Self-Justification

Question 1

What is perception? How does our brain use this in our memory?

Answer 1

Brain’s interoperation of raw sensory data

Brain fills in the gaps in our memory by organizing sensory data into meaningful concepts
- Guides how we react

Question 2

Why do we tend to not be introspective?

Answer 2

Because we tend to make excuses for our behaviours that go against our motives (self-justification and heuristics)

Question 3

We’re motivated by what two things?

Answer 3

Perceiving we’re accurate
Belonging (being accepted by others)

Question 4

Cognitive dissonance theory?
What happens if there’s inconsistent between cognitions?

Answer 4

Disequilibrium motivates a person to restore consistency
Produces unpleasant state (dissonance)

Question 5

What are the two necessary conditions to produce dissonance?

Answer 5

Arousal - Feel discomfort of dissonance

Attribution - Attribute cause of this to yourself (own behavs/attitudes)

Question 6

What are the 3 ways to deal with dissonance?

Answer 6

Change attitude/behav
Remove dissonant cognition
Add consonant cognitions

Question 7

What kind of attitudes are hard to change? Why?

Answer 7

Attitudes about our central values and self-concept
They establish our identity and gain social approval

Question 8

How can you use self-deception and confirmation bias /belief perseverance to change or downplay the inconsistency and bad feelings of dissonance?

Answer 8

Self-deception: Downplaying correct but arousal inducing attitude elements

Confirmation bias: Pay more attention to beliefs that back you up

Belief perseverance: Downplay/Modify beliefs that show you’re wrong

Question 9

What predictions do we tend to make about premises? Why?

Answer 9

We forget about silly arguments for our side and great ones for their side

Remember/Focus on great arguments for our side and silly arguments for their side

Gets rid of cognitive dissonance because we end up seeming more correct

Question 10

Forced compliance study (Festibger and Carlsmith)

• Participants paid $1 (high dissonance) or $20 (low dissonance) to lie to another student about desirability of a boring experiment; attitude towards the experiment also assessed

Answer 10

$1 group rated overall enjoyment of the experiment more highly than control and $20
- Ended up tricking themselves into liking the experiment

Question 11

External vs Internal Justification

Answer 11

External - Determined by the situation

Internal - Created within; change in attitude used in dissonance to justify behav

Question 12

Justification of effort experiment:
- University women volunteered to join group discussing aspects of psychology of sex
- Told to go through a screening before joining
- Control: Admitted w/out knowledge/participation in initiation
- Mild initiation: Recited list of sexual words
- Severe initiation: Recited list of words that were obscene and sexual
- Listened to super boring discussion afterwards

Answer 12

Control and mild - Thought conversation was dull and boring

Severe - Convinced themselves that it was interesting and worthwhile
- If a lot of effort was put into something -> expectation that the result is great

Question 13

Insufficient punishment
- Does a mild or severe threat produce stronger effects? Why?

Answer 13

Mild threat

Strong -> Sufficient justification
Mild -> Insufficient justification (leads person to close the gap between behav and its explanation)

Question 14

What is approach-approach conflict?
How do people reduce post-decisional dissonance?
What is spreading of alternatives?

Answer 14

Choosing between desirable alternatives can produce dissonance

After choosing, ppl may enhance chosen alternative and/or downplay rejected alternative to reduce dissonance

Before making a choice between two alternatives, choice us hard and confident about either is low
- But after making their decision, confidence boosts up + the rating of their choice goes up + the rating of their unpicked choice goes down

Question 15

People tend to do what if something is inevitable?

California study:
- Inevitable major earthquake; negative effect of death
- Ppl living in safer residences vs in unsafe residences?

Answer 15

People tend to make the best of something if they know something is bound to happen
- Avoid dissonance by deemphasizing negative

Safer - Prepared more
Unsafe - Denied that an earthquake like that will occur and avoid thinking about it bcuz if there will be one, it’s hard to justify why they’re living in an unsafe okace

Question 16

When we feel we don’t have control over something, we sometimes do nothing by denying probability over the disaster or underestimating its magnitude.
How do we prevent this in cases like global warming awareness?

Answer 16

Stop trying to scare ppl bcuz too much fear will cause them to stop trying + think it’s inevitable

Start convincing them that they have more control than they think they do

Question 17

What is self-justification?

Answer 17

Tendency to justify one’s actions in order to maintain one’s self esteem

Question 18

What is lowballing?

Answer 18

A strategy in which a customer agrees to purchase a product at a very low cost, after which the salesperson claims that price was an error and then raises the price, betting that the customer will agree to make the purchase at the inflated price, which they often do

Question 19

What is entrapment? The foot-in-the-door technique?

Answer 19

Process by which ppl make a small decision, justify it, and over tome find themselves increasingly committed to a belief or activity

Using small favours to encourage ppl to agree to larger requests later on

Question 20

Dissonance effects are greatest when (4)?

Answer 20

Ppl feel personally responsible for their actions

Ppl’s actions conflict w/ a central aspect of their self-concept

Ppl’s actions have serious consequences

The action is irrevocable