Chapter 6: Cognitive Dissonance

Social Psy- Longest

Cognitive Dissonance

Psychological discomfort people feel when their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are inconsistent with one another. 

Elliot Aronson

Dissonance is most painful when it threatens our self-concept or self-esteem.

Reducing Dissonance

Change behavior, changing cognition, adding new cognitions, minimize conflict, self-affirmation.

Decision-making and dissonance

People focus on the positives of their choice and the negatives of the rejected options to reduce dissonance.

Post decision dissonance 

after making a choice

Reduce post-decision dissonance 

increase attractiveness of chosen option, revalue rejected options, seek confirmation 

Justification of effort

increase liking for something you worked hard to achieve.

Festinger and Carl smith study

$1 experienced more dissonance and changed their attitude, convincing themselves it was fun

$20 did it for the money so sufficient justification and did not change their attitude.

External justification

reason for behavior lies outside the person (reward, punishment)

Internal justification

changing one’s attitude or belief to align with the behavior

Less-leads-to-more effect

smaller external rewards or punishments lead to greater internal attitude change. (less external means more internal)

Ben Franklin effect

when we do a favor for someone we don’t like, we tend to like them more afterward. (Justify behavior)

Positive Behavior change

Encourage people to take small voluntary steps toward a behavior they don’t support.

Self-persuasion for behavior change

people convince themselves that a change in behavior is consistent with their attitudes or values. (gradual and internal)

Hypocrisy Paradigm

Makes people aware of the inconsistency between their attitudes and behavior, creating dissonance.

Negative consequences 

victim-blaming: they deserved it

self-justification: justify to maintain positive self-image

Escalation of commitment: continue bad decisions to avoid making mistake.  

Self-affirmation theory

People can reduce dissonance by affirming their self-worth in areas unrelated to the dissonant behavior. (lied, but still good parent)

3 condition in self-evolution maintenance theory

1. The other person is close to us

2. The activity is important to our self-esteem

3. The other person outperforms us in activity.

Reduce dissonance in relationships 

distance yourself, change the importance of activity, work harder to outperform. 

Overcome dissonance

become aware, admit mistakes, practice self-affirmation, develop growth mindset.