Cognitive Dissonance Theory Flashcards
What is Cognitive Dissonance Theory?
It refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
Give one common example of CDT.
Smoking
Who came up with cognitive dissonance theory?
Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger.
What are the three causes of CDT?
Forced Compliance Behaviour, Decision Making and Effort
What is Forced Compliance Behaviour? How was it studied?
An individual in forced to do something that is inconsistent with his beliefs. To reduce dissonance there needs to be a re-evaluation of attitudes.
See One Note for the experiment.
What is Decision Making? How was it studied?
Life is filled with decisions, and decision (as a general rule) arouse dissonance:
Alternatives
Opportunity cost
Advantages
Disadvantages
What is Effort? How was it studied?
We value most highly those goals or items which haverequired considerable effort to achieve. We might invest years into something worthless and then rationalize to ease the discomfort, denying the effort, glorifying it, or downplaying its magnitude.
How do you reduce Cognitive Dissonance?
Three ways:
Change Belief- Acquire new information that outweighs the dissonant beliefs.
Change Action- change one or more of the attitudes, behaviour, beliefs, etc., to make the relationship between the two elements a consonant one.
Change Action Perception- reduce the importance of the cognitions (i.e., beliefs, attitudes).
What is the scientific point of view of CDT?
We cannot physically observe or measure cognitive dissonance. Consequently, the term is somewhat subjective. The term “dissonance” is ambiguous.
What are some limitations of CDT?
Individual differences: People who act how this theory predicts, and other who don’t.
Anxious people are more likely to experience cognitive dissonance.
Ecological validity: the tasks done on the studies were unique tasks, and not everyday tasks.
Possibility of biased sample and generalized results: most of the applicants were students.
