PSY 005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Impression Management, Cognitive Dissonance, Claude Steele
23 Dec 2020
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Self-perception theory people don"t always have first-hand knowledge of their own attitudes, bem proposed that we infer how we feel by observing ourselves and the circumstances of our own behaviour. This sort of self-persuasion is not fuelled by the need to reduce tension or justify our actions. Instead, it is a cool, calm, and rational process in which people interpret ambiguous feelings by observing their own behaviour. Bem reasoned that observers can have the same behavioural information as the participants themselves but not experience the same personal conflict. If observers generate the same results as real participants, it shows that dissonance arousal is not necessary for the resulting changes in attitudes. To test his hypothesis, bem (1967) described the festinger and carlsmith study to observers and had them guess participants" attitudes. Some were told about the condition, some were told about the condition, and others read about the control group.
