Attitude Change: Dissonance
Versus Self-Perception
MAR 3503
February 2, 2012
Cognitive dissonance theory
• Festinger (1957) said…
– 1. Dissonance is an aversive motivational state,
giving rise to pressures to reduce itself
– 2. It is aroused when 2 (or more) cognitions are
inconsistent. It is especially strong when one
cognition is a belief, and the other concerns one’s
own behavior
– 3. It is reduced, most importantly, by changing
one or more cognitions so as to bring them into
line; typically attitudes change to be consistent
with behavior
Three paradigms
• 1. Post-decisional dissonance reduction
• 2. Effort justification
• 3. Induced compliance
Post-decision dissonance reduction
Changes from 1st to 2nd rating
Chosen item
Unchosen item
Net change
Low dissonance
+0.11
0.00
+0.11
High dissonance
+0.38
-0.41
+0.79
Control (gift)
0.00
Note: A positive sign indicates an increase in attractiveness. Net change indicates the
spreading apart of the alternatives after a decision. Low dissonance is a decision
between items of very different value. High dissonance is a decision between items of
similar value.
Brehm, 1956
Dissonance at the race track
Chance to win
Before
1
Slight
2
3
Fair
After
4
5
Good
6
7
Great
Know & Inkster, 1968
Dissonance at the polls
Before voting
After voting
Chances of election
4.12
4.96
Beauty of foliage
5.12
5.09
Regan & Kilduff, 1988
Dissonance and amnesia
Lieberman et al., 2001
Dissonance in monkeys
• Capuchin monkeys were tested to see
whether they showed equal preferences
between red, green, and blue M&Ms
• Choice #1:
• Choice #2:
Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Dissonance in monkeys
Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Effort Justification: Severity of initiation & liking
Discussion ratings
Participant ratings
Control group
80
90
Mild initiation
82
89
Severe initiation
98
98
Aronson & Mills, 1959
Severity of initiation & liking
Mild shock
Severe shock
Initiation participants, told
they passed
11.5
31.1
Initiation participants, not
told they passed
26.1
41.0
Non-initiation participants
19.8
13.2
Gerard & Mathewson, 1966
Low introductory prices
• A chain of stores in the South randomly assigned
certain new items to have a low introductory
price or their regular price
• After a week and a half, all products were at their
regular price.
• The higher priced items quickly caught up to the
low priced items’ sales, and then surpassed them
• The low price people think it’s now not worth it,
while the high priced people like it even more
Induced Compliance: Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959
• Students who were paid to lie to a
confederate and say an objectively boring task
was interesting claimed that the task was
more enjoyable if they were paid just $1 than
if they were paid $20 to tell the lie
Task ratings
Control condiiton
$1 condition
$20 condition
-0.45
+1.35
-0.05
Threat and compliance
• Children were brought into the lab and presented
with a set of toys, with one really attractive toy
• The experimenter told them to play with any toy
except the best one, and left them alone
– The instruction was either mild (“I’ll be
disappointed…”) or severe (“I’ll be very angry and
have to do something about it”). All obeyed.
• 6 weeks later, a different exp’r came to school
and let them play with any toy, including the best
one
Freedman, 1965
Threat and compliance
High threat
Low threat
# that played with toy
14
6
# that didn’t play with toy
7
15
Freedman, 1965
Threat and compliance
Reported score
Mild threat
34.1
Control
36.2
Severe threat
38.2
But…Do we know our attitudes?
• There are times when our attitudes are
unclear or unknown
– Novel issues or events
– Jukebox theory of emotion
• Can we feel dissonance if we don’t know what
our conflicting attitude even is?
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
• Self-perception works like social perception.
Namely, people come to understand themselves
and their attitudes the same way that they come
to understand others—by observing behavior
– To the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous,
or uninterpretable, we are in the shoes of an
observer
– These evaluations are not conscious—they are quick
inferences
– We answer the question of our attitude externally, by
observing our behavior
• Attitude “change” is not real change. It is a
dispassionate inference process
Two-factor theory of emotion
• Different emotions are distinguished not by
their physiological reactions, but instead by
the cognitive interpretation for the reactions
– Physiological arousal is the same across emotions,
but the strength of the arousal determines
emotional intensity
– The content of the emotion is determined by the
causal attribution for the emotion
Physiology + Cognition = Emotion
Schacter & Singer, 1962
Misattribution of arousal
• Two paradigms
– 1. Misattributing irrelevant arousal to an
emotional stimulus, thus intensifying one’s
emotional reaction
– 2. Misattributing arousal due to an emotional
stimulus to an irrelevant source, thus diminishing
one’s emotional reaction
Love on a bridge
• Males were approached by an attractive
female experimenter after having crossed
either a scary bridge or a non-scary control
bridge
• They were asked to complete the TAT, then
were given her phone number “in case they
have any later questions” about the study
Dutton & Aron, 1974
Love on a bridge
Data: Amount of sexual imagery in their TAT responses, as coded by independent
judges, and the percentage of of males who called her to ask her out
Sexual imagery
% calling
Control bridge
Scary bridge
Dutton & Aron, 1974
Heat produces arousal
Mean # of players hit by pitches (HBP) in games played at different temperatures
Misattributing anxiety
• Participants were told they were being
bombarded with “subliminal noise”
– Some told this noise would arouse them
– Some told this noise would relax them
– Some told this noise would have no effect
• DM: number of speech dysfluencies when
reading a speech into a camera
Olson, 1988
Misattributing anxiety
Condition
Dysfluencies
Arousing noise
14.2
No-effect noise
19.4
Relaxing noise
19.8
Olson, 1988
Attitude change?
• Both cognitive dissonance and self-perception
result in a match between attitude and
behavior
– Dissonance results in attitude change
– Self-perception results in attitude creation
• How do they both exist? DO they both exist?
Reconsider: Dissonance in monkeys
• Capuchin monkeys were tested to see
whether they showed equal preferences
between red, green, and blue M&Ms
• Choice #1:
• Choice #2:
Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Self-perception uniquely explains…
• Foot-in-the-door
• 1. People look at the fact that they agreed to
comply to a small request (with no strong
incentive to do so), then…
• 2. They infer that they are the kind of person who
cares about that particular cause (or the kind of
person who agrees to pro-social requests, in
general), and…
• 3. They are more likely to agree to larger requests
Self-perception uniquely explains…
• The overjustification effect
• Undermining intrinsic motivation by using
overly sufficient rewards
• Self-perception explanation: just as an outside
observer would, we assume we have less
interest in activities performed as a means to
some outside end (or because of some
outside constraints), rather than as an end in
themselves
Dissonance theory uniquely explains…
Attitude toward target issue
• Misattribution of dissonance motivation
Alleged drug effect
Zanna & Cooper, 1974
Dissonance theory uniquely explains…
Attitude toward target issue
• Arousal and attitude change
Actual drug taken
Cooper et al., 1978
Toward a resolution
• Dissonance processes occur when clearly-held
attitudes are strongly discrepant with behavior
• Self-perception processes occur when attitudes
are unclear or weak, or when behavior is not very
discrepant from the attitude. Self-perception
processes are particularly likely to be important
in the realm of attitude formation
Summary
• At times, a person’s behavior and attitudes may conflict
– Attitudes change to align with the person’s behavior
• Other times, a person acts without an underlying
attitude
– They will assume their attitude matches their behavior
• The circumstances under which these attitude change
processes occur are systematic and predictable
• Next time: How can people be persuaded?