week 4 pt 1 (cognitive dissonance) Flashcards
what was festinger and carlsmiths early study on cognitive dissonance and why might this be
- asked people to complete a boring task and then paid people either $1 or $20 dollar to then persaude someone else that the task was fun, or not told to persuade anyone at all
- the $1 dollar group rated the task as more fun and worthwhile than the other groups
- this is because the $1 group were experiencing cognitive dissonance
cognition 1 being: the task was boring
cognition 2 being: i told someone the task was fun - this led to the $1 group experiencing psychological discomfort and being motivated to restore the constistency
- this caused the $1 group to convince themselves that the task was more fun and worthwhile than it actually was
outline cognitive dissonance theory (festinger)
- inconsistent cognitions create cognitive dissonance
- this leads to a state of psychological discomfort which is a negative affective state
- this motivates us to restore consistency
what are 3 ways dissonance reduction strategies to restores consistency (according to festinger)
- ADD CONSONANT COGNITIONS
for example those in the $20 group of festingers study where able to add the justification that they only did it for the money - REMOVE DISSONANT COGNITION AND REPLACE IT WITH A DIFFERENT ONE
e. g those in the $1 group of festingers study removed the cognition that the task was boring and replaced it with the new cognition that the task was more fun than it was. So essentially they have changed their attitudes so that their attitudes are in line with their behaviour. - REDUCE IMPORTANTS OF DISSONANT COGNITIONS
e. g if your cognitive dissonance is about eating animals, you could say well i dont care about the animals
what was aronson and Mills study on initiation ceremonies and how did it support the theory of cognitive dissonance?
- grouped participants into control, light initiation and severe initation (they were made to say prolific words out loud in the 1950’s)
SEVERE INITATION GROUP
those who had been in the severe iniation rated the following activity (watching a boring discussion) as more enjoyable than others
- this is because they had the dissonance of:
1. had to expend effort so they could complete the task
2. not enjoying the task - they therefore changed their attitude towards the task so it was more consistent with their behaviour
MILD INITIATION GROUP
- didnt have the same effects as the severe group
- this is because they were able to add the consonant condition of ‘well it wasnt much effort though’
Outline how cognitive dissonance plays out in post purchase cognitions (festinger) and what are 4 ways of reducing the dissonance
- if we are making of whether to purchase option A OR B, and say we choose A
- we may then look at the good things about option B and feel a dissonance between our attitudes and behaviour
ways to reduce:
- focus more heavily on the benefits of chosen option (adding a consonant cognition)
- pay less attention to the pros of option B (avoid dissonant information)
- focus more heavily on the cons of option B (seeking consonant information)
- pay less attention to the cons of chosen option (avoid dissonant information)
what did strattons study show about post purchase cognitions?
- car owners would rather choose to read an advert about their own car that they have purchased than about a rival car
- adverts about ones own car have no informational value so we can assume they chose this so they could avoid dissonant information
how does Bem’s self perception theory and study act as alernative to cognitive dissonance theory
- self perception theory argues that we infer our attitudes from internal cues when external cues are weak or unclear
- in cognitive dissonance studies such as festinger’s, participants were only asked about their attitudes towards a task after they have taken part in a task
- they therefore assumed that their attitudes was in line with their behaviour
(for those in festingers $20 group, they didnt need to infer their attitude as their reason for taking part in such behaviour was clear)
- Bem repeated festingers study but instead of asking the participants to rate their attitudes to the task, they asked observers
- observers made the same inferences as the participants had in festingers task, suggesting the participants had the same thought processes, in line with self perception theory
whats a key difference between self perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory when trying to explain the results of studies such as Festingers
- cognitive dissonance theory involves a negative affective state whereas self perception theory doesnt
what did Harmon and Jones’s study say, when considering whether festingers dissonance study results are the product of cognitive dissonance or self perception
- gave ppts a boring task and told them after to write a statement saying it was not boring, then rate how boring they actually found it after
- used a skin conduction test to see if they experienced physiological arousal
- found that they did experience physiological arousal, suggesting that there was a negative affective state
- this is in support of cognitive dissonance theory over self perception theory
how can the theory of adversive consequences act as an alternative explanation for the participants negative affect in dissonance studies
- ‘Aversive state’ arises when we knowingly do something that brings about aversive consequences for ourselves or other
- for example, in festingers studies this could be knowingly misleading a fellow student by saying that the task wasn’t boring
How did Harmon-Jones test whether dissonance effects were present due to the theory of adversive consequences or the theory of cognitive dissonance
- usual dissonance study where people were asked to do boring tasks and then write statement that the task was interesting
- however the participants were then asked to throw that statement in the bin
- the same dissonance effects were found that were found in festingers original study despite the fact htat there were no adversive consequences
- this supports the theory of cognitive dissonance over the theory of adversive consequences
explain the action model of cognitive dissonance (harmon-jones and harmon-jones)
- cognitions serve as action tendencies (meaning if we know how we feel about something, we know how we need to act)
- dissonance arises when action tendencies conflict with each other. this means that the potential for effective action is compromised
- we normally reduce dissonance by changing cognitions in favour of action that we have taken, as this is the path of least resistance.
