Cognitive Dissonance/Protecting Self-esteem

Cognitive dissonance

Discomfort from conflicting beliefs or actions.

• Misalignment of beliefs and actions

Cognitions are…

Beliefs

Heaven's Gate Cult

Example of dissonance leading to irrational behavior.

Festinger (1957)

Introduced the concept of cognitive dissonance.

Self-esteem

People’s evaluations of their own self-worth.

Aronston (1969)

Dissonance impacts self-esteem significantly.

• Dissonance = more powerful/upsetting when people behave in ways that threaten(conflict/disrupt) self-esteem.

When is dissonance more powerful and upsetting?

When people behave in ways that threaten(conflict/disrupt) self-esteem

Self-Esteem Functions

• Reduces anxiety about mortality(anxiety about death-related thoughts).

• Links to success and well-being.

  • Reduces depression

What do people do to reduce this discomfort of cogntive dissonance?

• Change their attitudes

• Justify their decisions

• Alter their behaviours.

Reduction of Dissonance Strategies

Methods to align behavior with beliefs.

Reducing Dissonace

• Change Behaviour

• Change cognition

• Add new cognition

• Self-affrimation

Reducing dissoncance through changing beahviour:

Change behaviour to line with conflicting cognition.

Reducing dissonance through changing cognition:

Attempting to justify behaviour by changing one of the cognitions(beliefs).

Reducing dissonance through adding new cognition:

Justify behaviour by adding new cognitions.

Examples of Dissonance Reduction: Changing behaviour in line with dissonant cognition

Quitting smoking because you know it isn’t healthy.

Examples of Dissonance Reduction: Changing cognition in line with behaviour

To continue smoking- decide that smoking isn’t actually that bad for your health.

Examples of Dissonance Reduction: Adding new cognition

Decide that smoking reduces your stress

Values Affirmation Exercises

Writing exercises to reinforce self-worth and reduce dissonance.

Self-Affirmation

Add a new cognition about a different, unrelated, positive

attribute to boost self-concept/perceptions about behaviour.

Cognitive Dissonance Examples

Illustrate conflicts between beliefs and actions.

When do we experience cognitive dissonance?

When making decisions

How is a choice in decision cognitive dissonance?

• There is dissonance in the choice

  • choice we made has some negative aspects

  • Option we didn’t choose has some positive aspects

Post-Decision Dissonance

Regret after choosing due to rejected option's appeal.

Factors Increasing Dissonance

• Importance

• Permanence

• irrevocability of choices.

Dissonance Reduction

Enhancing chosen option's appeal; diminishing rejected one's.

Post-decision dissonance reduction

• enacing chosen option’s apeal

• downlaying negative aspects

  VICE VERSA

• devaluing rejected alternatives

• diwnplaying positie aspects

Distorting likes/dislikes

Justification of Effort

Valuing outcomes more after significant effort required.

Aronson and Mills (1959)

Students who underwent severe initiation rated a dull group discussion more favourably than those with no initiation.

Brehm (1956) Study

*Women rated chosen appliance higher post-decision.

Steele et al. (1988) Study

Lab coats reduced rating distortions through self-affirmation.

External Justification

Behavior adjustment due to outside incentives or threats.

Internal Justification

Changing beliefs to align with one's behavior.

Festinger & Carlsmith (1958) Study

Lower payment led to greater enjoyment rating in boring tasks.

They believed they truly enjoyed the task.

Punishment

Severe punishment can justify behavior externally.

Severe Punishment Effects

Increases desirability of forbidden items

• i.e children who aren’t allwoed to eat sweet treats, more likely to eat sweet treats.

Mild Punishment Effects

Reduces desirability of forbidden items.

Freedman (1965) Study

Mild punishment led to lasting avoidance of toys.

Justifying Cruelty

Dissonance arises from self-view conflicts with cruelty.

David & Jones (1960) Study

Participants rated victim negatively after insulting them to reduce dissonance.

Dissonance Reduction Strategies w/others

• Distance

• Alter behaviour

• Downplay importance

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

Dissonance occurs when peers outperform us.

Tesser (1988) Study

Participants gave harder clues to friends competitively to reduce dissonance.

Hypocrisy Induction

Creating dissonance by highlighting belief-behavior contradictions

• having indvduals make statemts that counter ther behaviours. then poiynt out inconsistencey( acusee of being hypocrite).

• Leads to more responsible beaviours

Applications of Hypocrisy Induction

Encourages behavior change in various health contexts

• i.e., smoking, wearing suncream, stopping disordered eating, road rage, etc…

So much of human thinking is……

not rational, but rationalizing