Learning that lasts requires cognitive conflict. When existing beliefs clash with new evidence, the discomfort forces you to update your mental model. Without this conflict, there's no motivation to change how you think.
Paper: On the cognitive conflict as an instructional strategy for conceptual change
Without friction, there is no reason to change what you think. Cognitive conflict creates that friction. When you expect one outcome and reality delivers another, your mind must reconcile the gap.
This process of reconciling leads to the Aha moment in learning: the sudden collapse of your old mental model and the birth of a new one.
The emotional peak from this Aha moment marks the memory and motivates you to keep going.
So, for learning design, a simple sequence can be:
- Surface the learner's intuition.
- Ask for a clear prediction or choice.
- Reveal a result that is explainable yet counter to that prediction.
- Name the conflict so it becomes conscious.
- Offer the new principle that resolves it.
- Let the learner apply it right away in a fresh scenario.
In this sequence, learning goes beyond simply acquiring information. It becomes active model-building (like Programming as Theory Building), fueled by cognitive conflict.