Cognitive Dissonance & Attribution Theory Flashcards
Define perception
Obtaining awareness and understanding of a phenomenon based on information obtained through the senses
Describe Social Perception
How we decide what other people are like.
The process through which we use information in the environment and our past experiences to form impressions (awareness & understanding) of other people.
- Most people make systematic mistakes in assessing others.
2 elements of social perception
Internal Consistency (Cognitive Dissonance) people seek consistency in their thoughts
External Accuracy (Attribution Theory) how people attribute causes of their own and other’s behaviours
Describe Cognitive Dissonance
The uncomfortable tension from holding two conflicting, inconsistent thoughts simultaneously.
3 ways of resolving dissonance:
To become consonant, these thoughts have to be either
- lowered in their importance or
- the inconsistency is resolved.
Self: Change how we view ourselves
- “I am a healthy person who gives credit to scientific research.”
Environment: Change our environment; Acquire new information
- “I will avoid smokers. I will leave the room when people start smoking.”
Others: Change how we view others; Forget/reduce importance of dissonant cognitions
- “My smoker friends have no ambitions. No wonder they can’t give up smoking.”
How can we use Cognitive Dissonance to shape behaviour?
Insufficient Punishment
- Mild punishment that succeeds in stopping a behaviour will create dissonance that will be reduced by subsequent lowering of the initial attraction toward that behaviour
Justification of Effort
- If a person works hard to attain a goal, that goal will be more attractive to him or her than to someone who achieves the goal with little or no effort.
2 applications of CD to organisations
Because people will try to resovle their cognitivei dissonance, organisations can use their dissonance to change people’s attitudes/behaviours towards their jobs.
Justification of effort
- Unpaid internships: If I am willing to except the unpaid internships then I justify to myself that I really want to work for this company.
- Recruitment: you go through a lengthy recruitment process , you must really want that position.
- Compensation: short term behavioural change can be attribute to external rewards, but if rewards are small individual have to justify their efforts and find an internal motive why they are doing it. If it is not worth the money- maybe I really like it/ or a good lesson.
Insufficient punishment
- Mild penalties for bad behaviour
Attribution Theory / External Accuracy
What are 4 cognitive biases that influence our evauations of other’s behaviour or causes of events?
1) Fundamental attribution error:
- Attributing the behaviours of others to dispositional (internal) factors, without considering situational (external) factors
- Example: Healthy-looking person taking the disabled seat during peak time. Situational factor: the person had a recent operation
2) Self-serving bias:
- In others, we tend to attribute failure to internal reasons and success to external reasons.
- In ourselves, we tend to attribute failures to external reasons and successes to internal reasons.
3) Halo error
- We tend to draw on single characteristics when making global evaluations of individuals.
- Attractive students get better grades, handsome criminals get lighter sentences, and good-looking employees get higher pay
- Taller individuals make more money than shorter individuals
4) Person sensitivity bias
- We tend to be more sensitive to the performance of individuals (i.e., over rewarding them when they do well, harshly punishing them when they do poorly) than we are of inanimate objects
- For example, coaches are often over-punished or over-rewarded for the performance of their team
Kelley’s Theory of Causal Attribution
A certain behaviour gets attributed to its potential causes based on the circumstances that appear at the same time as its behaviour. Attributions are based on three criteria:
Consensus: the extent to which others behave similarly to the person we are judging
- Consensus = high –> situational factors (External);
- Consensus = low –> dispositional factors (Internal)
Consistency: the extent to which the person we are judging acts the same at other times in the same context
- Consistency = high –> internal;
- Consistency = low –> external
Distinctiveness: The extent to which this person does not act in the same way in other contexts
- Distinctiveness= high –> external;
- Distinctiveness= low –> internal
Aronson Experiment (1997)
People had to individually perform a boring task as part of a study. The researcher offered one group $1 and the other $20 to tell the lie that they found this task not boring.
Of those who agreed, the $1 group had a lower CD because the financial (external) aspect was not enough to justify their behaviour so they convinced themselves that the task was actually not as boring as they had previously thought.
The $20 group had higher CD because the financial justification was enough to lie, which means they didn’t need to convince themselves and did not change their mind, which caused them to have inconsistent thoughts simultaneously.
Vicarious Dissonance
Occurs when an individual places him or herself in a hypocrite’s position and empathises with the other’s feelings.
For example, say that you hear a coworker strongly disagree with a paper that Smith wrote. Later that day, you happen to overhear her conversing with Smith and praising the paper. You wonder how she must feel, privately loathing the paper, but publicly supporting it. You would feel distraught (upset and worried) at this hypocrisy.
Motivations for eliminating cognitive dissonance
The motivation to make dissonant thoughts congruent can come from factors such as:
- importance of the subject,
- control over the occurrence of the dissonance,
- rewards for achieving consonance,
- people want to be predictable, have consistent thoughts
Belief-Disconfirmation Paradigm
gravitation to others with the same belief
Induced Compliance Paradigm
A person does something against their belief in response to a incentive motivation (desired reward or fear of punishment).
The role of cognitive dissonance in perpetrating conflict
IT plays a large role in perpetrating and eliminating conflict. People are unwilling to look at new information. CD is too unpleasant and close-mindedness too easy. The disbelief of the Jews during WWII is also CD, trying to rationalise in different ways that things were not so bad.
