title: Contextual dissonance effects: nature and causes.
abstract: Contextual consonance or dissonance refers to the concordance of, or the discrepancy between, the individual's social characteristics and those of the population by which he is surrounded. Although a number of advantageous consequences have been shown to issue from contextual dissonance, self-esteem is not one of them. This article seeks to account for the deleterious effect of contextual dissonance on self-esteem by examining the nature of dissonant communications environments, dissonant cultural environments, and dissonant comparison reference groups.
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D006801:Humans; D011287:Prejudice; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D012931:Social Environment; D012938:Social Perception