Cognitive dissonance is the conflict that you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors. In order to resolve the dissonance, the theory suggests that individuals either change their attitudes (in this case, deciding that Susan was okay) OR change their behavior (would have occurred if Nancy had stopped wearing the outfit). The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute someone else’s negative outcome to their individual character or personality while attributing our own negative outcomes to our circumstances. The gain-loss principle suggests that an evaluation that changes over time has more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant over time. Diffusion of responsibility occurs when an individual assumes less personal responsibility in a given situation when there are other people present.
