Chapter 7 â Dissonance Theory Dissonance Theory Leon ...
Chapter 7 – Dissonance Theory Dissonance Theory
Paradigms of Dissonance Research
-
Cohen, 1962
-
Tested using several different research paradigms
o
Participants – Yale U students
-
Leon Festinger, 1957
-
Paradigm = methodology
o
-
Theory of how we rationalize our own behaviour
-
-
Addresses relations b/w pairs of different cognitions in an individual’s mind
Ea. paradigm involves getting participants to do something that arouses dissonance
Wrote essay about disturbance that occurred on campus
o
Police responded aggressively to disturbance
o
Almost all students condemned police
o
Asked to write counterattitudinal essay
o -
-
-
-
Any two cognitions can be considered
-
Ask participants to do something that is inconsistent w/ their attitudes (counterattiduinal behaviour)
Festinger especially interested in cases where one cognition refers to our own behaviour and the other cognition concerns the value of that behaviour
-
Include participants to comply w/ experiment’s requests
-
In ea. case, prediction from dissonance theory is:
o
I did x
o
x is irrational, bad, useless, wrong, etc...
o
Two cognitions can be consonant
-
Consistent w/ one another
o
Support ea. other
o
Paid substantial amount of money
o
Feels good – we like constant cognitions
o
Given no choice but to perform act (experimenter told them to do it)
o
High Dissonance
Two cognitions can be dissonant
o
Inconsistent w/ one another
o
Logically discrepant
o
Feels bad – we dislike dissonance
We try to reduce dissonance
How can we reduce dissonance?
o
Change one of the dissonant cognitions
o
Add new consonant cognition
-
I believe X
I acted not-X
Low Dissonance (strong incentive provides consonant cognition)
After writing essay, participants were asked to report their own attitudes toward police actions
o
Did they become favourable toward police in order to reduce dissonance created by writing the essay
o
Results?
I was paid $20 for acting not-X
I was ordered to act not-X
Under conditions of high dissonance, participants are usually expected to change one of the dissonant cognition – most often the one related to a belief or attitude, because it is difficult to deny one’s behaviour
o
-
Paid 50¢, $1, $5, or $10
o
Strong justification can mean:
o Creates unpleasant feelings; tension, aversive arousal, embarrassment
Participants who perform a counterattitudinal behaviour will feel dissonance unless there is a strong justification for them to perform the act (constant cognition)
o
o -
Induced Compliance Paradigm
Smaller incentive resulted in more attitude change (dissonance reduction)
Contrasts w/ reinforcement models, which would predict that paying someone a LOT to write essay should motivate them to adopt that position more than less money
Dissonance finding is a “reverse incentive effect” and generated a lot of interest b/c conflicted w/ dominant view in psych
Induced compliance changes attitudes most when:
o
Extrinsic justification or incentive = minimal
o
Freedom of choice to perform behaviour is emphasized
o
Having no choice would mean that there were good reasons for action
Aversive consequences of behaviour
Absence of aversive consequences would mean behaviour doesn’t matter
-
Participants make choice b/w 2 equally attractive alternatives
-
“i chose option A” but “option B is attractive”
-
Postdecisional Dissonance
-
Individual motivated to justify choice
-
Can lead to spreading of alternatives
Effort Justification Paradigm
-
Set up a situation in which participants exert a lot of effort to get something that may not be worthwhile
-
Individual motivated to justify effort
-
Prediction from dissonance theory is:
o
-
More effort participants expend to achieve a goal, the more they will be motivated to rate the goal as important and valuable
Turner & Bennington, 1975
o
Participants = people taking part in walkathon
o
26 miles
o
o
o
o
Asked to rate importance of two categories of reasons for their participants Personal
Charitable
More difficult = more dissonance
More similar = less dissonance
o
Applied logic of free choice paradigm to romantic relationships
Did they increase the importance of charitable reasons as they expended more effort?
o
o
Greater effort (longer dissonance) was associated w/ more importance of charity (dissonance reduction)
People highly committed to relationship, may experience dissonance when exposed to attractive alternatives
o
Participants? Undergrads in hetero relationships
o
Rated dating desirability of target person of opposite sex
o
Target was allegedly available
o
Physical attractiveness either low, moderate, high
o
Reported commitment to current relationship
Diff people interviewed at ea. point
Free Choice Paradigm
Perhaps people who finished walk were those most motivated by the charity to begin with
Participants more committed to current partner appeared to derogate attractive alternative partners, presumably to reduce dissonance about not pursuing those alternatives
Say one thing, do another
-
Get participants to make public commitment to a desirable goal
-
Remind participant of his/her own failures to pursue/achieve goal
-
Individual motivated to reduce feeling of hypocrisy/dissonance
-
One way to reduce dissonance is to change hypocritical behaviour
-
Prediction from dissonance theory:
o
Johnson & Rusbult, 1989
o
o
Results?
-
Similarity of features of alternatives
-
More important = more dissonance
Difficulty of decision
0, 8, 17, 26 miles
o
Hypocrisy Paradigm
Importance of decision
o
Option A (chosen) becomes even more attractive and Option B (rejected) becomes less attractive
Factors that influence the amount of postdecisional dissonance;
Random samples of walkers interviewed at:
Median split used to classify as high or low commitment
o -
o
Participants who are induced to feel hypocritical about the inconsistency b/w their public advocacy and their private behaviour will experience dissonance and will plan to change their private behaviour
-
Both components of hypocrisy paradigm are necessary to arouse dissonance
-
If someone only advocated desirable behaviour but is not reminded of personal failures, dissonance is unlikely
-
If someone only is reminded of personal failures to act desirably but doesn’t publicly advocate behaviour, dissonance unlikely
-
Dickerson et al., 1992
o
Students on way from Uni pool to showers were asked to participate in study on water conservation
o
Some asked to sign names to public poster advocating water conservation
o
Some completed questionnaire to help plan water conservation programs but actually designed to make past waste of water salient (reminder of past failures)
o
Control participants were not asked to sign poster and didn’t complete questionnaire
o
Timed showers
-
Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett (1973)
o o
Bem (1967) proposed self-perception as alternative
-
People infer own attitudes by looking at own behaviour
-
Take into account external forces
-
Infer appropriate internal state, based on presence or absence of external forces
-
Especially likely when attitudes are initially weak or ambiguous
-
Problem?
o -
-
-
Role of physiological arousal
-
Several experiments show that attitude change occurs in dissonance experiments only when participants feel aversive arousal & attribute that arousal to counterattitudinal behaviour Cooper, Zanna, Taves (1978)
o
Placebo effect & essay writing
-
Self perception theory does not stand up as alt to dissonance
-
BUT other important things found (overjustification effect)
Giving extrinsic reward for potentially enjoyable task can reduce liking for the task (make attitude to task more negative)
Unexpected – “good player award” certificate for drawing No reward
1-2 weeks later, same magic marker pens put out w/ other toys in free play periods
o
Children w/ no reward more likely to play w/ markers
-
Implicit attitudes refer to automatic evals, which do not depend on conscious thought
-
Will dissonance also affect implicit attitudes?
-
Gawronski & Strack, 2004
o
German U students wrote counterattitudinal essay
o
Explicit AND implicit attitudes measured
o
Topic: argue in favour of prohibition of alc in Germany
o
3 conditions
Practical implications?
o
Piano lessons
o
Reading
o
Education system
When rewards indicate competence can actually increase liking for task
o
o
Behaviour is (potentially) intrinsically enjoyable
o
Reward is concrete or tangible – seen as “controlling”
o
Reward given simply for task engagement, rather than quality or competence
o
Reward expected – promised in adv.
Implicit Attitudes & Dissonance
High choice (dissonance)
Low choice
No essay control
Explicit attitudes
o
o
Self-report of support for prohibiting alc
Implicit attitudes
Especially true for non-concrete rewards
Most likely to be a problem when:
Overjustification Effect
-
Expected - “good player award” certificate for drawing
o
o -
Dissonance experiments have focused exclusively on explicit attitudes: people’s self-reports of their evals
3 conditions
Self-perception theory alternative to dissonance?
-
Nursery school children drew pics for experimenter using magic marker pens
-
Implicit association test sorting alc and non-alc beverages w/ good/bad words
Results?
Dissonance reduction occurred only on explicit attitudes
Effects depend on logical reasoning (recognition of incompatibility of two cognitions)
Implicit attitudes reflect automatic reactions to target, not logical reasoning
Application of Dissonance Theory – Eating Disorders
-
10% of adolescent females; typically chronic
-
Less than 25% receive treatment
-
More likely to experience depression, obesity, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, suicide attempts
-
Few prevention programs noted as effective
-
Stice & Shaw, 2004
o
6/38 prevention programs evaluated produced ANY supportive results
o
One of the most promising prevention treatments relies on dissonance theory
o
Designed program that aimed to change young women’s attitudes toward the culturally sanctioned ideal of thinness for women
o
3 1-hour sessions spec aimed to induce counterattitudinal beh for women who have internalized the thin ideal
o
Assumed changing ideal would have effects on body dissatisfaction dieting, etc ...
o
4 conditions
Dissonance intervention
•
Criticised thin ideal & where it comes from
•
Role played trying to convince target not to pursue thin ideal
•
Role played resisting pressure to be thin
Health weight intervention
Expressive writing control
Waiting list control
o
Emphasized freedom of choice to do counterattidunal behaviours & described how participants’ actions/essays would help to weaken thin ideal
o
Conclusions?
Dissonance intervention worked significantly better than other 3 conditions
Healthy weight intervention worked significantly better than 2 control conditions
Paradigms of Dissonance Research
-
Cohen, 1962
-
Tested using several different research paradigms
o
Participants – Yale U students
-
Leon Festinger, 1957
-
Paradigm = methodology
o
-
Theory of how we rationalize our own behaviour
-
-
Addresses relations b/w pairs of different cognitions in an individual’s mind
Ea. paradigm involves getting participants to do something that arouses dissonance
Wrote essay about disturbance that occurred on campus
o
Police responded aggressively to disturbance
o
Almost all students condemned police
o
Asked to write counterattitudinal essay
o -
-
-
-
Any two cognitions can be considered
-
Ask participants to do something that is inconsistent w/ their attitudes (counterattiduinal behaviour)
Festinger especially interested in cases where one cognition refers to our own behaviour and the other cognition concerns the value of that behaviour
-
Include participants to comply w/ experiment’s requests
-
In ea. case, prediction from dissonance theory is:
o
I did x
o
x is irrational, bad, useless, wrong, etc...
o
Two cognitions can be consonant
-
Consistent w/ one another
o
Support ea. other
o
Paid substantial amount of money
o
Feels good – we like constant cognitions
o
Given no choice but to perform act (experimenter told them to do it)
o
High Dissonance
Two cognitions can be dissonant
o
Inconsistent w/ one another
o
Logically discrepant
o
Feels bad – we dislike dissonance
We try to reduce dissonance
How can we reduce dissonance?
o
Change one of the dissonant cognitions
o
Add new consonant cognition
-
I believe X
I acted not-X
Low Dissonance (strong incentive provides consonant cognition)
After writing essay, participants were asked to report their own attitudes toward police actions
o
Did they become favourable toward police in order to reduce dissonance created by writing the essay
o
Results?
I was paid $20 for acting not-X
I was ordered to act not-X
Under conditions of high dissonance, participants are usually expected to change one of the dissonant cognition – most often the one related to a belief or attitude, because it is difficult to deny one’s behaviour
o
-
Paid 50¢, $1, $5, or $10
o
Strong justification can mean:
o Creates unpleasant feelings; tension, aversive arousal, embarrassment
Participants who perform a counterattitudinal behaviour will feel dissonance unless there is a strong justification for them to perform the act (constant cognition)
o
o -
Induced Compliance Paradigm
Smaller incentive resulted in more attitude change (dissonance reduction)
Contrasts w/ reinforcement models, which would predict that paying someone a LOT to write essay should motivate them to adopt that position more than less money
Dissonance finding is a “reverse incentive effect” and generated a lot of interest b/c conflicted w/ dominant view in psych
Induced compliance changes attitudes most when:
o
Extrinsic justification or incentive = minimal
o
Freedom of choice to perform behaviour is emphasized
o
Having no choice would mean that there were good reasons for action
Aversive consequences of behaviour
Absence of aversive consequences would mean behaviour doesn’t matter
-
Participants make choice b/w 2 equally attractive alternatives
-
“i chose option A” but “option B is attractive”
-
Postdecisional Dissonance
-
Individual motivated to justify choice
-
Can lead to spreading of alternatives
Effort Justification Paradigm
-
Set up a situation in which participants exert a lot of effort to get something that may not be worthwhile
-
Individual motivated to justify effort
-
Prediction from dissonance theory is:
o
-
More effort participants expend to achieve a goal, the more they will be motivated to rate the goal as important and valuable
Turner & Bennington, 1975
o
Participants = people taking part in walkathon
o
26 miles
o
o
o
o
Asked to rate importance of two categories of reasons for their participants Personal
Charitable
More difficult = more dissonance
More similar = less dissonance
o
Applied logic of free choice paradigm to romantic relationships
Did they increase the importance of charitable reasons as they expended more effort?
o
o
Greater effort (longer dissonance) was associated w/ more importance of charity (dissonance reduction)
People highly committed to relationship, may experience dissonance when exposed to attractive alternatives
o
Participants? Undergrads in hetero relationships
o
Rated dating desirability of target person of opposite sex
o
Target was allegedly available
o
Physical attractiveness either low, moderate, high
o
Reported commitment to current relationship
Diff people interviewed at ea. point
Free Choice Paradigm
Perhaps people who finished walk were those most motivated by the charity to begin with
Participants more committed to current partner appeared to derogate attractive alternative partners, presumably to reduce dissonance about not pursuing those alternatives
Say one thing, do another
-
Get participants to make public commitment to a desirable goal
-
Remind participant of his/her own failures to pursue/achieve goal
-
Individual motivated to reduce feeling of hypocrisy/dissonance
-
One way to reduce dissonance is to change hypocritical behaviour
-
Prediction from dissonance theory:
o
Johnson & Rusbult, 1989
o
o
Results?
-
Similarity of features of alternatives
-
More important = more dissonance
Difficulty of decision
0, 8, 17, 26 miles
o
Hypocrisy Paradigm
Importance of decision
o
Option A (chosen) becomes even more attractive and Option B (rejected) becomes less attractive
Factors that influence the amount of postdecisional dissonance;
Random samples of walkers interviewed at:
Median split used to classify as high or low commitment
o -
o
Participants who are induced to feel hypocritical about the inconsistency b/w their public advocacy and their private behaviour will experience dissonance and will plan to change their private behaviour
-
Both components of hypocrisy paradigm are necessary to arouse dissonance
-
If someone only advocated desirable behaviour but is not reminded of personal failures, dissonance is unlikely
-
If someone only is reminded of personal failures to act desirably but doesn’t publicly advocate behaviour, dissonance unlikely
-
Dickerson et al., 1992
o
Students on way from Uni pool to showers were asked to participate in study on water conservation
o
Some asked to sign names to public poster advocating water conservation
o
Some completed questionnaire to help plan water conservation programs but actually designed to make past waste of water salient (reminder of past failures)
o
Control participants were not asked to sign poster and didn’t complete questionnaire
o
Timed showers
-
Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett (1973)
o o
Bem (1967) proposed self-perception as alternative
-
People infer own attitudes by looking at own behaviour
-
Take into account external forces
-
Infer appropriate internal state, based on presence or absence of external forces
-
Especially likely when attitudes are initially weak or ambiguous
-
Problem?
o -
-
-
Role of physiological arousal
-
Several experiments show that attitude change occurs in dissonance experiments only when participants feel aversive arousal & attribute that arousal to counterattitudinal behaviour Cooper, Zanna, Taves (1978)
o
Placebo effect & essay writing
-
Self perception theory does not stand up as alt to dissonance
-
BUT other important things found (overjustification effect)
Giving extrinsic reward for potentially enjoyable task can reduce liking for the task (make attitude to task more negative)
Unexpected – “good player award” certificate for drawing No reward
1-2 weeks later, same magic marker pens put out w/ other toys in free play periods
o
Children w/ no reward more likely to play w/ markers
-
Implicit attitudes refer to automatic evals, which do not depend on conscious thought
-
Will dissonance also affect implicit attitudes?
-
Gawronski & Strack, 2004
o
German U students wrote counterattitudinal essay
o
Explicit AND implicit attitudes measured
o
Topic: argue in favour of prohibition of alc in Germany
o
3 conditions
Practical implications?
o
Piano lessons
o
Reading
o
Education system
When rewards indicate competence can actually increase liking for task
o
o
Behaviour is (potentially) intrinsically enjoyable
o
Reward is concrete or tangible – seen as “controlling”
o
Reward given simply for task engagement, rather than quality or competence
o
Reward expected – promised in adv.
Implicit Attitudes & Dissonance
High choice (dissonance)
Low choice
No essay control
Explicit attitudes
o
o
Self-report of support for prohibiting alc
Implicit attitudes
Especially true for non-concrete rewards
Most likely to be a problem when:
Overjustification Effect
-
Expected - “good player award” certificate for drawing
o
o -
Dissonance experiments have focused exclusively on explicit attitudes: people’s self-reports of their evals
3 conditions
Self-perception theory alternative to dissonance?
-
Nursery school children drew pics for experimenter using magic marker pens
-
Implicit association test sorting alc and non-alc beverages w/ good/bad words
Results?
Dissonance reduction occurred only on explicit attitudes
Effects depend on logical reasoning (recognition of incompatibility of two cognitions)
Implicit attitudes reflect automatic reactions to target, not logical reasoning
Application of Dissonance Theory – Eating Disorders
-
10% of adolescent females; typically chronic
-
Less than 25% receive treatment
-
More likely to experience depression, obesity, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, suicide attempts
-
Few prevention programs noted as effective
-
Stice & Shaw, 2004
o
6/38 prevention programs evaluated produced ANY supportive results
o
One of the most promising prevention treatments relies on dissonance theory
o
Designed program that aimed to change young women’s attitudes toward the culturally sanctioned ideal of thinness for women
o
3 1-hour sessions spec aimed to induce counterattitudinal beh for women who have internalized the thin ideal
o
Assumed changing ideal would have effects on body dissatisfaction dieting, etc ...
o
4 conditions
Dissonance intervention
•
Criticised thin ideal & where it comes from
•
Role played trying to convince target not to pursue thin ideal
•
Role played resisting pressure to be thin
Health weight intervention
Expressive writing control
Waiting list control
o
Emphasized freedom of choice to do counterattidunal behaviours & described how participants’ actions/essays would help to weaken thin ideal
o
Conclusions?
Dissonance intervention worked significantly better than other 3 conditions
Healthy weight intervention worked significantly better than 2 control conditions
