PSY220H1 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Cognitive Dissonance, American Cancer Society, Self-Perception Theory
1
Self-Justification I: cognitive dissonance
Heides Balae Theo: a tiagle of elatioships etee:
P: Person (you)
O: other person
X: object (random object)
People are motivated to achieve balance between our attitude toward these things.
e.g. P likes X (positive relationship), P likes O, but O hates X, so P is gonna be upset.
- Whe all the elatioships i the tiagle is positie, the thees hao
- People strive to maintain this harmony
Cognitive Dissonance: Various dissonance reduction techniques
e.g. Sheila is a smoker, and knows that smoking is associated with lung cancer.
- Attitude hage: I dot like sokig aoe.
- Miiize iosiste: e ill die soeho, it doest atte.
- Miiize pesoal esposiilit: I at help.
- Adding consonants: I eat well, I take vitamins and exercise.
- Denial: government exaggerated all those stats.
Cogitie dissoae: a upleasat state aused peoples aaeess of iosiste aog
important beliefs, attitudes or actions.
Classic Studies:
Festinger & Carlsmith, 1950:
o Participants performed boring knob-turning task
o Then asked to motivate another participant
o Paid either $1 or $20
- Patiipats ee asked to lie, hih et agaist thei alues I a good hoest peso
- Those given 20 were able to justify their actions, so they felt the unpleasant tension of
dissonance: not wanting to see themselves as bad people, this led them to genuinely change
thei attitudes toad the task it ast so ad
Schachter & singer (1962):
- Independent variables:
o Type of injection (adrenaline vs. placebo)
o Type of reaction expected (aroused vs. nothing)
o Type of confederate (euphoric vs. angry)
- Dependent variables:
o Ho did the patiipats ehae?
o What mood did they report?
- Uninformed participants needed to find reasons to explain or justify their feelings
- Informed participants had a handy explanation available.
Aronson & Carlsmith, 1963; Freedman 1965
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2
- What did these researchers find?
- What are the important implications of these findings
Axsom & Cooper, 1985:
- Participants were overweight adult women who responded to a newspaper ad
- Half of the women spent a 3 week training session working on difficult, effortful perceptual and
auditory tasks
- Half of the women spent a 3 week training session working on pleasant, easy versions of the
same tasks
- All women were encouraged to keep track of what they ate and were weighted regularly
- 6 months later, those who had suffered to be in the weight loss program had lost significantly
more weight than the other women
- Difference persisted for at least one year
- Reason: these women needed to justify their suffering, and they did it by increasing the
importance of the goal: weight loss
- Supports other findings which show that people who suffer through severe initiation rituals end
up valuing their group memberships more compared to those group members accepted without
initiation
Decisional dissonance: tension that occurs when someone has to choose between multiple attractive
options
- Choosing one means not choosing all the good things about the other alternatives
Classic studies:
Brehm, 1956:
- Women asked to participate in a study on consumer preferences
- Rated a series of small household appliances
- Women allowed to choose 1 of 2 products as their payment
- Key condition: asked to choose between two products they had rated almost equally
o After the choice, they rated the things they chose much more likable.
Known as the spreading-of-alternatives effect.
- Making the choice to give up one and take the other produces dissonance, so you increase your
liking of the product you chose, and devalue the rejected product in order to justify your
decision.
- Has been shown to occur in a broad range of decision tasks
o E.g. opinion of presidential candidates before and after casting your vote (provided you
find the choice difficult)
Spreading-of-alternatives effect: what would happen if you had one week to exchange your prize?
- No immediate spreading of alternative effect
Cognitive dissonance: necessary steps
- Four conditions are necessary to produce dissonance and for that dissonance to produce
attitude change:
o The individual must perceive the action as inconsistent
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3
o The individual must take personal responsibility for the action
o The individual must experience uncomfortable physiological arousal
o The individual must attribute the arousal to the inconsistency between attitude and
action
e.g. Zanna & Cooper, 1974:
- Subjects asked to write a counter-attitudinal essay (about free speech on campus): given either
high-hoie its up to ou o lo hoie ou ust
- One third were given a pill and told it would make them tense, one third told it would make
them relaxed, and one third were told it would have no effect whatsoever.
- No effect group: replicates results of the previous studies, high-choice ppl agree more with
banning free-speech
- Relaxed pill group: effect was amplified
o They thought they should be relaxed but fells the arousal, more dissonance
- Tense group: nothing was going on
o Subjects attributes it on the pills
Cognitive dissonance: does it always lead to attitude change?
- Nope: there are other ways to reduce dissonance
- Dissonance may be dissipated at any one of the four steps
o E.g. you could minimize the inconsistency by trivializing the attitude-discrepant
behavior, or by coming up with a way of making the behavior consistent with your
attitudes
o E.g. you are a proud Canadian business owner and a good honest person: but you fail to
pay your taxed
▪ The goeet astes oe. Its ette I keep it ad deide hat to do ith
it myself.
Self-perception theory (Bem, 1972)
- When our attitudes are weak or ambiguous, we discern our own attitudes by examining our
behavior (see behavior, decide our feelings or attitudes)
o Provided we are engaging in the behavior voluntarily
Taylor, 1975:
- Women were shown photos of men and given false feedback about their physiological reaction
to the photos. For some of the photos, they were told that their hearts started to beat faster.
- When later asked to evaluate the men, the women relied on their supposed physiological
responses, but ol if thee atios did ot hae a oseuees.
o Those women who were going to meet the men based on how the evaluated them were
not willing to rely only on their physiological responses.
The foot i the doo tehiue
- Someone asks you to do something (small) that you agree to do
o Donate $1 to a charity
o Crash at your place for one night
o Watch their dog for a day
- And then they make a larger request
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Document Summary
Heide(cid:396)(cid:859)s bala(cid:374)(cid:272)e theo(cid:396)(cid:455): a t(cid:396)ia(cid:374)gle of (cid:396)elatio(cid:374)ships (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374): People are motivated to achieve balance between our attitude toward these things. e. g. p likes x (positive relationship), p likes o, but o hates x, so p is gonna be upset. Whe(cid:374) all the (cid:396)elatio(cid:374)ships i(cid:374) the t(cid:396)ia(cid:374)gle is positi(cid:448)e, the(cid:374) the(cid:396)e(cid:859)s ha(cid:396)(cid:373)o(cid:374)(cid:455) Cognitive dissonance: various dissonance reduction techniques e. g. sheila is a smoker, and knows that smoking is associated with lung cancer. Attitude (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge: i do(cid:374)(cid:859)t like s(cid:373)oki(cid:374)g a(cid:374)(cid:455)(cid:373)o(cid:396)e. Mi(cid:374)i(cid:373)ize i(cid:374)(cid:272)o(cid:374)siste(cid:374)(cid:272)(cid:455): (cid:449)e (cid:449)ill die so(cid:373)eho(cid:449), it does(cid:374)(cid:859)t (cid:373)atte(cid:396). Adding consonants: i eat well, i take vitamins and exercise. Cog(cid:374)iti(cid:448)e disso(cid:374)a(cid:374)(cid:272)e: a(cid:374) u(cid:374)pleasa(cid:374)t state (cid:272)aused (cid:271)(cid:455) people(cid:859)s a(cid:449)a(cid:396)e(cid:374)ess of i(cid:374)(cid:272)o(cid:374)siste(cid:374)(cid:272)(cid:455) a(cid:373)o(cid:374)g important beliefs, attitudes or actions. Festinger & carlsmith, 1950: participants performed boring knob-turning task, then asked to motivate another participant, paid either or . Pa(cid:396)ti(cid:272)ipa(cid:374)ts (cid:449)e(cid:396)e asked to lie, (cid:449)hi(cid:272)h (cid:449)e(cid:374)t agai(cid:374)st thei(cid:396) (cid:448)alues (cid:894)i(cid:859)(cid:373) a good ho(cid:374)est pe(cid:396)so(cid:374)(cid:895)
