PSYC2040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Cognitive Dissonance, Amygdala, Verbal Overshadowing
17 Jun 2018
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PSYC2040 NOTES
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Key definitions
Functions, processes and components
Important points
Lecture 4 - Attitudes and Behaviour
Willing and able problem
●We often don’t know why we feel the way we do
○So we seek cues to our feelings
■We are thus easily tricked
■Study: male participants view photos of naked women while hearing
either “physiological feedback” i.e. their heartbeat or “extraneous
sounds”
●The heartbeat pattern is manipulated, sometimes speeding up
●They then rated the photos for attractiveness and chose some to
keep, which corresponded with the the photos for which
researchers sped their heartbeat up
●The same ratings were found four weeks later
●Some participants effortfully processed why their heart rate sped
up on images of certain women despite them not being their
usual “type” and tried to come up with an explanation
●We often don’t know when that applies - we don’t know when we lack that knowledge
○So we tend to make up answers and believe them
■Study: researchers showed participants two photos of women and had
them choose the one they thought was more attractive, then swapping
the photos without the participants’ knowledge and handing them the
other one
●When asked why they thought that woman was attractive, most
participants did not say that they were given the wrong photo but
instead game up with an answer
Cognitive dissonance theory
●Inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviour (cognitive dissonances) create
psychological tension - we are motivated to reduce this
●People thus develop new attitudes that are consistent with the existing behaviour - “we
seek cues to our feelings”
