6.4 Cognitive Dissonance and Attitude Change
3 min read•august 9, 2024
theory explains why we feel uncomfortable when our thoughts and actions don't match up. It's a key concept in understanding how attitudes change and why we sometimes adjust our beliefs to fit our behavior.
This theory connects to the broader topic of by showing how internal conflicts can lead to shifts in our views. It's not just about outside influences – our own actions can reshape our attitudes too.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Understanding Cognitive Dissonance
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- Cognitive dissonance theory explains psychological discomfort arising from conflicting thoughts or behaviors
- Developed by in 1957, describes mental tension when beliefs and actions misalign
- Occurs when individuals hold contradictory beliefs or engage in behavior inconsistent with their attitudes
- Motivates people to reduce discomfort by changing beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors
- Intensity of dissonance depends on importance of conflicting elements and number of dissonant thoughts
Strategies for Reducing Dissonance
- strategies aim to alleviate psychological discomfort
- Changing one of the dissonant elements (attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors)
- Adding new consonant elements to outweigh dissonant ones
- Reducing importance of dissonant elements
- Seeking information supporting the chosen alternative
- Avoiding information contradicting the chosen alternative
Counterattitudinal Behavior and Attitude Change
- involves acting contrary to one's beliefs or attitudes
- Often leads to attitude change to align with behavior, reducing dissonance
- demonstrates this effect in experimental settings
- Attitude change more likely when external justification for behavior is minimal
- Internal justification process leads to attitude shift to match behavior
Attitude Polarization and Group Dynamics
- occurs when exposure to conflicting information strengthens pre-existing attitudes
- amplifies this effect in social settings
- contributes to polarization by seeking confirming information
- reinforces existing beliefs, leading to stronger attitudes
- Can result in increased group cohesion but also exacerbate social divisions
Experimental Paradigms
Forced Compliance Paradigm
- Forced compliance paradigm investigates attitude change following counterattitudinal behavior
- Participants induced to engage in behavior contrary to their beliefs or attitudes
- Classic study: Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) boring task experiment
- Participants paid 20 to tell others the task was enjoyable
- $1 group experienced more dissonance, leading to greater attitude change
- Demonstrates inverse relationship between external justification and attitude change
Free Choice Paradigm
- examines decision-making and
- Participants choose between similarly attractive alternatives
- After choice, tendency to enhance chosen option and devalue rejected option
- observed as cognitive dissonance reduction strategy
- Jack Brehm's classic study (1956) with household appliances demonstrates this effect
- Choice-induced preference change persists over time, influencing future decisions
Induced Compliance and Attitude Change
- involves persuading individuals to act against their attitudes
- Often used in experimental settings to study cognitive dissonance effects
- Minimal external pressure or reward maximizes dissonance and attitude change
- uses this principle in real-world persuasion contexts
- also leverages induced compliance for behavior change
Effort Justification and Cognitive Dissonance
- explains tendency to value outcomes more when effort is expended
- Based on cognitive dissonance theory: high effort for low-value outcome creates dissonance
- and Mills' (1959) study on group initiation demonstrates this effect
- Participants who underwent severe initiation valued group membership more
- Applies to various contexts (hazing rituals, difficult academic programs)
- Explains sunk cost fallacy in decision-making processes
Alternative Explanations
Self-Perception Theory as an Alternative Framework
- proposed by Daryl Bem as alternative to cognitive dissonance theory
- Suggests individuals infer their attitudes by observing their own behavior
- Assumes people have limited introspective access to their internal states
- Explains attitude change without invoking internal psychological tension
- Predicts similar outcomes to cognitive dissonance theory in many situations
- Differences emerge in situations involving clear pre-existing attitudes
- Overjustification effect explained by self-perception theory
- Debate continues over which theory better explains various phenomena
- Some researchers propose integrative models combining both theories
- Highlights importance of considering multiple explanatory frameworks in social psychology
Key Terms to Review (28)
Aronson: Aronson refers to Elliot Aronson, a prominent social psychologist known for his work on cognitive dissonance and attitude change. His research significantly advanced the understanding of how individuals reconcile conflicting beliefs and behaviors, leading to changes in attitudes. Aronson's contributions have had a lasting impact on the field, especially in exploring how dissonance can motivate individuals to alter their beliefs to align with their actions or vice versa.
Attitude change: Attitude change refers to the process by which an individual's evaluations, beliefs, or feelings about a particular object, person, or issue are altered. This change can occur through various mechanisms, such as cognitive dissonance, social influence, or persuasive communication. Understanding attitude change is crucial as it helps explain how and why people may adjust their perspectives in response to new information or experiences.
Attitude Polarization: Attitude polarization is the phenomenon where an individual's attitude toward a particular object, person, or issue becomes more extreme after being exposed to information that supports their initial viewpoint. This effect highlights how people's beliefs can solidify and become more rigid rather than shift or soften, especially when they encounter confirmatory evidence. It often plays a crucial role in discussions, debates, and decision-making processes, impacting how individuals interact with differing perspectives.
Behavioral change: Behavioral change refers to the process of altering one's actions or habits, often in response to new information, experiences, or environmental influences. This concept is closely tied to how individuals can shift their attitudes, beliefs, and emotions, leading to modifications in their behaviors. Understanding behavioral change is crucial for addressing issues like health promotion, social norms, and personal growth.
Cognitive Dissonance: Cognitive dissonance is a psychological theory that describes the discomfort experienced when holding two or more conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes simultaneously. This discomfort often leads individuals to change their beliefs or attitudes to reduce the inconsistency, impacting how they present themselves, attribute social behavior, and respond to persuasion.
Confirmation Bias: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or values. This cognitive shortcut leads individuals to prioritize evidence that supports their views while dismissing or ignoring contradictory information, which can heavily influence decision-making and perceptions of reality.
Counterattitudinal behavior: Counterattitudinal behavior refers to actions that are in direct conflict with an individual's existing attitudes or beliefs. This dissonance between what one believes and how one acts can lead to discomfort, prompting a need for resolution, often resulting in attitude change. Engaging in counterattitudinal behavior is a key mechanism through which cognitive dissonance theory explains how people reconcile conflicting beliefs and behaviors.
Dissonance reduction: Dissonance reduction refers to the psychological strategies individuals use to alleviate the discomfort or tension caused by cognitive dissonance, which occurs when a person holds conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. This process is crucial in understanding how people adjust their beliefs and behaviors to maintain internal consistency and reduce feelings of unease.
Effort justification: Effort justification is a psychological phenomenon where individuals rationalize the value of outcomes based on the amount of effort they put into achieving them. This means that if someone works hard for something, they are more likely to believe it is worthwhile, even if the outcome isn’t as great as expected. This concept is tied to cognitive dissonance, as it helps people reduce feelings of discomfort when their efforts don’t match their results, and is also relevant in understanding how persuasion can be influenced by perceived effort.
Elaboration Likelihood Model: The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is a theory in social psychology that explains how people are persuaded to change their attitudes based on the amount of thought they put into the message. It proposes two primary routes to persuasion: the central route, which involves deep processing of information, and the peripheral route, where superficial cues are relied upon. This model highlights the factors influencing attitude change and emphasizes the importance of cognitive engagement in processing persuasive messages.
Experimental Design: Experimental design refers to the systematic method of planning and conducting experiments to investigate causal relationships between variables. This approach enables researchers to control for confounding factors and manipulate independent variables to observe their effects on dependent variables. Understanding experimental design is crucial for accurately interpreting results and making valid conclusions, especially when exploring concepts like attribution, cognitive dissonance, and persuasion.
Foot-in-the-door technique: The foot-in-the-door technique is a persuasion strategy that involves making a small request first, followed by a larger request. This method capitalizes on the principle of consistency, as individuals are more likely to agree to a bigger request after initially agreeing to a smaller one, which can influence attitude change and social behavior.
Free Choice Paradigm: The free choice paradigm is a psychological framework that examines how individuals make choices when presented with a range of options, particularly in situations where those choices may lead to conflicting attitudes or beliefs. This paradigm often highlights the cognitive dissonance that arises when a person freely chooses one option over another, which can result in changes in attitudes to align more closely with their decision. Understanding this process sheds light on the mechanisms of attitude change and the persuasive techniques that can be used to influence decision-making.
Group Dynamics: Group dynamics refers to the social processes and behaviors that occur within a group, influencing the interactions, relationships, and structure of the group. This concept helps in understanding how individuals behave in a collective setting, how they influence each other, and how group cohesion, leadership, and conflict emerge. These dynamics play a significant role in various contexts, including how individuals form attitudes, the impact of groups on decision-making, and how group behavior affects legal and criminal justice situations.
Group polarization: Group polarization refers to the tendency of group members to adopt more extreme positions or attitudes after discussing an issue within the group. This phenomenon occurs because group discussions reinforce shared beliefs, leading individuals to move toward a more extreme consensus than they initially held. As members present arguments supporting their views, they often amplify their original opinions, which can have significant implications for decision-making and social dynamics.
Induced Compliance: Induced compliance refers to a psychological phenomenon where individuals are compelled to engage in behavior that conflicts with their beliefs or attitudes due to external pressures, often leading to changes in those beliefs or attitudes. This process highlights how situations can create dissonance between one’s actions and personal beliefs, which may result in attitude change as a way to reduce that discomfort. The concept plays a significant role in understanding how people can be persuaded to adopt new viewpoints or behaviors, especially when the incentives for compliance are minimal.
Induced Compliance Paradigm: The induced compliance paradigm is a psychological framework that examines how individuals change their attitudes or beliefs when they are compelled to act in ways that contradict their original beliefs, often under conditions of minimal justification. This phenomenon highlights the role of cognitive dissonance, where people experience discomfort due to the inconsistency between their behavior and attitudes, leading them to modify their attitudes to align with their actions.
Leon Festinger: Leon Festinger was a prominent social psychologist known for developing the theory of cognitive dissonance, which explains how individuals strive for internal consistency between their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. His work laid the foundation for understanding attitude formation, change, and the mechanisms that drive persuasion and resistance to it.
Low-ball technique: The low-ball technique is a persuasive strategy where an initial offer is made at a low price to entice agreement, but once the target commits, the offer is changed to a higher price or less favorable terms. This method plays on commitment and consistency, as people are more likely to stick with a decision they’ve already made, even if the terms change. It highlights how initial agreements can influence later choices and attitudes, often leading to cognitive dissonance when the individual realizes they’ve been misled.
Persuasive communication: Persuasive communication is a type of communication aimed at influencing the beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of individuals. It often involves strategic use of language, emotional appeals, and reasoning to convince the audience. Understanding the dynamics of persuasive communication is crucial as it plays a key role in how people may alter their attitudes or actions in response to various messages.
Post-decision dissonance: Post-decision dissonance is the psychological discomfort that occurs after making a choice between two or more options, particularly when the decision involves significant trade-offs. This discomfort arises because individuals may question whether they made the right choice and may experience regret or doubt about their decision. To alleviate this tension, people often seek to justify their choices or downplay the attractiveness of the rejected options, which can lead to attitude changes that favor the chosen option.
Selective Exposure: Selective exposure is the tendency for individuals to seek out information that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs and attitudes while avoiding information that contradicts them. This behavior plays a crucial role in shaping opinions and reinforces existing attitudes, often leading to cognitive dissonance when faced with opposing viewpoints. Understanding selective exposure is key to grasping how people resist persuasion and how attitude change occurs.
Self-perception theory: Self-perception theory is a psychological concept suggesting that individuals form their attitudes and beliefs by observing their own behavior and the context in which it occurs. This means people often deduce what they think or feel based on how they act, rather than relying on introspection. It emphasizes the idea that behavior can shape internal states, connecting to how we view ourselves, how we adjust our attitudes when faced with inconsistencies, and how social influences can modify our perceptions.
Social Influence: Social influence is the process by which individuals' attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are affected by the presence or actions of others. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in shaping human interactions and can manifest in various forms, such as conformity, compliance, and obedience. Understanding social influence helps explain how people's opinions and actions can change based on social context, group dynamics, and situational factors.
Social Judgment Theory: Social Judgment Theory is a psychological framework that explains how individuals evaluate and categorize new information based on their preexisting attitudes and beliefs. This theory posits that when people encounter a message, they assess it in relation to their own viewpoint, leading to three possible outcomes: acceptance, rejection, or non-commitment. Understanding this process is crucial in examining how attitudes can shift, particularly when considering the impact of cognitive dissonance and the effectiveness of persuasion techniques.
Source credibility: Source credibility refers to the perceived trustworthiness and expertise of a communicator or source of information. When individuals assess the credibility of a source, they consider factors like the source's background, knowledge, and bias, which can significantly influence how persuasive their message is and the likelihood of attitude change in an audience.
Spreading of Alternatives: Spreading of alternatives refers to the cognitive process that occurs when a person must choose between two or more options, leading to a reduction in the attractiveness of the rejected option and an enhancement of the chosen option. This phenomenon plays a critical role in decision-making and is closely linked to cognitive dissonance, as individuals strive to justify their choices to reduce any feelings of regret or discomfort related to their decisions.
Surveys: Surveys are research methods used to collect data from a group of individuals, often through questionnaires or interviews, aimed at understanding opinions, behaviors, or characteristics of a population. They provide insights into attitudes and perceptions that can influence self-presentation, person perception, persuasion, and social behaviors in groups.