The irreversible nature of prostate surgery is probably particularly likely to generate responses designed to minimize cognitive dissonance. Intensive therapy may be somewhat less affected by cognitive dissonance than prostate surgery. The reversible nature of the decision to follow intensive therapy presumably places an upper bound on the degree of cognitive dissonance, because people for whom that dissonance was sufficiently large would presumably alter their decision. Nevertheless, we find in our study that about one-third of patients who report themselves as following intensive therapy are actually on conventional therapy according to the strict definition of the DCCT, suggesting that patients may hold a belief that intensive therapy is the right thing to do and therefore report following