Chapter 6
Self-Justification and the
Need to Maintain SelfEsteem
Chapter Outline
I. The Need to Justify Our Actions
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• One of the most powerful
determinants of human behavior is
the need to preserve a stable,
positive self-concept.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger originated the concept of
cognitive dissonance, defining it as
inconsistency between two thoughts. Cognitive
dissonance may arise when a person engages in
an act that is discrepant from one’s self-concept.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort
caused by information that is discrepant from
your customary, typically positive, self-concept.
Experiencing dissonance motivates an attempt to
reduce it.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• Rational Behavior Versus
Rationalizing Behavior
The need to reduce dissonance and maintain selfesteem produces thinking that is rationalizing rather
than rational.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Postdecision dissonance is aroused after we make
any important decision; it is reduced by enhancing the
attractiveness of the chosen alternative and
devaluating the rejected alternative.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
One way to engage in postdecision dissonance
reduction is to proselytize, recommending your
decision/behavior to others.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
The more permanent a decision, the greater the need
to reduce dissonance after making it. Feeling that
one’s decision is irrevocable may lead to falling prey
to a sales technique called lowballing. Lowballing
makes the customer feel compelled to pay a higher
price for an item after first agreeing to pay a much
lower price.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Dissonance reduction following a difficult moral
decision can cause people to behave either more or
less ethically in the future, because people’s attitudes
will polarize in the attempt to justify the ethical choice
they made.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Justification of Effort
What happens when a person voluntarily works hard
and the goal doesn’t seem worth it after all? People
are unlikely to change their self-concept to believe
they were unskilled or foolish; instead they change
their attitude towards the goal and see it positively.
This is called the justification of effort.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
When people attempt to reduce their dissonance by
changing something about themselves, for example
their attitudes, they are using internal justification.
When people attempt to explain their dissonant
behaviors by focusing on reasons that reside outside
of themselves, for example being paid a large sum of
money, they are using external justification.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
Counterattitudinal advocacy is the process by which
people are induced to state publicly an attitude that
runs counter to their own attitude. If there is no
external justification for counterattitudinal advocacy, a
person’s attitude may change in accordance with the
view that was expressed publicly. However, when
external justification exists, the person’s attitude
doesn’t change.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
Harsh punishments teach us to try to avoid getting
caught, and thus require constant vigilance to be
effective. In contrast, insufficient punishment induces
dissonance about why one is not engaging in the
behavior, and inspires dissonance reduction by
devaluing the forbidden activity or object.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
When attitude change occurs due to insufficient
reward or punishment, it becomes very enduring. Both
insufficient punishment and insufficient justification
lead to self-persuasion, a long-term form of attitude
change that results from attempts at self-justification.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Psychology of Insufficient
Justification
Insufficient external justification is justification that is
sufficient to produce the behavior, but insufficient for
people to believe that they were “forced” through
external justifications to do it.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Aftermath of Good and Bad
Deeds
Dissonance theory and folk wisdom suggest that we
like people not for the favors they have done us but for
the favors we have done them.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Aftermath of Good and Bad
Deeds
If we harm someone, this induces dissonance between
our actions and our self-concepts as decent people; to
resolve this dissonance, we may derogate or
dehumanize our victims.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Aftermath of Good and Bad
Deeds
We are more likely to derogate people we have harmed
if they are innocent victims. Derogating victims by
dehumanizing them may lead to a continuation or
escalation of violence against them.
The Need to Justify Our Actions
• The Evidence for Motivational
Arousal
Dissonance theory assumes that discomfort due to
physiological arousal motivates dissonance reduction.
In fact, after engaging in counterattitudinal advocacy,
people who can attribute their arousal to another
source and not the dissonant behavior do not change
their attitudes.
Chapter Outline
II. New Directions in Research on
Self-Justification
New Directions in Research
• The basic premise of cognitive
dissonance theory is that people
have a fundamental need to maintain
a stable and positive sense of self.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Discrepancy Theory
Higgins’ (1987) self-discrepancy theory holds that
people are motivated to maintain a sense of
consistency among their beliefs and perceptions of
themselves, and become distressed when there is a
discrepancy between the “actual self” and an “ideal”
or “ought” self.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Completion Theory
Wicklund and Gollwitzer’s (1982) self-completion
theory holds that whenever people experience a
threat to an important aspect of their self-concept,
they are motivated to seek some additional social
recognition for that part of their identity.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Completion Theory
The theory extends dissonance theory by focusing
on the importance of social recognition of the self.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory
Tesser’s (1988) self-evaluation maintenance theory
holds that one’s self-concept can be threatened by
another individual’s behavior, and that the level of
threat is determined by both the closeness of the
other individual and the personal relevance of the
behavior.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory
Dissonance arising when a friend outperforms
oneself in a cherished domain can be resolved by (1)
distancing oneself from the friend; (2) changing how
relevant the domain is to one’s self-definition; or (3)
improving one’s performance to outshine the friend’s
performance.
New Directions in Research
• Self-Affirmation Theory
Steele’s (1988) self-affirmation theory suggests that
people will reduce the impact of a dissonance
arousing threat to their self-concept by focusing on
and affirming their competence on some dimension
unrelated to the threat.
Chapter Outline
III. Self-Justification versus SelfMaintenance: The Role of
Negative Self-Beliefs
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Self-Verification versus SelfEnhancement
Research that takes self-esteem into account finds
that, in some instances, people with negative selfconcepts do not engage in the kinds of selfjustification (the tendency to justify one’s actions in
order to maintain one’s self-esteem), typical of people
with positive self-concepts.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Self-Verification versus SelfEnhancement
Swann (1990) has proposed self-verification theory, a
theory suggesting that people have a need to seek
confirmation of their self-concept, whether the selfconcept is positive or negative.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Self-Verification versus SelfEnhancement
The need for self-verification appears to dominate
over the need for self-justification for people with
negative self-concepts only when people are highly
certain of those self-concepts; when the
consequences of being improperly evaluated are not
too great; and when people believe there is nothing
that can be done to improve their abilities.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Dissonance Reduction and Culture
The experience of dissonance and the attempts to
reduce it have been found in all cultures in which
they have been studied.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Dissonance Reduction and Culture
Sakai (1999) found that in Japan, not only does a
person reduce dissonance after saying that a boring
task is interesting, but in addition, if a person merely
observes someone he knows and likes saying that a
boring task is interesting, that will cause the observer
to experience dissonance.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Avoiding the Rationalization Trap
The rationalization trap is the potential for
dissonance reduction to produce a succession of
self-justifications that can ultimately result in a
chain of unintelligent or immoral actions.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Learning from Our Mistakes
The attempt to reduce dissonance can prevent
us from learning from our mistakes and can lead
us to sweep our mistakes under the rug or even
turn them into virtues, perpetuating the error and
leading to tragedy.
Self-Justification versus Self-Maintenance
• Learning from Our Mistakes
One way to avoid the rationalization trap is to
experience a boost to one’s self-esteem. Selfaffirmation may provide a way out of the
rationalization trap.
Chapter Outline
IV. Heaven’s Gate Revisited
Heaven’s Gate Revisited
• Making an important decision and
investing heavily in that decision can
evoke a high degree of cognitive
dissonance and a strong need to
justify behavior. One of the most
powerful forces influencing the
members of the Heaven’s Gate cult
was the great amount of cognitive
dissonance they experienced.
Study Questions
What are conditions that may
result in cognitive dissonance?
Why does cognitive dissonance
occur?
Study Questions
What is the relationship between
making important decisions and
experiencing dissonance? What
happens to attitudes toward the
chosen alternative and the one
that is not chosen?
Study Questions
Why is lowballing an effective
persuasion technique? How
does dissonance reduction after
a moral decision affect people’s
tendency to behave ethically or
unethically in the future?
Study Questions
What is the relationship between
the justification of effort and
dissonance reduction?
Study Questions
Why can insufficient justification
result in dissonance? What are
the consequences of reducing
dissonance through external
justification compared to internal
justification?
Study Questions
What are the effects of insufficient
punishment on the judgments of
an object or entity? What are the
effects of mild versus severe
threats on the level of
dissonance experienced?
Study Questions
Why is self-persuasion a longlasting form of attitudinal
change?
Study Questions
What are the consequences of
doing something unpleasant for
a friend compared to doing
something unpleasant for
someone who is disliked? What
are the effects of doing a favor
for someone on how much this
person is liked?
Study Questions
What does self-discrepancy theory
explain? How is dissonance
reduced according to this
theory?
Study Questions
What is self-completion theory?
How is dissonance reduced
according to this theory?
Study Questions
What is self-evaluation
maintenance theory? What are
two necessary factors for the
occurrence of dissonance
according to this theory? How
does this theory explain why
people may help strangers more
than they help their friends?
Study Questions
What causes dissonance
according to self-affirmation
theory? How is dissonance
reduced according to this
theory?
Study Questions
When do people prefer selfverification more than selfenhancement?
Study Questions
What is a rationalization trap and
how does one develop? How can
this trap be avoided? What can
other cultures teach us about
avoiding this trap?