self-persuasion psych 137

Self-Persuasion vs. Persuasion by Others

• Self-Persuasion: when we persuade ourselves to change our own attitudes or behavior

• Classic Persuasion: when others attempt to change our attitudes or behavior

• How do they compare?

  • Self-Persuasion is more powerful and lasts longer than persuasion by others?

  • Why?

    • We have a need to be in control of our own attitudes and behavior.

    • Indirect vs. Direct Persuasion: When others are trying to persuade us, we are 

    • usually aware of this, whereas with self-persuasion, we’re convinced that motivation comes from within ourselves

Self-Justification

• What is self-justification?

  • The desire we have to justify our actions, beliefs, and feelings

    • The example of Sam being hypnotized

• Self-justification and Rumors

  • Towns in India that were not damaged by an earthquake but that felt the tremors experienced rumors forecasting impending doom (e.g., a flood is rushing toward them; Prasad)

• Towns that experienced damage did not experience rumors forecasting doom; their rumors were more positive and encouraging (e.g., water supply would be fixed soon; Sinha)

• Why did the rumors differ so dramatically between the towns?

  • An external cause of their fear/hope was not visible

Cognitive Dissonance

• Blaise Pascal, first cognitive consistency theory: If we act a certain way, we change our attitudes to be consistent with our behavior

• Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger)

  • A state of tension that occurs whenever an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent.

• Also, dissonance is created if a behavior is inconsistent with a preexisting attitude.

• Tension is unpleasant, and we are motivated to reduce it by

  • changing one or both cognitions so that they are consistent.

  • adding additional cognitions to bridge the gap between original ones.

  • changing the preexisting attitude to be consistent with the behavior

• Self-justification: Has to do with desire to justify our actions, beliefs, and
  feelings

  • 1. E.g. of Sam being hypnotized – guy was hypnotized to do a certain set of things, and then post hoc, justified his behavior when he was asked about it

  • 2. Satisfies need for consistencyWe need to feel like we do a
    reasonable, logical thing. We also need to believe that we're good
    people

Example of Cognitive Dissonance

• Smoking:

  • What are some of the ways one can reduce the dissonance of smoking cigarettes?

    • What was the response to the initial Surgeon General’s report in 1964 on the part of smokers and nonsmokers?

• Why do people explain the same behavior (smoking one to two packs a day) as either heavy or moderate smoking?

• When the motivation to be right and the motivation to believe that we are good people collide:

• How did people who tried but failed smoking cessation programs explain their 

smoking? (Gibbons et al.)

• What happens when commitment to an attitude is high?

  • Cigarette company executives statements and behaviors?

  • Heaven’s Gate suicides (1997)

  • Donald Trump campaign

Aronson's further expansion on idea of cognitive dissonance

i. Cognitive dissonance= clash between 2 fundamental needs
1. Our need to be right and trust others
2. Our need to maintain a positive self-image that depicts us as good, smart, or worthwhile
ii. Dissonance becomes irrational when it prevents you from learning important facts or finding real solutions to problems

Dissonance Reduction & Irrational Behavior

• When is it irrational?

  • When it prevents us from learning important facts or finding real solutions to problems

• Why do we behave irrationally?

  • There’s a clash between our need to be right and trust others and our need to maintain 

  • a positive self-image that depicts us as good, smart, or worthwhile

• Capital punishment study (Lord, Ross, & Lepper)

  • We will distort information to fit our preconceived beliefs.

  • Some participants favored capital punishment, some did not.

  • Read one rational argument on each side of the issue (pro vs. con)

  • Rather than moderate their attitudes, people on both sides of the issue were more steadfast in arguing their original position after reading the papers.

• They believed that the opposing paper’s position was flawed

Decisions and Dissonance

• After we make a decision, we experience dissonance

  • Common way to reduce: focus on the positive aspects of our choice and the negative aspects of the ones we did not choose

• Seek advertising information that is reassuring (Ehrlich)

• Appliance study (Brehm)

  • Participants rated appliances and then were given the choice of two (that they previously rated as equal)

• Participants were later asked to rate the items once again.

• Ratings increased for the selected appliance and decreased for the appliance not chosen

Decisions and Dissonance (Dating)

• Computer dating study (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989)

  • People were shown pictures of individuals. They rated their attractiveness and how much they would enjoy a date with them.

• The more committed the participants were to a current relationship, the less 

  attractive they rated the women in the pictures.

• Another attractiveness rating study (Simpson, Gangestad, Lerma, 1990)

  • Compared people in committed relationships to those not in committed relationships.

  • Those in committed relationships rated potential others as less physically and sexually attractive.

• Effects held only for those alternative dating partners who were available.

• No threat – no dissonance – no derogation

Dissonance & Irrevocability

• Once a decision is final, we experience dissonance and are motivated to reduce it, but there is a catch.

• This relationship holds when the decision is final (irrevocable).

  • Gamblers were more confident that their horse would win after placing a $2 bet than before placing the bet (Knox & Inkster)

• Voting study: Voters have greater confidence in chosen candidate after voting than before

• What happens when the decision is not final?

  • People who were given a choice between two photographs liked their selection more if it was final versus those who were able to exchange it

• The decision to behave immorally

  • Cheat on an exam (the difficult decision results in dissonance)

    • If cheat, reduce dissonance by softening stance on cheating

    • If do not cheat, harden stance against to justify made right decision

• Are you more ethical than a sixth grader? (Mills)

  • Sixth graders were put in situation where they could not win without cheating.

  • Ask them to indicate their views on cheating.

  • It was easy to cheat, so the children were tempted.

  • Some cheated, but some did not cheat.

  • What do you think happened?

    • When asked later their views on cheating, those who cheated had softened their stance; those who did not hardened their stance

The Psychology of Insufficient Justification

• What is the relationship between external justification and internal justification?

  • If an individual states a belief (or behaves in a way) that is difficult to justify externally, that person will attempt to justify it internally by making his or her attitudes more consistent with the statement (or behavior).

• The “saying is believing paradigm”

  • When there is no adequate external justification, we will start to believe our statements (e.g., lies) that run counter to our preexisting attitudes.

• The smaller the external justification, the greater the internal attitude change.

• “Costly” behavior makes us like products better

  • When people pay for goods with cash (vs. credit) they are more committed to the product and the company because this feels more costly

• Ikea effect: When people assemble a product, they end up enjoying it more

Research on Justification

• The “$1–$20” study (Festinger & Carlsmith)

  • Student performed a boring task for an hour.

  • Asked to help the experimenter, who was running late, to lie to another student waiting to do the experiment (say it was interesting).

• They all lied and were offered $1 (low external) or $20 (high external).

• When asked later, the $20 said was boring, and the $1 said it was interesting.

• The “New Haven Police” study (Cohen)

  • Students were asked to write a letter in support of the police department after they had behaved brutally toward student rioters.

• They were paid $10, $5, $1, 50¢.

• Can you predict who felt most favorably toward the police after writing?

• The results followed a linear trend.

• Zimbardo et al.

  • Electric shocks: high-dissonance group reported less pain than low-dissonance group

What Constitutes External Justification?

• Punishment, reward, praise, a desire to please…any others?

• What would produce the most dissonance?

  • Eating a grasshopper for a friend?

  • Eating a grasshopper that a stranger gave you?

• In which situation would you like the grasshopper most?

• Research evidence (Zimbardo et al.)

  • Reservists liked the grasshoppers more when asked to eat them by an unpleasant officer than a pleasant officer

Insufficient Punishment

• If we use strong punishment to get people to stop doing something they enjoy, they will comply only when the punisher is present (e.g., speeding) and then go right back to doing it again when they are no longer present.

• Insufficient punishment may be better at inhibiting a behavior. Why?

• “The forbidden toy” study (Aronson & Carlsmith)

  • Children were told by the experiment to not play with a toy they thought was attractive and given one of two threat conditions.

  • Threat was mild (I would be a little angry) to strong (very angry).

  • None of the children played with the toy.

  • Children in the mild-threat group rated the toy less attractive and refrained from playing compared to the strong-threat group

• “The forbidden toy study 2” (Freedman)

  • Children were told by the experimenter to not play with an attractive toy (robot); there were two threat conditions: mild and severe.

  • Several weeks later, the children were put into the same room for another experiment where all the toys were displayed.

  • The mildly threatened group refused to play with the robot (even 9 weeks later); the severely threatened group played with the robot.

• Applying this principle to aggressive children

  • Some parents use severe punishment at home in an attempt to stop their children from being aggressive toward other children

Insufficient Justification

• When the justification is insufficient, it is enough to entice the behavior and cause attitude change.

• When the justification is abundant, there is little reason to change preexisting attitudes.

• So, when is justification inadequate?

• Revisiting Mills' study of sixth graders

  • Those who cheated to obtain a small reward (inadequate) tended to soften their attitude about cheating more than those who cheated to obtain a large reward (abundant).

  • Those who refrained from cheating in spite of the temptation of a large reward—a choice that would create a great deal of dissonance—hardened their attitude about cheating to a greater extent than those who refrained in the face of a small reward

Is Dissonance Reduction Conscious?

• People are unaware of how successfully they will reduce dissonance. (Lieberman et. al., 2001)

• Because the process is unconscious, we do not realize that it will protect us from pain in the future.

• It’s one of the reasons we say things like “I have no regrets”

• If we do have regrets, they’re more likely to be about acts of omission (things we wish we’d done) rather than commission (thinks we’ve done)

Is Dissonance Universal?

• Dissonance operates in almost every part of the world, but it does not always take the same form.

• Collectivist cultures

  • Dissonance-reducing behavior may take a more communal form.

  • Japanese are more likely to feel dissonance when their behavior shames or disappoints others than when they need to justify personal misbehavior (as Individualists such as Americans do)

• fMRI studies:

  • Westen et. al. found that the reasoning areas of the brain (prefrontal cortex) virtually shut down when a person is confronted with dissonant information and that the emotion circuits of the brain light up indicating that this process involves more emotion than reason. Reward circuits then respond happily when consonance is restored

Dissonance and the Self-Concept

• Aronson reformulated the theory of cognitive dissonance to put more emphasis on the concept of the self.

• Dissonance would be most strong in situations where the self-concept is threatened (e.g., I have done [or said] something inconsistent with my self-concept.).

• Dissonance effects are greatest when:

  • We feel personally responsible for our actions.

  • Our actions conflict with a central aspect of our self-concept

  • Our actions have serious consequences.

  • Our actions are irrevocable; we can’t take it back

The Importance of Self-Esteem

• The role of self-esteem

  • We experience the most dissonance in situations that threaten our self-esteem.

  • Those with high self-esteem experience the most dissonance when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their self concept.

• Self-esteem and cheating (Aronson & Mettee)

  • Students have their self-esteem temporarily raised or lowered based upon feedback from a bogus personality test.

• Participants next played a card game that was rigged where they could win only by cheating.

• Those with lowered self-esteem were more likely to cheat than either those with raised or those with unaltered (control) self-esteem

Justification of Effort

• If a person works hard to attain a goal, 

  • that goal will be more attractive to the individual than it will be to someone who achieves the same goal with little or no effort.

• “The psychology of sex” study (Aronson & Mills)

  • An initiation was required for entry into a desirable discussion group.

  • There were two levels of initiation (severe and mild) and one control group.

  • Severe initiation required orally reciting obscene words; mild required simply reading the list of words.

• All participants listened to the discussion, which was boring.

• People who went through the severe initiation thought the discussion was more interesting and worthwhile than those in the mild or control groups

Justification of Cruelty

• If we think we are decent, reasonable people, how do we justify our behavior when our actions hurt others?

• Research evidence

  • Students watched others being interviewed (Davis & Jones)

    • Instructed to tell them their weaknesses: told they were shallow, untrustworthy, dull

• Found that students who were cruel to another thought the other student to be 

  less attractive after having done so

• Another shocking tale (Glass)

  • Students who shocked other students later derogated their victims.

  • The results were more pronounced for those with high self-esteem. Why?

• Applications to war and discrimination

  • In war, soldiers hurt civilians even if they try to avoid it

The Psychology of Inevitability

• Making the best of things

  • When unpleasant situations are inevitable (Brehm)

    • Children volunteered to eat a vegetable they disliked.

    • After eating it, they were told they would eat more (or nothing in the control).

    • Children who expected to eat more rated the vegetable not as bad.

• More unpleasant and inevitable situations (Darley & Berscheid)

  • Women volunteered to discuss sex with a stranger (female).

  • Read two files describing two women (they were going to meet one).

  • The files were a mix of positive and negative characteristics.

  • Rated the women in the files before they met their partner.

  • Participants rated the one they thought they were going to meet higher than the woman described in the other file (did not matter which one)

Dissonance on the World Stage

• Hungary (1944) – stay versus leave during WW2- people who stayed had the most dissonance (between believing it was safe to stay v. seeing reality that it wasn't); couldn't accept that they made a decision that may have cost them their lives

• 2. Escalating the bombing in the Vietnam War

  • CIA was telling gov. that further bombing would not break North Vietnamese during war, but politicians ignored it and focused on info. that would support their actions

• 3. George W. Bush & weapons of mass
  destruction

  • believed that they were there, and there was an ambiguous CIA report–he decided to interpret it as being consistent with there being weapons. Dissonance created by invading Iraq and there not being weapons -> then people are dying because of a belief that was unfounded. Then, add new cognitions to justify why they're there–trying to get rid of a tyrannical ruler there.

• Rationalizing

Living with the Rationalizer Within

• Eventually, we will be confronted with evidence that we were wrong about something important to us—something we did or something we believed. Will you step off the pyramid in the direction of justifying that mistake ... or will you strive to correct it?

• Suggestions:

  • Understand my own defensiveness and dissonance-reducing tendencies

  • Realize that performing stupid or immoral actions does not necessarily mean I am an irrevocably stupid or immoral person

• Developing enough ego strength to tolerate errors in myself

• Increase my ability to recognize the benefits of admitting my errors in terms of my own growth and learning