cognitive dissonance - state of arousal or distress associated with inconsistent beliefs, or inconsistent beliefs and actions.
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) -- APeg turning@ study
Resolving Dissonance:
- Change your behavior
- Change your belief
- Add additional justifications, cognitions
Inadequate justification -- decide we must like an activity because the external rewards are small (e.g., Festinger & Carlsmith)
Over-justification -- decide we are doing the task because of external rewards, not because we like it (e.g., paying kids for learning)
Aronson and Mills -- AInitiation@ study
Initiation Condition: Had to read obscene words out loud
Control: No initiation
Harsh initiation made members value group more.
Limitations on cognitive dissonance:
- must perceive behavior as freely chosen
- must affect self-concept
- must have important consequences for self or others
Nel, Helmreich, & Aronson
Anti -marijuana students asked to make pro-marijuana presentations to one of 2 audiences:
- people who had already made up their minds about pot
- people undecided about pot
Presenters showed more dissonance reduction (i.e., more pro-pot attitude change) when presenting to undecided
Aronson, Fried & Stone (1991) -- ASafe sex hypocrisy@ study:
College students who made videotape presentation for high school students about importance of safe sex showed more positive attitudes to practicing safe sex then students who merely composed arguments (but didn=t record them on videotape).
self-handicapping--creating obstacles and excuses for ourselves so that if we do poorly on a task, we have ready-made excuses.
Daryl Bem--
Self-perception theory: we infer our attitudes from our behavior.
Critiques of self-perception theory:
1) Often, we do know how we feel (e.g., evidence from previous behaviors, reports)
2) Doesn=t account for arousal that accompanies dissonance
Parsimony - simplicity
Usually, more parsimonious theory is favored over less parsimonious,
BUT! Theory can=t just ignore/not address phenomena in order be more parsimonious.
Steele, Southwick, and Critchlow (1981) -
alcohol reduces feelings of dissonance
Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988)
Facial feedback/self perception effect: cartoons funnier when viewed with pencil clenched in teeth (creates a smile)
mere exposure effect: The more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it
Mita, Dermer & Knight (1977) Mirror image/photo study: We prefer mirror image photos of ourselves
Zajonc (ZY-onz): We don=t have to be aware of exposure for it to have an effect
Bornstein, Leone & Galley (1987) -
mere exposure (even subliminal exposure) increases liking
Practice question:
Based on Bornstein, Leone & Galley=s 1987 study, if an experimenter subliminally flashed photographs of one person at research participants, and then had participants interact with the person in the flashed photographs and another person who was not pictured in the photographs,