Psychology 3723F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Cognitive Dissonance, Psych, Information Processing

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3723F/G
• Professor: Corey Isaacs

Document Summary

Information processing how our mind deals w/ info we encounter in social world. Ideas that attitudes influence info we see and hear is one of oldest assumptions in study of attitudes. Individuals tend to notice and search for info that confirmed choices and to avoid info that made them feel like they made wrong decisions. Festinger: argued that we use open-minded info search strategy before making decision, in order to be well-informed; then after decision is made, we search selectively for info to avoid cognitive dissonance. Selective exposure effects larger when: value-relevant topic, commitment to certain attitude, new dissonant info. Knoblock: attitude strength (certainty, importance) may moderate selective attention, less likely to select attitude-incongruent articles when having high certainty, oddly, more likely to select attitude-incongruent articles when having high importance. Effects of specific attitude properties may differ from effects of attitude strength on aggregate.