People reduce dissonance by changing beliefs rather than behavior

Evidence

The resulting feelings of failure, shame, and regret are very uncomfortable. We feel stupid, pitiful, immoral. It causes stress to have possibly been wrong as well as wasted money and energy. And because this inner tension is hard to bear, we immediately do everything we can to reduce it. We start looking for arguments why a decision might have been good and right after all. We struggle to maintain a consistent self-image, wanting to be able to continue looking in the mirror. But since it is easier to change our thinking than our behavior, we tend to match our thoughts to our actions. Doubts are suppressed and often masked by particularly strong commitment to the cause. Information that justifies the previous attitude is preferred over critical information. What doesn’t fit is made to fit; sometimes with a crowbar. Then unpleasant information is avoided, people who criticize are discredited, culprits are sought. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 173

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that ‘it is easier to change our thinking than our behavior’ explains the whole engine of self-deception — why doubt gets redoubled into commitment, not retracted.
• XREF: connects to: Motivated reasoning makes people reject information threatening their values and beliefs. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 89

Related

• Cognitive dissonance resolves primarily to protect self-worth, not truth (similarity 0.81)
• Motivated reasoning makes people reject information threatening their values and beliefs. (similarity 0.81)
• People change their own minds; persuasion attempts play a small role (similarity 0.80)
• Changing someone’s mind is inherently difficult because it requires changing one’s own mind (similarity 0.79)
• Cognitive dissonance is tension from inconsistency between behavior and values (similarity 0.79)
• People often distort evidence to fit preexisting worldviews rather than updating beliefs (similarity 0.78)