CULTURAL COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IN MIGRATION AND ETHNIC INTEGRATION
CULTURAL COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IN MIGRATION AND ETHNIC INTEGRATION

Summary/Abstract: As they grow, all individuals acquire a cognitive-cultural heritage that enables them to integrate into complex cultural systems. The acquisition of knowledge, values and behaviours allows individuals to adapt and fit into the general social cognitive heritage. When members belonging to a particular cognitive-cultural heritage move to places where the host culture is diverse, there is a risk of clash. The outcome of these cognitive-cultural inconsistencies may give rise to internal or external conflict leading to divergent cultural behaviours vis-à-vis the dominant cognitive system. External conflicts stemming from cultural cognitive dissonance may even produce violent behavioural patterns, including so-called cultural crimes. The search for a new cognitive heritage is a spontaneous attempt to restore personal wellbeing and social integration. Refusal to seek cognitive-cultural congruence within a new social value system consigns individuals to a condition of discomfort, instability and violence that may translate into behaviours defined as antisocial. Failure to achieve ethnic cultural integration is the outcome of a process of social and cultural incongruence known as cognitive dissonance.

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