It is not that he lies to himself or that he convinces himself of anything; it is simply called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort that one experiences when holding two or more conflicting cognitions simultaneously. In this case, he already drank the vegetable juice and there is nothing anyone could do about it. Now that he already drank it, he is feeling discomforted because he doesn't actually like it, but yet, he still drank it. So, the cognitive dissonance theory explains that he wants to justify what he had done. Thus, eliminating the sense of discomfort. So, in this case, he says he liked it to eliminate his discomfort.