When Prophecy
Fails
Cognitive Dissonance
Cults
• When Prophecy Fails…
• •Leon Festinger infiltrated cult, along with 2
colleagues and 5 hired observers
• •What would happen when Mrs. Keetch’s
prophecy didn’t come true?
Events
• Sequence of Events
• •Prior to December 20. The group shuns publicity.
Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to
Mrs. Keech's house is only provided to those who
can convince the group that they are true
believers. The group evolves a belief system—
provided by the automatic writing from the planet
Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm,
the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in
which the group would be saved from the
disaster.
December 20
• •December 20. The group expects a visitor
from outer space to call upon them at
midnight and to escort them to a waiting
spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to
great lengths to remove all metallic items from
their persons. As midnight approaches,
zippers, bra straps, and other objects are
discarded. The group waits.
December 20
• •12:05 A.M., December 21. No visitor. Someone in
the group notices that another clock in the room
shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet
midnight.
• •12:10 A.M. The second clock strikes midnight. Still
no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The
cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.
• •4:00 A.M. The group has been sitting in stunned
silence. A few attempts at finding explanations
have failed. Mrs. Keech begins to cry.
After it ends
• •4:45 A.M. Another message by automatic writing
is sent to Mrs. Keech. It states, in effect, that the
God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from
destruction. The cataclysm has been called off:
"The little group, sitting all night long, had spread
so much light that God had saved the world from
destruction."
• •Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called;
interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous
distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent
campaign to spread its message to as broad an
audience as possible.
What is Cognitive
Dissonance?
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
••We experience an uncomfortable
psychological state when
•–our attitudes are not consistent with other
attitudes
•–our attitudes are inconsistent with our
behaviour
• •Whenever we say or do something that is
inconsistent with our prior attitudes or
behaviour, we experience dissonance
• •Dissonance is an uncomfortable state,
therefore we will try to reduce it
• inconsistency in our beliefs and attitudes-
How to avoid
Dissonance?
• •Modify dissonant cognitions (Change
attitude)
• •Add new cognitions to justify our behavior
(Justify behaviour)
Rate on scale of 1-5 (1- Agree 5- Disagree)
1.Smoking is bad for you
2. You should exercise 5 times a week
3. Drinking and Driving is bad
4. It is important to protect the environment
• The conflict:
It is important for the man to take care of the environment.
He is driving a car that is not environmentally-friendly.
Choices:
He can sell the car and purchase another one that gets better gas mileage or
he can reduce his emphasis on environmental-responsibility.
His dissonance could be further minimized by engaging in actions that
reduce the impact of driving a gas-guzzling vehicle, such as utilizing public
transportation more frequently or riding his bike to work on occasion.
Festinger & Carlsmith,
1959
• •What would happen if you were made to say
something you didn’t really believe?
• •Boring experimental task
• •After task was over, asked participants to tell the
next participant that they really enjoyed the
experiment
• •2 groups: $20 reward or $1 reward
• •Measured attitudes toward boring experimental
task
Results?
• Participants receiving dollar had cognitive
dissonance but b/c they only received a dollar
that wasn’t enough justification for lying so they
changed their behavior, people that received 20
dollars, that was enough justification to lie.
• People receiving a dollar convinced themselves
they liked the task more.
Attitudes and
Attitude
Change
What are attitudes?
How are they formed?
How are they changed?
Attitude
• An evaluation of a person, object, idea
Ambivalent Attitudes
• Both positive and negative attitudes
Explicit versus Implicit
attitudes
• Explicit: Consciously endorse
• Implicit: Involuntary, unconscious
Explicit Attitude
Measurement
Social psychology is:
1
Very
boring
2
3
4
5
6
7
Very
exciting
The Implicit Association
Test
• Categorization task, measure reaction times
• Measures the ease with which people make
associations with the attitude object and the
concepts of “good” and “bad”
Vegetable
Meat
or
or
Bad
Good
Agony
Vegetable
Meat
or
or
Bad
Good
Vegetable
Meat
or
or
Good
Bad
Pain
Vegetable
Meat
or
or
Good
Bad
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
Where do attitudes
come from?
• Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Observational Learning
Classical Conditioning of
Attitudes
Visiting Grandma
(UCS)
Feeling warm
and fuzzy (UCR)
Repeated pairings:
Smell of Mothballs
(Neutral Stimulus)
Smell of Mothballs
(CS)
Visiting Grandma
(UCS)
Feeling warm
and fuzzy (CR)
Feeling warm
And fuzzy (CR)
Operant Conditioning of
Attitudes
Example:
Child plays with a child of another race and is
punished.
Operant Conditioning of Attitudes- rewards and punishments
given for certain types of behaviours
Observational Learning of Attitudes: learn by
watching others getting reward or punished
Child observes sister being punished for playing
with a child of another race.
Mere Exposure
Experiment
Zajonc, 1968
• Showed Chinese characters with high or low
frequency for 2 seconds each
• Participants told that they represented
adjectives
• Guess the meaning of the symbols
Results
• The more familiar the symbols were, the
more positively they perceived the symbol
Mere Exposure Effect
“Familiarity breeds liking”
• Replicated for different kinds of stimuli (e.g.,
nonsense words, faces) and exposures
(e.g., subliminal)
Vigorous Exercise experiment
Ross et al., 1983
• Participants heard a tape-recording of
speech advocating against vigorous
exercise
• Dr. James Rundle, a world authority on the
effects of exercise on the human body
• a spokesman for the local chapter of the "Fat
Is Beautiful“ organization, a group of
individuals who believe that it is neither
unattractive nor unhealthy to be moderately
to excessively overweight
Vigorous Exercise experiment
Ross et al., 1983
• Rated agreement with statement: "Vigorous
physical exercise can have undesirable
consequences for the average person” on
an 11-point scale
Vigorous Exercise experiment
Ross et al., 1983
7
6
5
Agreement 4
3
2
1
Low Credibility
High Credibility
How Are Attitudes Changed?
Yale Attitude Approach
What makes persuasive communication most effective?
1)
Source
- Credible
- Trustworthy
- Attractive vs. unattractive
- Likeable
How Are Attitudes
Changed?
Yale Attitude Approach
2) Nature of the communication
- Message not designed to influence
- Two-sided messages vs. one-sided
- Before or after someone argues the other
side
How Are Attitudes Changed?
Yale Attitude Approach
3) Audience
-
Distraction
Intelligence
Elaboration Likelihood Model of
Persuasion
• •2 routes to persuasion:
• –Central – Someone is directly telling you argument/ point
• –Peripheral- not being persuaded on message itself but
questions that lie on periphery (how credible or attractive
source is)
• Which route is taken depends on motivation and ability
• If people are motivated or care about issue and have ability
(not distracted) they use the central route. If someone
doesn’t care or is distracted takes peripheral route.
The Motivation to Pay
Attention
to the Arguments
One thing that determines whether people are
motivated to pay attention to a communication is
the personal relevance of the topic:
• How important is the topic to a person’s wellbeing?
The Ability to Pay Attention
to the Arguments
When people are unable to pay close attention to
the arguments, they are swayed more by
peripheral cues.
• Status of communicator
• Liking or trusting communicator
Therefore someone with a weak argument can
create distractions (e.g., loud music) to make
people more susceptible to peripheral
influence.
Fear and Attitude
Change
• Examples: public service announcements
• Do they work?
• Moderate fear- gains most reaction
• WHY?
Advertising
• Does subliminal advertising work?
How does it work?
• Mere exposure
• Classical conditioning
• E.g., creating an affectively-based attitude
• Central route vs. peripheral route to
persuasion
Attitude Inoculation
• Give people a small dose of arguments
against their position
Hmmm?
When have we seen this occur?
Have you ever believed someone because they
were in a position of authority?
Your Task
Youtube different advertising commercials
Watch 5 different advertisements that would be shown during a variety of television shows
•1.
a daytime Jerry Springer Type show
•2.
a soap opera
•3.
a sports show
•4.
a sit-com during prime time
•5.
The news (like CNN)
•6.
cartoons (try not to do adult swim on Cartoon network, please)
•7.
Reality TV such as Survivor, Bachelor, Fear factor, etc.
•
Write down
1.
name of the show
2.
write down at least 5 commercials and the product shown during that show
3.
Determine what the sponsors of the show believe are characteristics of the audience
for that show.
For example, If you watch HGTV, there are a lot of paint commercials, decorating
commercials, Home Loan commercials, minivan ads, etc. One can assume that the
viewers of this show are probably people interested in decorating, etc.
Write up a "profile" of who that target member is. Let's say for Home and Garden TV the
commercials are aimed at a stay at home mother of preadolescent children who is
about to buy their first home (or are new homeowners). The average family income is
about $60 K. Then explain what aspects of the commercials made you come to this
conclusion.
Task Two
• Pick a product targeted at teens. Create two
advertisements for the product.
• One should appeal tp the central rought of
persuasion
• The other should apply to the peripheral route
of advertising