cognitive dissonance Flashcards
what is cognitive dissonance
a feeling of mental discomfort when contradictory information is percieved by a person. This can include feelings, attitudes, belifs, actions and environemntal stimuli.
what are the 3 effects of cognitive dissonance on behaviour
- avoidance
- reduction
- rationalisation
describe avoidance
people are inclined to avoid and new information that could increase cognitive dissonance
descirbe reduction
when there are conflict between cognitions, people will take steps to reduce the dissonance and feelings of discomfort
describe rationalisation
when indviduals experience cognitive dissonance, we tend to rationalize or justify our behaviour
what can cause cognitive dissonance
this can be caused by the raltionship betwee teo differing internal beliefs, or an actions that is incompatible with the belief of the person.
what are the 3 responces to cognitive dissonance
- changing their behaviour
- chnaging their beliefs
- chnaging their perception of the action
describe ‘changing their behaviour’
this invloves chagning behvaiour so it matches the persons beleif.
describe ‘changing their belief’
if a person often behaves in a way that contradicts the belief, a person may question the value of that beleif and find they no longer believe it.
describe ‘ changing their perception of the action’
if a person cannot or does. ot want to change the behaviour that causes dissonance, they may change the way they veiw the behvaiour.
what is the aim of the cognitive dissonenace forced compliance study
to investigate whether making people perfom a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behvaiour.
describe the method of the cognitive dissonance forced compliance study
- 71 male studnets from a psych class at stanford were picked through convienience sampling
- they were put through a boring task and after split into three groups: one group was paid $1 to tell others that the task was enjoyable, the other was paid $20 and the other was paid nothing and weren’t told to do anything.
what were the key findings of the study
- participants in the $1 group rated the task significantly more enjoybale than the $20 group and the control group.
what was the conclusion drawn from the study
the $1 group rated the task significantly more enjoyable than other groups because they were also trying to justufy the time they wasted to themesleves.
