Which psychological concept relates to the discomfort felt with conflicting beliefs?

The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to the psychological discomfort that occurs when an individual holds two or more contradictory beliefs, attitudes, or values simultaneously, or when their behavior conflicts with their beliefs. This discomfort often motivates individuals to engage in various strategies to reduce the dissonance, such as changing one of the conflicting beliefs, acquiring new information that aligns with one of the beliefs, or minimizing the importance of the conflict.

For instance, if someone values a healthy lifestyle but frequently overeats, they may experience cognitive dissonance. To alleviate this discomfort, they might change their eating habits, justify their actions by downplaying the importance of healthy eating, or convince themselves that they do exercise enough to be healthy. This process is fundamental in understanding how people strive for internal consistency and how conflicting thoughts can impact decision-making and behavior.

The other concepts listed do not address this specific discomfort related to conflicting beliefs. Classical conditioning pertains to learning through association, operant conditioning focuses on behavior modification through rewards or punishments, and memory encoding deals with how information is processed and stored in the brain. Each of these is distinct from the cognitive dissonance phenomenon, which centers specifically on the struggle to reconcile conflicting thoughts or beliefs.