Heather Byrd
March 28, 2012
Buerkle
Social Behavior Project
Hypocrisy-Induced Dissonance on Texting and Driving
Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling that happens when
someone has two conflicting cognitions about something. In the end they will pick one to
best fit their current dilemma or situation. Hypocrisy, a type of cognitive dissonance, is
the phenomenon in which a person’s attitude fails to reflect their behavior. When we test
or experiment the theory of hypocrisy it is the behavior that we are trying to change in the
end, not the attitude. Seiji Takaku’s article, “Reducing Road Rage: An Application of the
Dissonance-Attribution Model of Interpersonal Forgiveness” defined hypocrisy as a
combination of two factors: advocating a position one supports and being made mindful
of one’s failure to act in accordance with that advocacy (Takaku 2006). This definition
puts the theory in more perspective and gives a better understanding of hypocrisyinduced dissonance. In my experiment I chose to focus more on the hypocrisy aspect of
cognitive dissonance because it is something we often do but do not even realize it. By
that I mean that most of us know and recognize that texting and driving is a irresponsible
thing to do, yet texting is something that has become so routine and such a habit for us in
our everyday lives that often we do not even realize we are texting and driving until we
are faced with a situation that forces us to realize that we are doing so and are then faced
with a state of hypocrisy like dissonance.
Through my research of four articles I came to a better understanding and
perspective of how to test hypocrisy-induced dissonance. In my first article hypocrisy is
tested in Seiji Takaku’s, “Reducing Road Rage: An Application of the DissonanceAttribution Model of Interpersonal Forgiveness,” on what triggers anger with drivers on
the free way. The procedure in the experiment asks the participants to watch and identify
themselves with a video clip of a driver on the interstate who is cut off by another driver.
Participants in the experimental group hear a car horn in the video of a car that is being
unintentionally cut off by the initial target driver right before he is cut off by the other
car. In the control group of the experiment they watch the same exact video only they do
not hear the sound of the car horn so they are only viewing the initial target driver as
being cut off and do not see them cutting off anyone. The overall purpose of the
experiment is to reduce road rage tendencies on the free way. The participants were
given a questionnaire after the videos and were asked to fill them out as if they were the
car who is cut off and cuts off another, or as the control group sees it, just being cut off.
The results were that the participants who watched the video of both cars being cut off
experienced more hypocrisy-induced dissonance than those who were not manipulated.
The group that was manipulated was also more forgiving of the reckless driver as
predicted in the hypothesis.
This study differs from the next article in that it mainly focuses on the hypocrisy
point of view rather than solely the cognitive dissonance take on the experiment.
We see more of the cognitive dissonance approach in Vani Simmons’, “College-student
smoking: An initial test of an experiential dissonance-enhancing intervention.” This
study tested to see if smokers were more likely to quit smoking using the cognitive
dissonance approach when presented with four separate groups of information: risks
associated with smoking, the ease of quitting smoking, the combination of risks and easy
ways to quit, and the control group which received no information. The participants were
then asked to write and give a speech to younger generations in order to stray them away
from smoking to a video camera. The results indicated that participants who were given
information on the ease of quitting illustrated the biggest indication of actually quitting
smoking, which contradicted the hypothesis of the experiment that predicted the risk
factor group to show more of an increase in quitting than the other groups. Cognitive
dissonance was highly correlated with the higher number of years that the participants
had been smoking. Although the study did not show a direct relationship with a change
in behavior it did show an increase in the thought of quitting. This experiment shows that
even though you do not always find the information that you were looking for or
predicted, does not mean you can not find other important and meaningful findings for
research. Although, this article had no distinct indicator of hypocrisy in cognitive
dissonance it was still a good differentiation in deciphering between the two related ideas.
We take a closer look at hypocrisy specifically in Jeff Stone’s, “Including
hypocrisy as a means to encourage young adults to use condoms.” This experiment
applied cognitive dissonance theory to the condom usage of sexually active teenagers in
order to prevent AIDS. The participants were asked to publicly speak about the
importance of safe sex and the risks of contracting AIDS from unprotected sex and were
then questioned about their personal sex lives and were asked to recall times where they
had unprotected sex. It was predicted that by the end of the experiment the participants
would be more likely to purchase condoms to practice safe sex. The results went on to
show that those who spoke publicly about safe sex then purchased a significant amount
more condoms than those in the control group. This is an excellent example of hypocrisy
because it shows the difference in one’s attitude compared to their behavior. They knew
and talked about how important practicing safe sex to prevent AIDS to others was but
were not practicing it themselves. The experiment was successful in changing the
participants’ behavior and that is the ultimate goal. However, this doesn’t work out in all
studies.
Cognitive dissonance and a state of hypocrisy are finally seen in Valerie
Fointiat’s, “Effects of Past Transgressions In An Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm.” In this
article the participants all claim to be safe drivers but are then asked to recall past driving
transgressions and are differentiated between those of being “harmless” and those being
“serious.” Those that were represented as serious were predicted to cause more
dissonance. However, those that recalled more serious transgressions chose to change
their attitude as opposed to their behavior about the transgressions being serious to them
being more harmless in order to decrease their dissonance. This article shows that not all
experiments go as planned and you can’t always accomplish the outcome that you want.
After researching these four articles I came up with my hypothesis: students who
text and drive are more likely to feel more hypocrisy-induced dissonance when faced
with a situation in which they see the harmful effects themselves of texting and driving
and their own discretions are brought to their attention compared to those who text and
drive and do not realize that they are doing anything wrong. For example, the student
will change their behavior of texting and driving after they are faced with a situation in
which they see the harmful effects first hand of texting and driving and are then reminded
that they are guilty of the same wrongdoing. This is a valid hypothesis because those who
already hold a particular attitude against texting and driving and still do it will experience
strong dissonance when faced with a situation in which they see someone who has been
affected by it personally and will then be more opt to change their behavior afterward.
My method for testing my hypothesis was with a pre-test/post-test type of model.
Two surveys were made for a control group, in which there was no hypocrisy felt or
present in the message and then there was the post-test survey in which the message
presented included a state of hypocrisy-induced dissonance. The participants in the study
were completely chosen at random by picking every third person that walked into the
ETSU Culp. Twenty copies of each survey were passed out to the students alternating
between the control group and the hypocrisy-induced dissonance group. All information
was completely anonymous.
After testing my hypothesis based on the two surveys my results came out to be
insignificant. Overall the behavior to stop texting and driving after reading the
hypocrisy-induced dissonance message was actually almost even with the behavior to
stop texting after reading the message which did not induce hypocrisy. I believe that this
may have been a result because of the wording of my surveys. Because I made the
message to the readers in third person I think that I should I have asked the post message
questions about the person in the message instead of asking the questions about the actual
survey participant, or person taking the survey. I believe this would have made a
difference because it wasn’t exactly creating cognitive dissonance towards the person
taking the survey but it was giving more of a situation in which hypocrisy-induced
dissonance was just given as an example. Although I did find it to be very interesting in
my surveys that a high number of students in both surveys strongly agreed to the
question, “I don’t really take my eyes off the road when I text and drive.” I thought this
was kind of funny because I do not understand how texting and driving is accomplished
without taking your eyes off the road. In the end I felt that perhaps cognitive dissonance
was not the best theory to test texting and driving because even in real life settings people
are not usually willing to give up their set behaviors or way of doing things on certain
aspects of their lives like texting in any kind of situation despite whether they know that
it is right or wrong. Or perhaps a stronger set of surveys would have produced more
significant results which I take full responsibility for in that I did not quite catch what I
had done wrong until after I calculated my results. However, I definitely had fun with
this assignment and found it interesting on the number of people that truly held such a
strong belief on the subject.
References
Simmons, V. (2004). College-student smoking: An initial test of an experiential
dissonance-enhancing intervention. Addictive Behaviors, 29 (6). Retrieved from:
OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), lpswich, MA. Accessed February 26, 2012.
Stone, J. (1994). Including hypocrisy as a means of encouraging young adults to use
condoms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20. Retrieved from: OmniFile Full
Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), lpswich, MA. Accessed February 26, 2012.
Takaku, S. (2006). Reducing Road Rage: An Application of the Dissonance-Attribution
Model of Interpersonal Forgiveness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36 (10).
Retrieved from: OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), lpswich, MA. Accessed
February 26, 2012.
Fointiat, V. (2008). Effects of Past Transgressions In An Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm.
Psychological Reports, 103 (2). Retrieved from: OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W.
Wilson), lpswich, MA. Accessed February 26, 2012.