Lecture 8- Cognitive Dissonance Flashcards
What is cognitive dissonance?
A feeling of discomfort caused by two or more inconsistent cognitive elements (thoughts, feelings, and behaviours). In other words people are motivated to have their attitudes and behaviours align otherwise they get a bad feeling.
What are four ways we can reduce cognitive dissonance?
- Adding new, congruent beliefs to counteract the discrepancy (to support your actions)
- Directing the discrepancy to an external source (e.g. I’m addicted it’s not in my control so even though I know smoking is bad and still continue I don’t feel a discrepancy)
- Changing behaviour to be consistent with attitudes (e.g. stop smoking/ change your habit. This is easier said than done)
- Changing attitudes to be consistent with behaviour (this is often the path of least resistance)
What is post-decision dissonance?
When someone says they like two options (Mc Donald’s burgers) the same but then they make a decision for one over the other. Their choice is inconsistent with their attitude that the two burgers are equal therefore the theory is they reduce the dissonance by changing their attitude (the burger they choice is now their favourite hands down).
What happened in the Brehm toaster study (1956)?
- Participant’s task was to rate the attractiveness of toasters
- Participants could then choose to take 1 home out of two
- Either the two were equally liked (dissonance) or there was a clear preference (no dissonance)
- They found that those in the low dissonance condition did not experience much attitude change but those in high dissonance saw a dramatic increase in their like for the toaster they choose and a decrease for the one they didn’t.
- This shows that in high dissonance situations we search for reasons to support our decisions afterwards
Do you have to actually make the choice for the effects of post-decision dissonance to occur? What is the term for this?
- No, you just have to think you did.
- Choice blindless refers to when a participant is fooled into thinking they made a different decision than they actually did
What is effort justification as it relates to cognitive dissonance?
- You put in more effort toward achieving a goal than the goal seems to warrant.
- You are then likely to enjoy the experience more because if you didn’t there would be a high level of dissonance between your actions and attitudes
What study shows the phenomenon of effort justification?
- Aaronson and Mills (1959)
- Discussion group on sex
- 2 conditions: Either undergo a mild initiation (read mildly suggestive words), or severe initiation (read high sexual passage)
- Despite the talk being terrible those who experienced the severe initiation are likely to say it was worthwhile so that there is no dissonance between their actions/effort and attitude
What is insufficient reward (induced compliance) as related to cognitive dissonance? What study demonstrates this?
-You behave counter to your attitudes/principles for no apparent external reason
Aaronson and Carlsmith (1959):
- Participants complete a boring task
- They are then paid either a lot or a little bit of money to lie to the next participant about how interesting they found the task
- The measure is how enjoyable they then rate the task i.e. how much they believe their own lie?
- They finding is that those who were paid less find the boring task more enjoyable. The idea is $1 is insufficient external reward to explain the behaviour of completing (and lying about) the task therefore it would cause conflict if your attitude remained that the task was boring so you change it.
What is insufficient punishment as it relates cognitive dissonance? What study demonstrates it?
- You refrain from behaving in accordance with your attitudes/principles for no apparent external reason.
- You are not punished enough to refrain from doing something that you want to do so you start to hate the behaviour
- The idea is that if you are punished severely your attitude doesn’t change because their is no dissonance you can put the fact that you stopped behaving in a certain way purely down to the external factor. Instead if you use a mild punishment it allows for a true change in attitude to make up for the dissonance between stopping the attitude and your current belief.
- The forbidden toy paradigm (Freedman, 1965): threatened not to play with toys either with severe or mild punishment. Mild is more effective.
Severe penalties are useful to….
Mild penalties are useful to….
Change behaviour
Change attitudes
What is self-perception theory (Bem, 1980)
- Drawing logical inferences from observation of our own behaviour i.e. with the choosing between 2 McDonalds burgers our choice informs us of our actual preference and so we change our beliefs not because of a dissonance but simply cause we realize our actions reveal our true attitude
- No motivational component
- Main opponent to dissonance theory
What is the over justification effect as it relates to self-perception theory? Who carried out the study where this is the primary finding?
Greene, Sternberg & Lepper, 1976:
- When play game on own free will= own preference so attitude towards it is high
- When you introduce rewards attitude is still high
- But then when you remove those rewards inference about your own attitudes is low. Your true like for the game is undermined and you think its solely the rewards that caused your like.
This undermines the idea of intrinsic motivation (essential to cognitive dissonance)
What integration exists for dissonance ? What study shows this?
-Attitude change should be sensitive to a misattribution cue only if there is arousal present
Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977:
- Participants were in three conditions. 1 group were told they had taken a pill that would cause arousal, the second were told nothing (control) and the third group were told the pill would relax them (this is the misattribution cue)
- They were then told to read an essay and rate their agreement. Those in the group told they would be aroused didn’t experience much agreement because they attributed any dissonance from the counter-attitudinal essay to the pill while with the group told they would feel relaxed the effect of the essay was enhanced and they experienced heavy agreement.
How does latitude of acceptance relate to discrepancies?
- Attitudes have a latitude (range) of values that we would accept to describe them (picture a scale)
- It’s only attitudes outside of this latitude that cause dissonance
Why do Nisbett and Wilson (1977) think self perception may not even be possible?
- People don’t know why they feel the way they do (no privileged introspective access)
- Causal schemas are often right give approximate answers based on collectively what humans do not individuals
- Trying to introspect can change your judgment for the worse
