Cognitive Dissonance

A condition of conflict resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's actions, as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat.

It would be interesting to cast this definition into memetic terms. Clearly, for “beliefs” we can read “memes”, but I'm not sure how to translate “actions”. Here's Brodie's take on it, from Virus of the Mind.

High-pressure sales work by making you mentally uncomfortable—by creating cognitive dissonance. You enter the situation with some strategy-memes that make you resist buying: perhaps they are something like look before you leap or shop around before you buy. The salesperson programs you with a meme making it attractive to buy immediately: if I don't buy now, I'll miss a window of opportunity or even simply if I buy now, the salesperson will like me.

Those new memes conflict with your old ones, and a mental tension is created. Your mind wants to resolve the conflict. It does so by creating a new meme.

There are two ways to release the pressure caused by cognitive dissonance: buy in or bail out. If you bail out, it's likely to be because you've resolved the dissonance by creating a meme such as the salesperson's a jerk. But some people buy, creating instead a meme like I really want to buy this.