The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it.
