Attitudes & Behaviors: Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Attitudes & Behaviors: Understanding Their Relationship
What is an Attitude?
An attitude is defined as a positive, negative, or mixed evaluation of one or more objects, expressed at some specific level of intensity.
It represents a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone.
Attitudes are often considered a learned predisposition, meaning they are developed over time through experience, to evaluate a specific object in a particular way.
The "ABC"s of Attitudes
Attitudes are composed of three fundamental components:
Affect (A): This refers to the emotional component of an attitude. It addresses the question: "How do you feel about the object?" (e.g., happiness, anger, fear, sadness).
Behavioral Intention (B): This component relates to one's predisposition or intention to act toward the object. It asks: "How do you intend to act toward the object?" (e.g., planning to donate, intending to vote).
Cognition (C): This is the thought or belief component of an attitude. It concerns: "How do you think about the object?" This includes facts, knowledge, and beliefs about the object (e.g., believing global warming is real).
Examples of Cognitive Components (Beliefs):
Statements that reflect cognitive attitudes:
"World hunger is a serious problem that needs attention."
"Students will get more out of class lectures if they have read the assigned reading."
"People texting while driving can cause accidents."
"It is important to protect the natural environment of our planet."
Examples of Behavioral Intentions/Actual Behaviors:
Questions exploring the behavioral component:
"Do you personally do anything to lessen world hunger (e.g., donate money or food)?"
"Have you ever attended a class lecture without reading the assignment beforehand?"
"Do you ever text on your cell phone while driving?"
"Do you engage in environmentally friendly behaviors, like recycling and carpooling?"
What is Dissonance?
Cognitive Dissonance: This is a psychological "tension" experienced when an individual holds two or more simultaneously accessible thoughts or beliefs that are inconsistent with each other.
Humans possess a fundamental motivation to avoid inconsistency in their thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.
When an inconsistency arises, individuals experience this unpleasant state known as "Dissonance."
Because dissonance is an aversive, unpleasant state, people are driven to resolve or repair this inconsistency to reduce the discomfort.
Original Measure of Dissonance: Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) Study
This foundational study sought to answer: "Will a person change their attitude to explain or justify having engaged in an unrewarding behavior?"
Research Question: Is cognitive dissonance reduced in reward situations?
Independent Variable (IV): The amount of reward received for performing an attitude-discrepant behavior (20 for lying).
Dependent Variable (DV): The experience of cognitive dissonance, often measured by the subsequent attitude change regarding the task enjoyment.
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) Study Procedure:
Participants were required to complete a series of extremely boring and monotonous tasks.
After completing the tasks, participants were asked to lie to another student (who was actually a confederate), telling them that the tasks were fun and enjoyable.
For lying, participants were paid either 20.
Insufficient Justification Principle:
The results demonstrated the principle of insufficient justification, meaning that when an individual performs an undesirable action with minimal external justification, they are more likely to change their internal attitudes to align with the action.
The graph depicting "second report of task enjoyment" would typically show:
No lie (Control Group): Participants who didn't lie reported low enjoyment of the boring task, serving as a baseline.
20) had sufficient external justification for their lie, so they experienced less cognitive dissonance and therefore reported relatively low enjoyment of the task, similar to the control group.
1) had little external justification for their lie. To reduce the dissonance between their belief ("the task was boring") and their behavior ("I told someone it was fun for only $$1"), they changed their attitude, convincing themselves that the task was actually more enjoyable than they initially thought. This group reported significantly higher enjoyment of the task compared to the other two groups.
When Do We Experience Dissonance?
Two primary conditions typically lead to the experience of cognitive dissonance:
Attitude-Discrepant Behavior Produces Unwanted Consequences: Dissonance is most likely when your behavior, which is inconsistent with your attitude, leads to negative or unwanted outcomes. If there are no negative consequences ("no harm, no foul"), dissonance is less likely to occur.
Personal Responsibility for Unpleasant Outcomes: You must feel a sense of personal responsibility for the unpleasant results of your behavior. This involves two key factors:
Perceived Choice: Did you believe you had a genuine choice in engaging in the behavior?
Foreseeable Outcome: Could you reasonably foresee the unpleasant outcomes of your actions?
How to Get Rid of Dissonance
Individuals employ various strategies to reduce the unpleasant state of cognitive dissonance:
Change Your Attitude: One of the most common ways, as seen in the Festinger & Carlsmith study, is to alter the original attitude to align with the behavior.
Change Your Perception of the Behavior: Reframe or reinterpret the behavior to make it seem less inconsistent with your attitude (e.g., "It wasn't really a lie, it was just a slight exaggeration").
Add Consonant Cognitions: Introduce new beliefs or information that support the consistency between your behavior and attitude (e.g., "Even though the task was boring, I helped the experimenter, which is a good thing").
Minimize Importance of Conflict: Reduce the perceived importance of the conflicting attitude and behavior (e.g., "It's just a small thing, it doesn't really matter").
Reduce Perceived Choice: Convince yourself that you had no real choice in performing the behavior, thereby lessening personal responsibility.
Effort Justification
This form of dissonance reduction involves changing our attitudes to explain why we engaged in particularly difficult or effortful behavior.
Process: When significant effort (e.g., pain, time, money, physical exertion) is invested into something, people tend to change their attitudes to justify that effort, convincing themselves that the outcome or goal was worth the struggle.
Example: This psychological process is widely recognized as a mechanism behind rituals such as hazing, where enduring arduous experiences leads initiates to value group membership more highly.
Underlying Principle: The phrase "I suffered for it, so I must really like it" encapsulates the essence of effort justification. The greater the effort, the more positive the attitude towards the outcome becomes to justify the investment.
Decision Justification
This type of dissonance reduction involves changing our attitudes to justify past decisions, especially those made between attractive alternatives.
Process: After a decision is made (a specific behavior), people often adjust their attitudes to make their chosen option seem even more favorable and the rejected options less appealing.
Dissonance Likelihood: Dissonance is particularly likely to arise in decision-making situations where an individual is torn between two or more equally attractive alternatives.
Examples: Common real-world scenarios include:
Deciding to get married (justifying the commitment and ignoring potential drawbacks).
Buying a new car (exaggerating the chosen car's advantages and downplaying its flaws after purchase).
Choosing between competing job offers (enhancing the appeal of the accepted offer and diminishing the attractiveness of the rejected ones).
Summary of Cognitive Dissonance
Core Principle: When our behaviors do not correspond or align with our attitudes, we inevitably experience cognitive dissonance.
Unpleasantness of Inconsistency: This inconsistency is an inherently unpleasant psychological state that individuals are motivated to alleviate.
Goal of Reduction: To reduce this dissonance, we actively strive to coordinate and harmonize our attitudes and behaviors.
Primary Strategy: If an individual has already engaged in a dissonant behavior, changing their attitude becomes the most accessible and often preferred option for effectively reducing the experience of dissonance.