*
* Read pages 318-320
* This should hopefully clarify the idea of
cognitive dissonance.
*
* Cognitive Dissonance
* Post-Decision Dissonance
* Justification of Effort
* What are three ways we are likely to reduce
dissonance?
*
* Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory
suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our
attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid
disharmony (or dissonance).
* Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving
conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This
produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an
alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or
behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore
balance etc.
* Back to our famous example, when people smoke
(behavior) and they know that smoking causes
cancer (cognition).
*
* Attitudes may change because of factors within the person. An
important factor here is the principle of cognitive consistency,
the focus of Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance.
This theory starts from the idea that we seek consistency in
our beliefs and attitudes in any situation where two cognitions
are inconsistent.
* When someone is forced to do (publicly) something they
(privately) really don't want to do, dissonance is created
between their cognition (I didn't want to do this) and their
behavior (I did it).
* Forced compliance occurs when an individual performs an
action that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs.
* The behavior can't be changed, since it is already in the past,
so dissonance will need to be reduced by re-evaluating their
attitude to what they have done.
* THIS HAS BEEN PROVEN IN AN EXPERIMENT – THE ONE WE
WATCHED YESTERDAY!
* Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) investigated if
making people perform a dull task would
create cognitive dissonance through forced
compliance behavior.
*
* In their laboratory experiment, they used 71
male students as participants to perform a
series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a
peg board for an hour).
* They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a
waiting participant (a confederate) that the
tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the
participants agreed to walk into the waiting
room and persuade the confederate that the
boring experiment would be fun.
*
* When the participants were asked to evaluate
the experiment, the participants who were
paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun
and enjoyable than the participants who were
paid $20 to lie.
*
* Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive
for lying and so those who were paid $1
experienced dissonance. They could only
overcome that dissonance by coming to believe
that the tasks really were interesting and
enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for
turning pegs and there is therefore no
dissonance.
*
* It tends to be a feeling or perception – so it is
hard to measure.
* There are also individual differences in
whether or not people act as this theory
predicts.
* Highly anxious people are more likely to do so.
Many people seem able to cope with
considerable dissonance and not experience
the tensions the theory predicts.
*
*
“Justification of Effort” pg. 319
* Hazing…
*
* This theory is clearly implicated in the effect
of rites of passage and hazing rituals on group
solidarity and loyalty. The hazing rituals,
prevalent in military units, sports teams and
Academic fraternities and sororities, often
include demanding and/or humiliating tasks
which lead (according to dissonance theory)
the new member to increase the subjective
value of the group. This contributes to his/her
loyalty and to the solidarity of the entire
group.
*
*
Obscene and
sexually explicit
words
Mild and
Tame words
Boring on
mating
* One of the first and most classic examples of effort justification is Aronson
and Mills's study.[2]
* A group of young women who volunteered to join a discussion group on the
topic of the psychology of sex were asked to do a small reading test to make
sure they were not too embarrassed to talk about sexual-related topics with
others.
* The mild-embarrassment condition subjects were asked to read aloud a list
of sex-related words such as prostitute or virgin. The severe-embarrassment
condition subjects were asked to read aloud a list of highly sexual words
(e.g. f*ck, c*ck) and to read two vivid descriptions of sexual activity taken
from contemporary novels.
* All subjects then listened to a recording of a discussion about sexual behavior
in animals which was dull and unappealing. When asked to rate the group
and its members, control and mild-embarrassment groups did not differ, but
the severe-embarrassment group's ratings were significantly higher.
*
This group, whose initiation process was more difficult (embarrassment
equalling effort), had to increase their subjective value of the discussion
group to resolve the dissonance.
*
* People do not value what they do not pay for.
*