Self Justification (Cognitive Dissonance) Flashcards
What is Social Justification?
Our tendency to justify our actions in order to maintain our self esteem
Why do we tend to justify?
We are motivated to always see ourself in a good light, so we need to convince ourself that our actions are logical and reasonable
Who is Festinger?
He developed the theory of Cognitive Dissonance
What is Cognitive dissonance?
A state of tension arises whenever an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions that are incompatible with each other. We become motivated to reduce this.
What are the three strategies for reducing cognitive dissonance?
Change behaviour to bring it in line with the dissonant cognition
Justify behaviour by changing one of the dissonant cognitions
Justify the behaviour by adding new cognitions
What was the book “When Prophecy Fails” about?
Talks about the authors experience of infiltrating a doomsday cult.Thought people would feel deceived by her when it did not happen, the members actually became even more oheatical, justifying it, and trying to convert more people
What is justification of effort?
When you have put alot of effort into something you do not want to admit that you are wrong
What was Aronson and Wills experiment with focus groups
They placed posters around the campus getting people to join a focus group. Half of the women had a severe screening process, some had no screening process. The people who had a severe screening process said the focus group was less boring than it was.
What is justification of cruelty?
A tendency to reduce cognitive dissonance whenever we have committed a cruel act by maximizing the culpability of the victim
Convince yourself the person deserved it
What is dehumanization?
The process of seeing your victim as nonhumans, which lowers inhibitions against aggressive actions
Makes continued aggression even easier and wore likely
What is the foot in the door technique?
The process of using small favours to encourage people to accede to larger requests
What is external justification?
a person’s justification for his or her dissonant behaviour that is situation oriented
What is internal justification?
The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself in the direction of one’s statements
What did Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) study on cognitive dissonance demonstrate about external vs. internal justification?
Study Setup: Participants did a boring task (turning pegs) and were asked to lie to the next “participant,” claiming the task was fun.
Conditions:
Paid $20: Reported the task was boring (external justification).
Paid $1: Reported the task was fun (internal justification).
Results: The $1 group experienced more cognitive dissonance because the payment was insufficient to justify their lie, leading them to change their attitudes and believe the task was enjoyable.
Key Concept: When external rewards are low, people are more likely to adjust their beliefs to align with their behavior to reduce dissonance.
