Cognitive Dissonance
and beyond
Cognitive consistency
an intrapersonal tendency towards harmony, balance or consonance
Heider's balance theory (1946)
Balance between people
Liking relationships between people
Imbalance
doug likes sarah, and exec pay
sarah doesn't like exec pay
doug changes attitude to pay or sarah
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Festinger (1957)
Cognitive dissonance theory
When cognitive elements do not fit together (esp if the obverse of one follows from the other) they are dissonant
People seek to resolve dissonance
Dissonance is aversive feeling, negative affect
Change attitude
chane behaviour
Add consonant elements
Forced compliance (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959)
participants carry out dull task for an hour
participants tell the next participants they will enjoy the task
paid either 1 or 20 dollars for this (IV)
asked how much they REALLY enjoyed it (DV)
1 dollar say enjoyed task more than 20 dollar pay.
Grasshopper experiment Zimbardo et al (1965)
experimenter either warm and friendly or cold
participants eat grasshoppers
dissonance where experimenter is unpleasant - high arousal
Friendly = low arousal.
People in favour as grasshopers as food in cold experimenter condition
Aronson & Mills (1959) psychology of sex discussion group
have to pass embarrasment test - passage of text to read out loud
control bland
mild initiation
severe initiation
discussion is boring and dull and incoherent
ask how much enjoy
severe initiation enjoyed more
Dissonance caused between effort of severe init and boring
change attitude
Official explanation
Freedom of choice (induced but free)
Commitment to dissonant element less likely to change
aversive consequences required (lie, eat grasshopper etc.)
personal responsibility
Alternate explanation
self-concept involvment (not smokers then)
Impression management (related to FAE)
self-perception theory (adjust and infer attitudes from behaviour)
Dissonance and arousal (Zanna & Cooper 1974)
Report more tension in high choice condition
ALternate perpectives
individual measures of preference for consistency
Not inconsistency itself, but anticipation of accusation
Hypocrisy
Inducing hypocrisy to induce dissonance to change behaviour
Advocate condom use
write and record speech for education program (Commitment)
remind them of when they didn't use
AIDS research program
opportunity to buy condoms and attitude assesment
Hypocrisy condition intentions are stronger, and more condoms bought.
Self-affirmation Theory
Theory is that 20 dollar is fine to lie for - low arousal
1 dollar it's insufficient to lie for - high arousal
Dissonant state = attitude change
Steele (1975)
Call women in salt lake city
community known for cooperation
1 called them bad
2 recognised good
3 control
two days later food coop being set up
More complied with bad name (cond 1)
Dissonance seems to work
3 control level was as high as bad 1
Motive people have to maintain sense of self integrity (ethical integrity)
Threats to self-integrity might promote defensiveness
Manipulations promote:
more systematic processing of information (c.f. heuristic)
greater information acceptance
changes in attitude, intention and behaviour
less likely to become defensive
Similar to dissonance in it is conflict between cognition about self and behaiour which violates self-concept
Manipulations
asked to write about most important values or positive acts
Fein & Spencer 1977
Self affirming condition (write about important positive value)
evaluate video of job candidate either jewish or italian
Jewish candidate seen as more suitable in self affirm cond.
Prejudice can be self-affirming
Sherman, Nelson & Steele (2000)
self-affirm manip
given info on coffee and breast disesase
More accepting of information
Attitude more likely to give up caffiene
Sun screen use (Jessop 2009)
positive traits sig
values and kindness to self not.
Criticism
If dissonance exists, it is because it is at odds with self-concept
other theories should be part of (Aaronson)