Cognitive dissonance: how self-protective distortions can undermine clinical judgement.

Cognitive dissonance has been studied for decades in social psychology but has not had much influence on medical education research. We argue that the construct of cognitive dissonance is very relevant to the clinical context and to medical education. Dissonance has the potential to interfere with learning, to hinder the process of coping effectively with error, and to make the accepting of change difficult. Fortunately, there is the potential to reduce the negative impact of cognitive dissonance in clinical practice.