Festinger Flashcards
Which group of participants in Festinger & Carlsmith’s (1959) forced compliance experiment enjoyed the peg-turning task the most?
Low payment group (£1)
What was Festingers PHd in?
child behaviour
Was Festinger originally interested in SOCIAL psychology?
no
What did Festinger initially work on?
• Initially works on quantitative model of decision making, statistical questions, lab work with rats
What is the propinquity effect?
closer you live, more likely you are to be friends
Festinger noticed uniformity of opinions in friendship groups . What theories is this?
- Social comparison theory
2. Cognitive dissonance theory
What did Festinger suggest a subjective reality is?
Festinger suggested that a person’s subjective reality is dependent on the mental representations of everything around them
What are the strategies to reduce dissonance?
- Add consonant cognitions and/or make them more important
- Subtract dissonant cognitions and/or make them less important
- Change attitudes/behaviour
- Avoid dissonant cognitions
What did Festigner find dissonance with?
Cognition 1: The prophecy will come true
Cognition 2: The prophecy failed
what were Festingers hypotheses?
1) The publicly stated belief in the prophecy will be held on to, and will increase in importance
This will be expressed in proselytizing and recruitment of new members
2) The fact that the prophecy failed will be downplayed and “explained away”
What was the method?
Festinger and colleagues decided to study the Seekers through participant observation, infiltrating the group by pretending to be new converts
Group leader: Dorothy Martin
• Festinger gave her the pseudonym Marian Keech in his publication
how did the group react to not being lifted
4am- crying
4:45- Mrs Keech receiveda another message saying their faith saved the world
What did the group do next
proselytize
what does proselytize mean?
recruit new members
when did the group fail
when recruitment failed
What was study two on Induced Compliance
1) When behaviour openly contradicts a private attitude, the attitude will be changed (as it is easier to do so)
2) The need to change the attitude depends on the relevance of the behaviour-based cognition:
To the extent that the behaviour-based cognition can be explained by other factors, the need to change the attitude-based cognition is reduced
What is the cognitive dissonance theory
The stronger an incentive to show counter-attitudinal behaviour, the weaker the attitude change (see Hypothesis 2)
Reinforcement theory
The more a behaviour is rewarded by an incentive, the stronger the change in behaviour and attitudes.
What was the inconsistent attitudes condition
Cognition 1: “This task is boring”
Participants were given an extremely tedious task. They were provided with a rectangular board with 48 wooden pieces in rows
Cognition 2: “I just told someone this is a fun and exciting task”
The experimenter tells participants that they are in the “control group” of an experiment about the effect of expectations on performance. The “experimental” group is supposedly told that the task is fun by a confederate.
What were the rewards for the second study
Low reward: $1
High reward: $20
Who investigated replicability?
Hardyck & Braden (1962)
What did Hardyck and Braden find?
Prophecy of nuclear devastation, with specific prophecy of event in 1962
• 29 families (135 people) built shelters and stayed underground for 42 days
In response to the failed prophecy:
• They changed the meaning of the prophecy to accommodate reality
• But: They did not proselytize. Why?
What did follow up research find about the drive-like state?
- Physiological changes (e.g., EEG, SCR) and psychological discomfort produced by counter-attitudinal statements can be measured
- It is possible to increase (or decrease) dissonance through drugs that increase (or decrease) arousal (Cooper et al., 1978)
- Dissonance-produced attitude change can be eliminated by getting people to misattribute their arousal (Zanna & Cooper, 1974)
what are the necessary conditions for attitudes to change after counter-attitudinal behaviour:
- People need to believe they had the choice to engage in the counter-attitudinal behaviour (Linder et al., 1987)
- The behaviour needs to have consequences (e.g., Cooper & Worchel, 1970)
what did Aronson conclude?
• Dissonance occurs when one’s self-esteem has been threatened by inconsistent cognitions
how did festinger impact effort justification?
• Aronson & Mills (1959) found that people like a group more the more they suffer to join it (e.g., hazing, initiation rites)
Application in Therapy
Effort expenditure predicts therapeutic change
how did festinger impact post-decision dissonance?
• Brehm (1956) gave a group of women free choice of what appliance to take home as a gift – the one chosen was evaluated higher and those not chosen evaluated lower compared with the pre-choice evaluation
Application in Marketing
Providing customers with consonant information and helping them to undermine dissonant information can increase purchase satisfaction
how did festinger impact forbidden toy paradigm>
• Aronson & Carlsmith (1962) found that children devalued an attractive toy if they refrained from playing with it after receiving a low threat vs a high threat of punishment for playing with that toy
Application in Education
Mild punishment can be more effective than harsh punishment
