Cognitive Dissonance Lecture Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the core concepts, theories, and landmark studies of cognitive dissonance, including reduction strategies and societal implications.

Cognitive Dissonance

An uncomfortable state of arousal resulting from two thoughts contradicting each other, as defined by Leon Festinger (1957).

Steps to Dissonance

A 5-step process: 1. Relevant thoughts, 2. Dissonance or consonance, 3. Negative arousal, 4. Motivation to reduce arousal, 5. Change in cognition or behavior.

Relevant Thoughts

The first step in the process of dissonance where one determines if internal thoughts related to a topic are connected to one another.

Dissonance Reduction Strategies

Three primary ways to reduce psychological discomfort: 1. Change a cognition, 2. Add a consonant cognition, or 3. Minimize the conflict’s importance.

Insufficient Justification

A phenomenon where hypocrisy leads to attitude change because there is no strong external reason for a behavior, provided the behavior was freely chosen.

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

A famous study where participants paid $1$ to lie about a boring task liked it more than those paid $20$ because they had insufficient external justification for the lie.

Effort Justification

A form of dissonance reduction where putting a lot of effort into obtaining something leads to a higher valuation of that thing to justify the effort spent.

Aronson & Mills (1959) Study

An experiment demonstrating that a severe initiation to a group leads to higher ratings of that group's boring activities compared to a mild or no initiation.

Axom & Cooper (1985)

A study that used effort justification to help people lose weight; participants in a high-effort task (50 mins) lost more weight than those in a low-effort task (10 mins).

Spreading of Alternatives

A dissonance management technique where individuals rank a chosen item higher and a rejected item lower after making a difficult choice between two equally liked options.

Brehm (1956)

A consumer study researcher who found that after choosing between two similar household items, participants re-ranked the chosen item as significantly more desirable.

System Justification Theory

The theory that when faced with negative information about social systems they depend on, people feel more positively toward the system to reduce dissonance.

Depressed Entitlement

A system justification example where individuals (such as women getting paid less than men) reduce dissonance by believing they do not deserve equal pay.

Victim Blaming (Hurricane Katrina)

A cognitive dissonance reduction strategy where people justify a system's failure by adding thoughts that victims should have evacuated or chosen differently.