Since the field of social psychology first began its investigation into the phenomenon of racism and prejudice, a number of significant theories have been constructed in an attempt to effectively conceptualize prejudice and provide theoretical insight into the various ways in which we as a society, individuals, and psychologists are to help change this sizable global issue. Such social psychological theories include: Authoritarian Personality Theory, The Frustration Aggression Hypothesis, Realist Conflict theory, Social Identity Theory, Social Learning theory, Social Cognition and Cognitive Dissonance theory. Each of these theories has provided theoretical insight into various fundamental factors that are relevant to the formulation, maintenance, and expression of prejudice. However, of all the social psychological theories that have attempted to effectively conceptualize prejudice and in so doing develop ways of reducing its grossly harmful effects on the individual and society, Festinger's (1957) theory of Cognitive Dissonance seems one of the most relevant to the clinical applications of working with racist individuals, primarily because the theory provides clinicians with both significant conceptual and practical insight into two of the primary psychological elements that are most relevant to the process of helping clients' change their racist or prejudicial viewpoints in treatment, namely the relational process that exists between an individual's cognitions and the behavioral consequences that follow as a result. The theory of cognitive dissonance, according to Festinger (1957), postulates that pairs of cognitions can be either related or unrelated to one another. If two cognitions are related to one another, they are considered then to be either consonant or dissonant. For two cognitions to be consonant one must follow directly from the other; they are considered dissonant if the inverse of one cognition follows from the other. Festinger (1957) maintains that the experience of dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable, and as a result it motivates the person to reduce the dissonance, which more often than not leads to the avoidance of information. Harman-Jones and Mills (1996) argue that the likelihood that a particular cognition will change in order to reduce dissonance is determined by the resistance to change by the person holding of that particular cognition. More specifically, this resistance to change depends primarily on the extent to which it causes discomfort or loss and the satisfaction obtained through the change which manifests following the dissonance. If two cognitions are in opposition with one another, it is the more recently acquired cognition that possesses the higher resistance to change. Festinger (1957) argues that a person is as likely to distort reality as to do anything else in his or her attempt to avoid dissonance, thus indicating how incredibly delicate is the human will toward change and how equally difficult it can be for clinicians attempting to produce a change in a client's cognitive patterns by stimulating dissonance. According to Festinger (1957), people can reduce dissonance in three particular ways: (a) changing one or more of the elements involved in dissonant relations, (b) adding new cognitive elements that are consonant with pre-existing cognitions, and (c) decreasing the importance of those elements involved in the dissonant relations (p. 264). It may be beneficial to provide a case example used by Festinger (1957) to elucidate the theory. Suppose there is woman who has been habitually smoking for many years and suddenly learns or realizes that smoking is harmful to her health. As a result of gaining this newfound knowledge she will experience dissonance because knowing smoking is in fact harmful to her health is dissonant with the cognition that she should continue smoking. However, she can reduce the dissonance she is now experiencing by changing her behavior, by ceasing smoking, which would be consonant with the cognition that smoking is harmful to her health. The woman could also reduce the dissonance by changing her cognition about the effect smoking has on her health and allow herself to believe that smoking does not have harmful effects on her health, which will allow her to at least seek to eliminate the dissonant cognition that smoking is in fact harmful. She may decide to search out positive effects of smoking and allow herself to believe that smoking reduces stress or tension and keeps her from gaining weight, which helps by adding new consonant elements to already existing cognitions. She may consider the pleasure she receives from smoking to be a very significant part of her life, which increases the importance of consonant cognitions. Finally, she might allow herself to believe that the risk of smoking to her health is negligible in comparison to the danger of perhaps getting cancer or being involved in a traffic accident, thus reducing th