Developments in Cognitive Dissonance Flashcards
What is cognitive dissonance?
Psychological discomfort caused by inconsistent cognitions.
Unpleasant psychological state caused by two or more beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
Describe the two ways to reduce dissonance in the belief-disconfirmation paradigm.
Commit to belief.
Proselytism to seek social support. Adding consonant cognitions. Reduce dissonance by changing their beliefs.
Explain Heider’s balance theory.
There will be tension if there isn’t a balanced state among the attitudes towards people, events, etc in which they are related.
Where did cognitive dissonance originally come from?
Prasad’s study of rumours (the Earthquake example).
Cognition of fear and the knowledge that there was no visible destruction around - led to dissonance - fear-arousing rumours - dissonance reduction.
Explain the process of cognitive dissonance and how to improve it.
Inconsistent cognition - dissonance - desire to reduce the inconsistency - attitude change.
What are the 4 main research paradigms for studying cognitive dissonance?
Free-choice paradigm.
Belief-disconfirmation paradigm.
Effort-justification paradigm.
Induced-compliance paradigm.
What is the free-choice paradigm?
When two choices are close in desirability - dissonance. The closer the alternatives, the bigger the dissonance.
Leads to post-decision dissonance.
How do you reduce dissonance in the free-choice paradigm?
Spread the alternatives.
Chosen is seen as more desirable, unchosen seen as less desirable.
Explain Brehm (1956)’s experimental paradigm (free-choice).
Rate some objects.
Choose between two objects close in desirability.
Rate objects again.
What is the belief disconfirmation paradigm?
Dissonance due to disconfirmation of one’s belief.
What is the effort-justification paradigm?
People who go through effort to achieve something will value it more than those who don’t put in effort.
Aronson & Millis - initiation example.
How can you reduce dissonance in the effort-justification paradigm?
Exaggerate attractiveness of task.
What is the induced compliance paradigm?
When you engage in behaviours inconsistent with attitudes (counterattitudinal behaviours).
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)’s money study. Negative-incentive effect.
What are the two theories that challenge the cognitive dissonance theory’s reliance on motivation?
Self-perception theory - Bem.
Impression-management theory - Tedeschi.
Explain the self-perception theory (Bem).
Dissonance effects are due to a non-motivational cognitive process of inferring one’s own attitude from one’s own behaviour.
Festinger & Carlsmith’s money study - behaviour (lying) was used to judge their attitudes (+ ratings) only when incentive was perceived as not controlling their behaviours (1 dollar).
What findings can’t the self-perception theory account for?
The misattribution paradigm. (Zanna & Cooper, 1974).
Pill study. Tenseness due to dissonance (writing essay) was misattributed to the pill - no attitude change.
The presence of the pill to which dissonance could be misattributed and reduce shouldn’t have affected the rate of attitude change (according to self-perception theory).
Explain the impression-management theory.
People try to appear credible by showing consistency so that they can influence others.
Not passive - want to influence experimenters’ impressions.
No genuine attitude change - only change attitude after a counter attitudinal behaviour so they can manage impressions.
What can’t the impression-management theory explain?
Physiological changes following behaviour justification.
Results from the free-choice paradigm.
When the attitudes were measured by someone other than the experimenter.
What are the 4 main ways to reduce dissonance?
Removing dissonant cognitions.
adding new consonant cognitions.
Decreasing the importance of dissonant cognitions.
Increasing the importance of consonant cognitions.
What are the two things that change in cognition that leads to dissonance reduction depends on?
Resistance to change of the cognition.
Behaviour (based on the gratification induced by it).
Bastian (2012) - perceived mind was negatively associated with animal’s consumption and positively with moral concerns.
Name the two applications of cognitive dissonance?
Clinical setting - cognitive tool in psychotherapy. to provide an account of auditory hallucinations.
Cognitive tool - dissonance statement suggested by therapist that contradicts thoughts. Client has to deal with conflict between the two statements.
Inconsistency between belief + experience in thoughts/intrusive thoughts.
External attribution of intrusive thoughts (e.g. as hallucinations) reduces dissonance.
