Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

When we have some sort of belief/behavior that doesn’t line up, it will cause cognitive tension

• Leon festinger & seekers cult, grass hopper study, smoking and cancer, initiation study, free gift study, forbidden toy study

Ex. Smoking & cancer = cognitive dissonance (4 methods to fix)

• deny situation= “its all correlational”

• justify the behavior = “its okay to smoke every once in a while”

• change the behavior = stop smoking, or “only long term chain smokers get consequences”

• add a new behavior = “i do cardo 45 mins per day”

Ex. Initiation study 

group a - asked to read list of body parts

group b - asked to read heavy sexual content infront of person

• listened in to conversation about the science of pollination

  • group b more likely to come back than group a!

    • WHY - effort justification: “i did this embarrassing thing, but the group was great so it was worth it”

Ex. Eating grass hopper study

a mean, rude researcher asked them to eat the friend grasshopper instead of the normal food

• most poeple say its good/ justified the rudeness of the researcher- WHY

  • why would thye eat this gross thing from this rude guy —

    • ‘bc it was actually good’ OR

    • ‘ beacause he was just messing around

      • reduce tension

Ex. Free gift study

Researcher allows them to take an appliance & gives them a choice between two after rating and invites them back after to re-rank

• control = higher rated vs lower rated —> subject takes higher

• experiment = same rating and choose between the two

  • when asked to re-rank much later —> Cognitive dissonance with equal products - focus on self chose product as greater than other not chose

Ex. Forbidden toy study

children told they cant play with a toy

• control - if you play w toy there is a punishment

• experimental - if you play with toy there is a [lighter] punishment

  • most didnt play w toys

    • Control = didn’t play = tension of play and punishment

    • Experimental - didn’t play = tension of why didn’t I play w the toy/inflated the punishment/ toy wasnt that great anyway

balance theory

If there are 3 links, and one of them is negative, there is a balance to return it to normal

• motivation for something to change to return it to balance

• Roomie(+),Gf(+), Prof (+)

  • Tension = Roomie (-) Prof (-), therefore something will change

    • Roomie and gf distanced from each other

Reactances

• Something being taken away unfairly makes you desire it more

  • romeo and juliet effect

    • Ex. Parents involvement = “I forbid you to see [person] ” —> teen desires it more = “I want [person] more”