499078 the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

7/30/2019 499078 the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

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The theory of cognitive dissonance

Summary

Cognitive dissonance theory links actions and attitudes. It holds that dissonance is experienced wheneverone cognition that a person holds follows from the opposite of at least one other cognition that the personholds. The magnitude of dissonance is directly proportional to the number of discrepant cognitions andinversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions that a person has. The relative weight of anydiscrepant or consonant element is a function of its Importance.

According to the theory, dissonance is experienced as an uncomfortable, drivelike state. People aremotivated to reduce any dissonance that they experience. Dissonance may be reduced by (1) changingcognitions, (2) adding cognitions, or (3) altering the importance of the cognitions.

Much of the research in dissonance theory has been conducted on the paradigm of induced compliance. Asin role playing (discussed in Chapter 3), in the induced compliance paradigm a person is persuaded tobehave in ways contrary to his or her private beliefs. Research has shown that attitudes are likely to changein order to restore consistency between attitudes and behavior. Generally, the magnitude of attitude changeis inversely proportional to the amount of justification which is provided to engage in the attitude-discrepantbehavior. Induced compliance leads to dissonance arousal when (1) the behavior is engaged in freely, (2) theactor feels committed to his attitude-discrepant stance, (3) the behavior results in unwanted consequences,

and (4) the actor feels personally responsible for bringing about the unwanted consequences.

Using variations of the induced compliance paradigm, several interesting phenomena have been identified.In the psychology of effort justification, it has been shown that people come to love what they have sufferedfor. In insufficient deterrence research, it has been shown that people come to internalize prohibitionsagainst attractive behaviors when the potential punishment for engaging in those behaviors is mild ratherthan severe. It has also been shown that disconfirmed expectancies can lead to dissonance arousal.Dissonance thus aroused can be reduced by making the expectancy come true, or by gathering socialsupport for the original belief.

In the free-choice paradigm, it is assumed that dissonance follows any freely exercised choice betweencognitive alternatives. The positive features of the rejected alternative and the negative features of thechosen alternative are discrepant with the decision that was reached. Brehm has shown that attitudes

change following decisions so as to make the alternatives seem to be more widely discrepant inattractiveness following a decision than they seemed to be prior to it.

Self-perception and impression management have been offered as theories that compete with dissonance asexplanations for the experimental phenomena. These theories differ from dissonance in that they do notposit any psychological arousal occurring due to inconsistency.

In the discussion of some of the diffficulties in utilizing dissonance theory in the field of social action, thedissonance aroused by noncompliance was mentioned as particularly important.

Following the discussion of dissonance, reactance theory was introduced. Reactance results when anindividual feels that one or more of his free behaviors are being threatened. Three types of reactions havebeen found to follow reactance: (1) the individual may attempt to perform the threatened free behavior; (2)the threatened free behavior increases in attractiveness; and (3) the individual becomes instigated toaggress against the agent that created the reactance. Reactance theory can be utilized to explain negativeattitude change, or the boomerang effect.

Leon FestingerSchool: Cognitivist


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The theory of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance theory, developed in 1957, is concerned with the relationships among cognitions. Acognition may be thought of as a "piece of knowledge." The knowledge may be about an attitude, anemotion, a behavior, a value, etc. People hold a multitude of cognitions simultaneously, and these cognitionsform irrelevant, consonant, or dissonant relationships with one another.

The Relationship of Cognitions

The relationship of cognitions in Festinger's model is simple: Cognitive irrelevance describes how mostcognitions relate to each other - they have little or no psychological bearing on each other. Cognitions areConsonant if they logically relate, support or compliment each other and cognitions that clash or contradicteach other are dissonant.

Little anxiety exists when our salient cognitions are consonant (even, at times, when they are dissonant withsocially proscribed cognitions of significant others.) Much anxiety can exist in cases where there isdissonance and where the cognitions are deemed personally and socially significant. The root cause forthese feelings are probably both innate and socially mediated.

What happens to a person when he discovers that he has dissonant cognitions? The answer to this questionforms the basic postulate of Festinger's theory. A person who has dissonant or discrepant cognitionsexperiences the unpleasant sensation of dissonance as a psychological tension. Festinger viewed this

tension state as a Freudian drive with the power of hunger and thirst. Reducing the psychological state ofdissonance is not as simple as eating or drinking, however.

The Magnitude of Dissonance.

To understand the alternatives open to an individual in a state of dissonance, we must understand thefactors that affect the magnitude of dissonance arousal.

First, in its simplest form, dissonance increases as the degree of discrepancy among cognitions increases.

Second, dissonance increases as the number of discrepant cognitions increases.

Third, dissonance is inversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions held by an individual. Inmost life situations, cognitions exist which support certain aspects of an otherwise discrepant situation. Thegreater the number of such consonant cognitions, the less the dissonance.

Fourth, the importance or salience of the various cognitions must be taken into consideration. Glaringdiscrepancies among trivial cognitions does not lead to much dissonance.

In summary, the magnitude of dissonance can be given by the following formula:

# of discrepant cognitions = (Magnitude of x Importance dissonance)/(# of consonant cognitions xImportance)

Unfortunately, no one short of Mr. Spock ever makes use of such a precise mathematical formula when

making predictions about how choices will go. Most often the formula is used to make more globaljudgments as to whether the magnitude of dissonance will be high or low.

Reducing the tension.

If dissonance is experienced as an unpleasant drive state, the individual is motivated to reduce it. Theproblem as far as predicting behavior is that there are several ways to reduce this tension.

Changing cognitions.


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If two cognitions are discrepant, it's a natural that we may simply change one to fit the other, or attempt tobring them both towards the middle. We may even synthesis the contradictions into a new and grandersynthesis.

Adding cognitions.

If two discrepant cognitions cause a certain magnitude of dissonance, that magnitude can be reduced byadding one or more consonant cognitions. This implies that we are able weight one one congition as moreimportant than the other.

Altering importance.

Since the discrepant and consonant cognitions must be weighted by importance, it may be advantageous toalter the importance of the various cognitions to an even larger degree. When the new, altered importanceweightings are placed in the formula, the magnitude of dissonance will be decreased.

Paradigms used in studying the effects of dissonant cognitions

There are, of course, a multitude of situations in which people find themselves with some inconsistencyamong their cognitions. Social psychologists have come to use a few familiar paradigms to study the effectsof inconsistent or dissonant cognitions. Their studies have often been provocative and not always in line witheveryday intuition about the topics studied.

The paradigm of induced compliance.

In the induced compliance paradigm, individuals are persuaded to behave in ways which are inconsistentwith their private attitudes. Cognitive dissonance is established by a discrepancy between one's behavioraland attitudinal cognitions. Cognitions about attitudes are usually weaker than those about actual behaviors.Behavior is often public, the actor is identified with it, and it is extremely diffficult to deny that one hasbehaved in a certain way. But private attitudes can be changed more easily. Therefore, in the psychology ofinduced compliance, researchers have generally looked for changes of attitudes as evidence of dissonancereduction.

Although changing attitudes is easier than changing cognitions about public behavior, it takes work andeffort. If a consonant cognition is available, it is more likely to be seized upon as the means of reducingdissonance.

The best way to get a feel for the psychology of induced compliance is to put yourself in the situation of acollege student who has walked into what has become a classic expertiment in dissonance researchconducted by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959). As you enter the room, you are greeted by an experimenterwho introduces the experiment, saying that it involves measures of performance. You are shown a largeboard on which there are several rows of square pegs, and you are asked to turn each peg a quarter turn tothe left and then a quarter turn to the right. You continue with this task until you are thoroughly bored, andyou begin to wonder whether the experimenter is simply teasing you or has a sadistic sense of humor. No,you decide, he is serious. Then, just before you think you will fall asleep on the job, the experimenter stopsyou and instructs you about your next assignment. This time you have the responsibility of taking spools ofthread off a large pegboard, after which you are to replace them on the pegboard. You continue this onagain,off-again project until you can barely stand it.

When you are finished, the experimenter lets you in on a secret that you have probably alreadyguessed. He admits that he has not told you the full design of the experiment and that you really servedin a control condition. If you had been assigned to the experimental condition, a paid confederate of the

experimenter would have joined you in the outer office as you were waiting for this study and would havetried to convince you that the experiment would be exciting, exhilarating, and fun. Then, the experimentercontinues, the performance results of subjects in the experimental condition would have been comparedwith those of control subjects such as yourself.


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At this point you feel fully informed about the experiment, although you may still be scratching your head,wondering why anyone would be interested in the results. What you do not know is that the experimenterhas been setting you up for the most important portion of the study, which is still to come. First, he lamentsthat the person who usually plays the role of the confederate was not able to come to the lab and that thereis another subject who is supposed to be in the experimental (that is, exciting and fun) condition in thewaiting room. But all is not lost; the experimenter has a brainstorm. How would you like to play the role ofthe confederate? All you would have to do, he tells you, is enter the waiting room and convince the studentthat this experiment is going to be fun. If you do this, you will be paid $1. Would you be willing?

If you agree, you have done what the experimenter was hoping you would do, for your role in the dissonance

portion of the experiment is about to begin. You have formed the belief that certain experimental proceduresare dull and boring. However, you are about to make a public statement to the effect that they areinteresting and fun. Those cognitions do not follow from each other, so the psychological state of dissonancewill ensue. What you say to the waiting subject is not very relevant, since it is this person who is really theconfederate of the experimenter. She is instructed to listen to your information and to accept what you haveto say.

How will you reduce your dissonance in this situation? Can you deny that you stated that the tasks wereinteresting? That is not a likely possibility. If you really believed that they were interesting and not at all dull,however, your cognitions would be consistent and your dissonance would be reduced.

Now suppose that you are in the identical experimental situation, except that instead of offering you $1 tomake an attitude-discrepant statement, the experimenter offers you $20. How, then, would you reduce your

dissonance? We noted earlier that attitude change requires work and effort and that, if there is a convenientcognition which is consistent with one of the cognitions creating the dissonance, it can be added to reducethe total magnitude of dissonance. Accepting $20 is a nice, juicy cognition that is consistent with performingthe attitude-discrepant behavior. In this condition, it is likely that you will reduce your dissonance byrecourse to the $20 incentive and that you will have less need to convince yourself that the task was reallyinteresting.

In all, Festinger and Carlsmith had three conditions in their study. In addition to the two incentive conditions($1 and $20), a control group was run in which subjects performed the boring tasks but were not asked totell the waiting subject that the task was enjoyable.

After an appropriate explanation, all subjects were asked to tell a psychology department secretary howinteresting the spool-sorting and peg-turning tasks had been. The subjects who served in the controlcondition did indeed think that the tasks were boring, as did the subjects who participated in the experimentfor $20. But the subjects who performed the counterattitudinal behavior for only $1 told thesecretary that the task was fun and enjoyable.Thus, agreeing to make a counterattitudinal statementfor a small incentive led to the greatest degree of attitude change in the Festinger and Carlsmith study.

This study provided astounding support for predictions derived from cognitive dissonance theory. It showed,first, that attitudes could be affected by behavior, such that statements made contrary to one's attitudecould produce changes in attitude(See also Janis and King's 1954 role-playing study). Second, itdemonstrated that an inverse relationship exists between the incentive that is offered for the behavior andthe degree of attitude change that will take place:

As incentive increases, attitude change (and presumably the internal state of dissonance) decreases.

The results of the Festinger and Carlsmith experiment may help us understand actual human reactionsbetter than classical psychoanalytical theory.

Experimental Replication of Dissonance Theory

A study conducted at Yale University by Cohen (1962) provides further support for Festinger and Carlsmith'shypothesis. Yale is situated in New Haven, Connecticut, and it was not uncommon for students to becomeentangled in controversy with the boorish and hateful New Haven police department. After one altercation,in which it was alleged that the police had acted with unnecessary aggression in handling a student melee,


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Cohen realized that he had the right ingredients for a dissonance study. He contacted Yale students in theirdormitories and told them that an important research institute wanted them to write forceful essays takingthe police side of the question. Further, the students were offered an incentive for writing the essay.Depending upon the condition to which the student was assigned, he was offered $0.50, $1, $5, or $10. Aftethe essay was completed, the subject's attitude toward the police was assessed. As incentive increased from$0.50 to $10, attitude change decreased. In fact, the $10 condition can be seen to be slightly less favorableto the New Haven police than the control condition, although that differenee was not reliable.

Cohen's study was important for a number of reasons. First, it replicated the findings of Festinger andCarlsmith. Seeond, it assuaged doubts which were raised by the somewhat unusual incentives that Festinger

and Carlsmith had offered. Investigators such as Chapanis and Chapanis (1964) and Janis and Gilmore(1965) questioned the use of the $20 inducement. They wondered whether such a large inducement mightnot have caused subjects to be incredulous or suspicious. In the Cohen experiment, a reliable effect wasfound between the $0.50 condition and the $1 condition. Even in the late 50s, when the study wasconducted, $1 was hardly an overwhelming sum. Still, the dissonance theory prediction that increasing thesize of the consonant cognition will decrease the need for dissonance reduction (as measured by changes ofattitudes) was borne out.

In summary, the major points to be abstracted from Festinger and Carlsmith's and Cohen's studies are (1)that behavior that is discrepant with one's attitudes can produce changes in those attitudes, and (2) that theamount of attitude change increases as the justification or the inducement for performing the behaviordecreases.

Money isn't everything.

Induced compliance produces attitude change as an inverse function of justification. Money is not the onlyjustification which can serve as a cognition consonant with behavior. Other forms of justification ought toserve the same purpose. For example, if an experimenter were to ask a subject to do something which isattitude discrepant, the experimenter is likely to get considerable compliance if he lies on the floor, sobs,and tells the subject that he will suffer a mental breakdown if the subject does not deliver a strong andforceful speech. However, the crying act may also serve as a justification much like the $20 incentive of theFestinger and Carlsmith study. It may be a large, consonant cognition which reduces the magnitude ofdissonance and lessens attitude change.

Rabbie, Brehm, and Cohen (1959) conducted a study similar to our hypothetical example. They askedstudents to deliver speeches contrary to their attitudes. Studentsin a high-justification condition were toldhow valuable the results would be for science and how much the experimenter would appreciate theircooperation. In a low-justification condition, students were asked to deliver a speech, but were given no songand dance about the value of the study for science, and so on. The results indicated that the students whomade their counterattitudinal statements with no special justification became more favorable to the positionexpressed in their speech than did the students who made their statements with the extra justificationsprovided by the experimenter.

The justification for committing an act discrepant with one's attitudes can be more subtle than the explicitlystated justification of the Rabbie et al. study. It might even depend upon the likability of the person inducingone to comply. Zimbardo, Weisenberg, Firestone, and Levy (1965) had an experimenter try to persuadesubjects to eat grasshoppers. In one condition, the experimenter who presented this somewhat bizarrerequest was friendly and affable. In another condition, he was cold, unfriendly, and generally unlikable. As

might be predicted from dissonance theory, the subjects who agreed to eat the grasshoppers for the aloofand unfriendly experimenter rated themselves as being more in favor of eating grasshoppers than did thesubjects who agreed to eat the grasshoppers for the friendly experimenter. Apparently, trying to please afriendly and likable person served as a justification for engaging in grasshopper eating, whereas changingprivate attitudes toward eating grasshoppers was necessary for reducing dissonance when the experimenterwas unfriendly.

In the natural environment outside of the laboratory, people often get involved in situations that arediscrepant from their attitudes and that have less than suffficient justification. As the war in Vietnam heatedup during the late 1 960s, President Nixon introduced the concept of the "draft lottery." Depending on the


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date of their birth, young men would be given a number at random that indicated the priority with whichthey would be drafted into the army. By and large, people who received numbers 1-122 could be confidentthey would be drafted; people with numbers 245-365 could be confident they would avoid the draft.

Many male students rushed to join a campus ROTC as a way of avoiding being drafted into the war. To beexempt from the draft, it was necessary to join ROTC prior to receiving a lottery number. Some signed long-term commitments; others joined for one-year intervals. Staw (1974) studied the effect on ROTCmembership and attitudes of people once they learned what their draft priority was For students who hadsigned short-term contracts and who received numbers in the 245-365 range, there was a high dropout ratefrom the ROTC program. This indicates that ROTC membership was counterattitudinal for a substantial

number of students. For students who had signed long-term contracts, what justification had they for theirbehavior? Those who received draft numbers between 1-122 had suffficient justification: their ROTCmembership was keeping them away from Vietnam. But students who had joined ROTC and then receivednumbers in the 245-365 range had no such justification. They probably would not have gone to Vietnamregardless of the ROTC.

Dissonance theory would predict that the low justification for ROTC membership amongst students with245+ draft numbers would result in attitude change. These students would become more favorable to theROTC. On the other hand, students with high justification (draft number lower than 122) need not changetheir attitudes about ROTC to make them consistent with their behavior. Staw interviewed the ROTCmembers and found that the long-term volunteers with the 245+ draft numbers were more favorable towardROTC and performed better at ROTC drills than did people with numbers lower than 122. Since the draft

number a person received was totally random and occurred after all of the students had decided whether ornot to join ROTC, the results found by Staw are compelling. Apparently, dissonance was created by receivingthe high draft number (i.e., low justification) and was reduced by attitude change toward ROTC.

The generality of the justification variable is important not only from a theoretical standpoint but also froman applied viewpoint. In order to affect social policy by utilizing a social psychological theory such ascognitive dissonance, it is important that the variables be as flexible as possible. In the particular instance ofinduced compliance, it is not always practical to utilize money in order to induce compliance with a socialpolicy. In the 1950s it would have been quite diffficult to offer financial inducements to citizens in order toget them to comply with the Supreme Court's desegregation edict. On the other hand, some means ofinducement was necessary. The research in dissonance theory indicates that attitudes will change inaccordance with behavior, whether or not financial inducements are offered. As we shall see as more of the

nuances of dissonance theory are unfolded, what is important is that the inducement be large enough toinduce compliance, yet not so large that it serves as a dissonance-reducing justification.

Critical factors in induced compliance.

In the years since Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) introduced the paradigm, research has shown that theworld of induced compliance has grown more complex. Reviewing 20 years in the evolution of research indissonance theory, Greenwald and Ronis (1978) commented, "Perhaps the only victim of the evolutionaryprocess is the original version of dissonance theory, which has effectively been discarded" (p. 56). It may bemore accurate to say that more than 20 years of research has allowed the theory to become more specific,more accurate, and consequently, more qualified. It can still be said that behavior discrepant with private

attitudes will produce attitude change when the justification is lowif the word sometimes is added We shallnow consider the factors that comprise the "sometimes" that is, the factors which have proven to benecessary if induced compliance is to lead to dissonance-produced attitude change

1. Choice: Real or imagined.

One of the most widely investigated factors in induced compliance has been the perception of theindividual's freedom to act in a discrepant fashion If I hold a gun to your head and "request" that you makecertain discrepant statements, you will probably have fearbut will you have dissonance? Most likely, your


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magnitude of dissonance will be quite low, since the gun serves as the ultimate justification for yourattitude-discrepant behavior In general terms, coercion, because of its high justification properties, willeliminate any further need for dissonance reduction

In order to see the dramatic difference that perceived freedom makes in creating changes in attitudes,consider an experiment conducted by Linder, Cooper, and Jones (1967) Students were induced to writeessays taking a very unpopular positionthat controversial speakers should be banned from the universityHalf of the students were required to write their attitude-discrepant essays and were then paid either a smalor a large amount of money for their participation The other half of the students were asked whether they

would be willing to write their essays and were promised either the small or the large incentive for theirefforts It was emphasized that the decision to write the essay was completely up to the student.

The results of the study show the dramatic effect of the perception of freedom in determining dissonance-produced attitude change Figure 4-3 shows that when subjects freely chose to write an attitude-discrepantessay, their attitude change (and presumably their dissonance) decreased as the incentive value increased

This is consistent with the Cohen (1962) and Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) studies reported earlier. Butwhen choice was eliminated, so was cognitive dissonance; only then did some other process begin tooperate. In this case we can call the no-choice line in Figure 4-3a reinforcement effect. The more moneyreceived, the more positive the affect for the task. The process may be akin to serendipitously finding moneyon a street corner; the person who does so may go back to that spot again and again and come to like thatpart of town. The more money (the more reinforcement), the more the liking But the importance of theLinder, Cooper, and Jones study lies in its demonstration that the relationship between justification and

eventual attitude change which we have been discussing in the induced compliance paradigm exists onlywhen the individual feels free to comply or not to comply with a request for attitudediscrepant behavior.

Comments on freedom and social change.

The way in which the concept of freedom is applied in dissonance research is somewhat unusual. Typically, achoice is expected to be sometimes accepted and sometimes refused. However, students who serve assubjects in dissonance experiments rarely turn down an experimenter's request. Subjects have been knownto undergo undue physical effort (Wicklund, Cooper, & Linder, 1967), to eat grasshoppers (Zimbardo,Weisenberg, Firestone, & Levy, 1965), and to shock fellow students (Brock & Buss, 1962), in addition tomaking counterattitudinal statements, even though they had been offered a "choice" for compliance. Rarelydo more than 5 to 10 percent of thc subjects reject the experimenter's request. Kelley (1967) hascharacterized the choice offered to subjects in induced compliance experiments as an "illusion of freedom."What is important, it can be argued, is not whether the subject has the audacity to refuse the experimenter'srequest, but whether he feels that he could have refused. As long as people have the illusion that they arefree to choose, then induced compliance can lead to dissonance arousal and to attitude change.

Some further light can now be shed on the school desegregation process in North Carolina. Here, peoplewere not forced to comply with school desegregation; they were offered a choice. They could send theirchildren to desegregated public schools, or they could withdraw them and send them to private, segregatedschools with state support. However, it turned out to be so cumbersome to apply for state aid for privateeducation that virtually no one ever opted for that alternative. As in dissonance experiments, the choice wasmore illusory than real. Nonetheless, people probably felt that they could have rejected the attitude-discrepant behavior of sending their children to integrated schools had they really wanted to.

We do not intend to imply that the North Carolina legislators of the 1950s were social psychologists at heartor that they had any concern for using social psychological theory to achieve school integration. However,their actions made a considerable amount of sense from the viewpoint of the research in, and the theory of,induced compliance. It is certainly possible that the relatively slight amount of social upheaval in the state ofNorth Carolina following school desegregation resulted from changes in attitudes which took place as ameans of resolving cognitive dissonance.

2. Commitment.
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Intuitively, it seems likely that we would suffer more dissonance from making a counterattitudinal statementto a group of friends than we would from merely thinking of some statements that are attitude discrepant.One of the reasons this is so may be the degree of commitment to the disliked position (Carlsmith, Collins, &Helmreich, 1966). When you are thinking to yourself, no one is a witness to your behavior. Unlike theexamples in the preceding section, if you merely think a position you can "take it back." You are not publiclyidentified with your attitude-discrepant position, and you can deny to yourself that you ever thought thoseevil thoughts. When you are speaking to your friends, it is much harder to deny what you said, as you havebeen clearly and publicly identified with your statements.

An important experiment by Davis and Jones (1960) demonstrates the combined effect of commitment andperceived freedom. Each student subject was asked to serve as an ally of the experimenter and to deliver anuntrue evaluation of another student. The experimenter explained that he needed someone to make ahostile and derogatory evaluation of the other student. In half of the cases, the student was told that it washer obligation as an experimental subject to deliver the negative evaluation. In the other half of the cases,the student was merely requested to do so.

In addition to the variation of perceived freedom, the experimenters gave half of the subjects reason tobelieve that they would meet the other student after the experiment and would have a chance to reveal toher the circumstances behind the negative evaluation. That is, half of the subjects felt that they would beable to "take back" their evaluation, whereas the other half anticipated no such opportunity. If a lack ofcommitment reduces the magnitude of dissonance, and if a lack of perceived freedom reduces dissonance,

then only one of the conditions of the experiment could be expected to show a difference in attitude. Sub-jects who delivered their evaluation under high-choice and high-commitment conditions were expected tochange their evaluations of the other student in the direction of the negative statements that they hadmade. The results supported that prediction (see Table 4- 1).

3. Aversive consequences.

Not every attitude-discrepant act produces dissonance. Suppose that a Democrat is induced to make astatement urging a Republican victory in his congressional district. Cooper and Worchel (1970) and Collinsand Hoyt (1972) have produced findings which imply that the Democrat would be in a state of dissonanceonly if he felt that he might have convinced someone to vote Republican. However, if the speech weremade in front of the bathroom mirror with no possibility of persuading anyone of its contents, then it wouldnot arouse dissonance. In general, attitude-discrepant behavior arouses dissonance only if it can lead to anunwanted or aversive event.

In Cooper and Worchel's study, subjects participated in the dull, peg-turning task of (756 Festinger andCarlsmith's study and were also asked, in return for either a low or a high inducement, to mislead a waitingconfederate into thinking that the task was exciting. However, after trying to convince the confederate, halfof the subjects in Cooper and Worchel's study heard him say, "You are entitled to your opinion, but everyexperiment I have ever been in has been dull, and I expect this one to be dull too." The other half of thesubjects saw the confederate become enthusiastic and quite excited about participating in an interestingstudy In other words, the latter group had the unwanted consequence of convincing a fellow student tobecome excited about a study that he would soon find to be dull. For the former group there was no aversiveconsequence, since in this case the confederate remained unconvinced.

The results of the study (depicted in Figure 4-4) made it clear that the only subjects who came to believethat the task was interesting were those whose attitude-discrepant behavior was performed for a lowinducement and who brought about the aversive consequence ofmisleading a fellow student. Thus,attitudediscrepant behavior that has the possibility of bringing about an unwanted event may arousecognitive dissonance.

4. Personal responsibility.


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Wicklund and Brehm (1976) surveyed the entire gamut of research in dissonance theory and concluded that"dissonance as we know it takes place only when the dissonant elements have been brought togetherthrough the personal responsibility of the individual who experiences dissonance" (p. 7). Cooper (1971) hascharacterized personal responsibility as the blending of the already introduced concept of choice with theconcept of foreseeability.

As an example, consider a hypothetical person who sees a geographic guide to the United States in abookstore, purchases it, and then finds out that the proceeds of the book are to go to the United Klans ofAmerica. Since he despises the KKK and he has just donated money to it, does he experience dissonance?

According to the viewpoint which emphasizes personal responsibility, the answer would be no. Thisviewpoint argues that dissonance results from counterattitudinal behavior only when (a) the behavior wasfreely chosen and (b) the aversive consequence which follows from that behavior could have been foreseenat the time of the commitment. In the hypothetical example, the book purchase was freely made but theaversive consequence was not foreseeable. If the book purchaser can add the cognition, "But I couldn't haveknown that the money would be used in that way," he can avoid personal responsibility for the inconsistencycaused by despising the Klan but contributing money to it.

Goethals, Cooper, and Naficy (1979) conducted research to test the specific prediction that an aversiveconsequence has to be foreseeable in order for cognitive dissonance to be aroused. Subjects volunteered forwhat they believed was a study of psycholinguistics. The experimenter explained that the purpose of thestudy was to assess linguistic devices used in oral communications. This explanation was not exactly

accurate but did serve to offer a reason to ask the students to write a counterattitudinal speechin thiscase, to advocate doubling the undergraduate enrollment at the university.Not only was the speech contrary to the subjects' attitudes, but there was also an unwanted consequencethat might occur as a result of the speech. Recall that the study by Cooper and Worchel (1970) indicatedthat it was necessary for people to feel that some unwanted event might be caused by the speech. Theunwanted consequence in the study by Goethals et al. was that the speech was going to be shown to theBoard of Admissions, which was considering a change of policy to allow for the doubling of the studentenrollment. Subjects in an unforeseeable condition were kept unaware of this consequence. They were nottold that the speech would be or might be sent to the Board of Admissions. Subjects in this condition, then,thought the speech was for the sole use of the psycholinguistic experiment. Subjects in a foreseen conditionwere told explicitly, before deciding to give their speech, that the Board of Admissions might be sent a copyof the speech. Finally, a foreseeable condition was run in which the possibility of "other interested groups"hearing the speech was mentioned but the Board of Admissions was never explicitly named. When the

speech was concluded, the experimenter made it clear to half of the subjects in each condition that theirspeeches were, in fact, going to be sent to the Board of Admissions. No mention was made to the other halfof the subjects of where, if anywhere, the speech was to be sent.

Subjects' attitudes about doubling the size of the freshman class were assessed at the conclusion of theexperiment. The results are presented in Table 4-2. They showed that when an aversive event was foreseenbefore deciding to engage in the counterattitudinal behavior, attitude change occurred. People who freelywrote essays favoring increasing the size of the student body changed their attitudes in that direction if theyknew about the consequence beforehand. Apparently, they experienced personal responsibility for theiractions and therefore experienced dissonance. Changing their attitudes was their way of reducing thatdissonance. However, subjects who had no way of knowing the aversive use to which their essay might beput (unforeseen condition) did not experience dissonance: their ability to use an "I couldn't have known . . ."

cognition eliminated their personal responsibility.

The middle column of Table 4-2 presents the interesting case of people who did not know of the ill-use oftheir essay . . . but they might have been able to realize it had they thought about it. After all, the Board ofAdmissions certainly is an "interested group" that might want to hear students' speeches. The resultsshowed that when the subjects were not informed that the Board of Admissions would hear their speech,they did not experience dissonance. But when they were informed, the concept that they could have known


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if they had thought about it was suffficient to invoke personal responsibility and led to the attitude changeshown by the low score in the foreseeable-informed condition.

The effort justification paradigm: To suffer is to love.

Closely akin to the psychology of induced compliance is a paradigm which can be called "effort justification."The observation that people love what they suffer for adequately summarizes this dissonance effect.Normally, we do not like to expend undue effort; we do not like to suffer. But we sometimes find ourselves in

a position in which we are volunteering to do just that. The result may be the arousal of dissonance and theneed to find a justification for having chosen to suffer.

Aronson and Mills (1959) invited women students to participate in a sexual discussion group. Before thestudents could join the group, it was necessary to undergo a screening test in order to be certain that theywould be able to contribute openly to the discussion. It was implied that the test might be embarrassingbecause of the words that the subject would have to say aloud. Of course, the subjectcould refuse toundergo the test, but she then would not be allowed to become a member of the group.

Some of the subjects who agreed to take the screening test were assigned to a severe condition, in whichthey were given a list of obscene words and lurid descriptions of sexual activity to read aloud. Other subjects

were assigned to the mild condition, in which they read ordinary words such as petting and prostitute fortheir screening test.

After their initiations, all subjects (plus a control group which received no screening test) were asked to listento a discussion being held by the group. It was explained that since the subjects had not done the readingfor the week's discussion, it would be better if they did not actually join the group now but instead listenedto the week's discussion over earphones. The discussion that the girls listened to was dreadful. As Aronsonand Mills described it, the discussion concerned "secondary sex behavior in the lower animals. [Theparticipants] inadvertently contradicted themselves and one another, mumbled several non sequiturs,started sentences that they never finished, hemmed, hawed, and in general conducted one of the mostworthless and uninteresting discussions imaginable" (p. 179). In fact, the discussion that the subjects wereoverhearing was actually a tape recording that had been designed to be as boring as possible. At the closeof the discussion, the new initiates (the subjects) were asked to rate how interesting they felt the discussion

had been.

Now, assume that you were a subject in the severe condition and that you had been embarrassed by thewords you had read. Why would you choose to suffer embarrassment? The cognition that you do not like tobe embarrassed is dissonant with the cognition that you have chosen to be embarrassed. According todissonance theory, this arouses an uncomfortable tension which must be reduced. What cognitive changesare possible? You could deny that the embarrassment was severe, but assume that the words and passageswere so chosen that this is not a viable alternative. You could decide that you like to suffer. This too is not alikely possibility. Finally, you could come to like what you suffered for.

Consider Figure 4-5, which depicts the effort justification sequence. If you could come to like the goal forwhich you suffered, then you will have added a cognition that is consonant with your suffering. In theAronson and Mills experiment, the goal (the discussion group) was lousy. But if you convince yourself that

the group is really worth joining, then your dissonance can be reduced.

The results of the Aronson and Mills experiment are presented in Table 4-3. It can be seen that the controlgroup and the mild group rated the discussion and the participants as considerably more boring and lessinteresting than did the group that suffered more severely.

The Aronson and Mills study has been supported by subsequent findings of Schopler and Bateson (1962),who used a very similar procedure, and of Gerard and Mathewson (1966), who conducted a very carefullycontrolled conceptual replication in a situation involving electric shock rather than embarrassment.


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Applications of effort justification.

1. Political campaigning.

In the effort justification paradigm, the concept of "effort" is taken in its most generic sense to apply to anysituation which an individual would ordinarily prefer to avoid. Thus, such noxious events as electric shock(Gerard & Mathewson), embarrassment (Aronson & Mills), physical exertion(Wicklund, Cooper, & Linder,1967), and exposure to delayed auditory feedback (Zimbardo, 1965) have all been used as ways to induceeffort. Given this broad concept of effort, we can imagine that people may find themselves in many

situations which they would ordinarily prefer to avoid. To the extent that they voluntarily place themselves inthose situations, dissonance should be aroused. This, in turn, may lead to some interesting and prac:icalconsequences.

For example, consider an election campaign in which a typical Middle American voter is induced to listen to acampaign speech given by a bearded, long-haired youth clad in a dungaree jacket, army boots, and blue

jeans. Cooper, Darley, and Henderson (1974) reasoned that such a situation can be analyzed in terms of theeffort justification sequence. How will the typical voter react to the situation? If we can assume thatinteracting with a "hippie" campaigner is seen as noxious by most voters, then freely deciding to listen to hiscampaign speech should make that speech more attractive to the listener. "Why did I listen to that unkemptperson?" voters may ask themselves? "Because I really agree with what he has to say," may be the self-

justificatory response.

Cooper, Darley, and Henderson had hippielooking and conventional-looking campaigners approach houses inan upper middle class voting area. Elaborate care was taken to make certain that each campaigner would begranted admittance to a house. The campaigners were there to argue in favor of adopting an income taxinstead of the existing sales tax in the state of Pennsylvania. The "pitch" of each campaigner was identical.At the end of the day, 40 homes that had been visited by hippie campaigners, 40 homes that had beenvisited by conventional campaigners, and 40 homes that had not been visited at all (control condition) werecontacted by an alleged representative of a polling outfit. Among many other questions, the respondentswere asked their opinion about the impending incometax proposal. The results, reported in Table 4-4,showed that, although the traditional campaigner had a modicum of success in convincing respondents tofavor the income tax, the hippie had far greater effectiveness. In fact, only the group contacted by the hippiecrossed the midpoint of the attitude scale, despite the fact that the respondents who had been contacted bythe conventional campaigner received propaganda dentical with that given to the respondents who had

been contacted by the hippie. Apparently, the dissonance created by volunteering for a noxious (or effortful)experience helped to the degree of attitude change in the desired direction.

2 Psychotherapy.

Mary H. has a troubling fear of snakes. She wishes to obtain psychotherapeutic help. She can choose from amyriad of therapists and a variety of therapeutic procedures. She can settle on a psychodynamic approachwhich emphasizes the hidden or repressed roots of her phobia. In this way, she could devote several years oher life, spend a considerable amount of money, and dredge up a number of unpleasant, traumaticmemories in the course of arriving at an understanding of her problem. Alternatively, she can choose alearning approach to therapy. Learning approaches are more rapid and sometimes less of a financial burden

than psychodynamic approaches, but they also involve a degree of unpleasant emotional arousal.Let us assume that Mary H. volunteers to enter into a situation which is time consuming, costly, andemotionally draining in order to achieve the goal of being able to approach snakes. Let us also assume thatafter several sessions, the therapy pays off; Mary begins to like snakes. Why has improvement been made?Naturally, Mary's therapist can talk about teaching her to avoid anxiety or about discovering the hiddenmeaning of her problem. That is, the therapist has a theory of therapy which may account for Mary'simprovement. However, a social psychologist will realize that the therapy setting has caused Mary to expendeffort in the broad sense of the term. Whatever the theoretical bent of the therapist, Mary has spent moneyand time and has experienced unpleasant emotions. Consistent with Aronson and Mills's study, Mary H.should have experienced dissonance and therefore sought to raise her evaluation of the goal state. In this


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example, Mary's goal state was her interaction with snakes, and it could be predicted that she would cometo like snakes, much as Aronson and Mills's subjects came to like the boring discussion group. "Why did Iexpend so much effort?" Mary may have asked herself. "Because I really like to touch a snake," may be theresponse.

Cooper (1980) conducted an empirical test of this reasoning. The participants were volunteers who wereafraid of snakes. They entered a laboratory room and were asked to walk toward a six-foot boa constrictorwhich was curled up in a glass tank at the other end of the room. Since the subjects were afraid of snakes,they could not actually touch it. However, the distance that they could come toward the snake was

unobtrusively measured. The experimenter then administered a manipulation which is crucial for the arousaof dissonance. Half of the subjects were given complete freedom to participate in the therapeutic portion ofthe study. They were told that the therapeutic procedure might be effortful or embarrassing and that theydid not have to participate if they did not want to. They could collect the money that had been promised tothem for volunteering and leave with no hard feelings. The other half of the subjects were not given thisfreedom. They were warned about the embarrassment and the difficulty, but they were not given any choiceabout leaving at that point.

The second experimenter conducted the therapy. Two types of therapy were conducted, with subjects beingrandomly assigned to one or the other type. One of the therapies was modeled after a widely used form oftherapy. Known as implosive therapy, it is designed to have patients imagine a scene which makes themextremely anxious. The success of this therapy is ordinarily thought to be based upon the learning theory

notion of extinction by conjuring up a terrifying scene and experiencing the arousal, the patient finds thatthere is no basis for the anxiety and the anxiety thus disappears (extinguishes). From the viewpoint ofcognitive dissonance, however, the experiencing of the intense anxiety can be regarded as effort; and ifeffort justification is what is effective in getting people to approach the snake, then the therapy should onlywork in the high-choice condition. The straightforward prediction, then, was that implosive therapy wouldcause subjects to approach a snake only under conditions of high choice. Low-choice subjects were notexpected to be able to approach the snake despite the fact that extinction would exist in that condition aswell.

In addition to implosive therapy, a second form of therapy was used. In this treatment, Cooper used ahomespun "exercise therapy." It was reasoned that if choice and effort must combine to produce theelevation of the goal state, then any form of effort might be effective. Therefore, Cooper's study employed

an exercise therapy in which participants jumped rope, lifted weights, ran in place, and underwent otherforms of physical effort. It was expected that, like implosive therapy, this series of exercises would enableparticipants to approach a previously feared snake -- to the extend that the participants had a high degree ochoice to participate.

After their therapy, the subjects were returned to the office of the first experimenter and were asked toapproach the snake a second time. The dependent measure was the change in the distance that thatparticipant could come toward the snake The results are presented in Figure 4-6. They demonstrate thatimplosive therapy, with its arousal of unpleasant anxiety, and exercise therapy, with its emphasis onphysical effort, are both effective in having subjects come closer to the snake but only to the extent thatchoice is involved. Consistent with the predictions of dissonance theory, either therapy was effective when itwas coupled with high choice; neither therapy was effective when it was coupled with low choice.

Research using the concept of effort justification to produce psychotherapeutic gains is continuing. We shallsee its role in treating the problem of obesity when we consider social psychology and health in Chapter 14.

The insufficient deterrence paradigm.


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ln the preceding section we considered the consequences of doing things that we would ordinarily not do. Inthis section we will consider the mirror image of that situation: What happens when we refrain from doingthings that we really want to do? This has been called the insuffficient deterrence paradigm, for it involvesthe arousal of dissonance by inducing people to refrain from behavior when there is barely a suffficientreason to refrain. The paradigm has been utilized most often with children, and it has important implicationsfor understanding one of the ways in which children come to internalize attitudes and values.A case in point: Johnnie climbs out of bed at midnight to raid the cookie jar. His mother, tired of spending theweekly budget on cookies, wishes to put an end to this practice. She decides to stake out a position near thekitchen, and each night that Johnnie descends the steps to approach the cookie jar, she spanks him with apaddle In short order, Johnnie gives up the cookies. Frankie lives on the next block and also has a great liking

for cookies. He, too, raids the cookie jar at midnight, and his mother also wishes to put a stop to it. Butinstead of using a paddle, Frankie's mother administers a mild admonition. On nights that the mothers areaway from their respective houses, Johnnie resumes his raid on the cookie jar, but Frankie does not. Can wesee why in terms of cognitive dissonance?

When Johnnie decided to refrain from his nightly trips to the cookie jar under his mother's watchful eye, hisbehavior (staying in bed) was discrepant with his attitude about the cookies (he wanted them). However, themagnitude of dissonance created by this event was small when he added his mother's paddle (a strongcognition consonant with his behavior) to the equation. Therefore, there was not much need for anycognitive manipulations to reduce dissonance.

When Frankie considered his dissonant situation, he had much less of a consonant cognition to add to his

equation. His mother used no paddle, just a mild threat. Therefore, his dissonance was greater thanJohnnie's. And Frankie had a need to reduce some of that dissonance. One way of accomplishing dissonancereduction was for Frankie to change his attitude about the cookies. If he does not like cookies, then it is nolonger dissonant to stay in bed and refrain from eating them.

One of the earliest experiments to examine the effect of insuffficient deterrence was conducted by Aronsonand Carlsmith (1963). A young child was brought into a playroom in which there were five attractive toys.

The child was allowed to play with each of the toys, and then an ordering of how much he or she liked thevarious toys was obtained. The toys were again placed on the floor, except for the one that the child hadranked second, which was placed conspicuously on a table. In the no-threat condition, the experimenterstated that he had to leave for a while but that the child could play with any of the five toys. In the severe-threat condition, the child was told that while the experimenter was out of the room, he or she could play

with any toy except the one on the table. Specifically, the experimenter said, "I don't want you to play withthe . If you play with it, I would be very angry. I would have to take all of my toys and go home." In themildthreat condition, the experimenter merely said, "I don't want you to play with the________." If you playedwith it, I would be annoyed."

During the temptation period, while the experimenter was out of the room, no one in the experimentalconditions violated the prohibition against playing with the toy. But we would expect the children in themildthreat condition to be experiencing the greatest amount of dissonance over refraining from playing. Toarrive at this prediction, consider the situation of the various children:

No threat: I liked the toy and I played with the toy = No dissonance.

Severe threat: I liked the toy; I did not play with the toy, but the experimenter threatened to take the

toys and leave. Why did I not play with the toy? Because I did not want him to leave = Little dissonance.

Mild threat: I liked the toy; I did not play with the toy = High dissonance and a change of attitudeabout liking the toy.

The results of the experiment showed this to be the case. At the end of the temptation period, the childrenwere asked to rerank their preferences for the various toys. Table 4-5 shows the changes in preference forthe prohibited toys. There is clearly a tendency for the prohibited toy to decrease in value for the mild-threatgroup as compared to the nothreat and severe-threat groups.


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In a subsequent study using a very similar procedure, Freedman (1965) showed that the children'sdenegrations of the attractive toy in the high-dissonance condition had been internalized. They continued torefrain from playing with the toy when they were tested 40 days later.

To return to the topic of school desegregation, some questions remain to be answered. When black childrenwere eventually admitted to Little Rock Central High School, the federalized National Guard was employed tomake certain that students and parents refrained from violence. During the time that the Guard was presentvery few attempts to block integration were reported. But the psychology of insufllcient deterrence indicates

that the threat posed by the Guard did not encourage attitude changte in the direction of acceptingdesegregation. the bayonets and the rifles carried by the Guard certainly facilitated compliance with the lawbut they also served as important cognitions supporting (that is, consonent with) the attitude-discrepantbehavior of some segregationists who were attending school with blacks. It would be predicted that theattempts to remove the Guard from the school would be difficult, because private acceptance ofdesegregation (attitude change) had been made less necessary. And, indeed, the National Guard, which hadbeen called up in September, was not sucessfully withdrawn from the high school until the middle ofDecember.

Disconfirmed expectancies.

Unequivocal disconfirmation

Just prior to the publication of Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter(1956) read an interesting item in their local newspaper headlined "PROPHECY FROM PLANET CLARION CALL

TO CITY: FLEE THAT FLOOD." It went on to say that a suburban housewife, Mrs. Marion Keech, had receivedmessages in the form of "automatic writing" from beings on the planet Clarion who had told her that theworld would end in a great cataclysm before dawn on December 21. A clear and definitive prediction hadbeen made by Mrs. Keech and her followers. Moreover, the group of believers headed by Mrs. Keech hadtaken strong behavioral steps to indicate their degree of commitment to the belief. Some left their jobs,some left college, some left their spousesall in order to prepare for the cataclysm and for the flying saucerwhich was to provide a safe escape for the group of true believers.

Festinger et al. saw Mrs. Keech's situation as one that would lead to the arousal of dissonance. Assuming

that December 21 would come and go without an end to the world, that knowledge would induce a painfuland important dissonance in the group of believers. What could they do to reduce the tension? They couldnot come to deny the disconfirmation of their prophecy. With any luck, the existence of the world on the 21stand for some time thereafter would be an undeniable fact. Changing the belief structure which gave rise tothe particular prediction would be possible, but diffficult. That is, Mrs. Keech could admit that she had beenmistaken about the automatic writing and that the cataclysmic prophecy had been only a delusion. HoweverMrs. Keech and the group were highly committed to their beliefs and had already endured considerable costto maintain their belief system. A third possibility would be to seek social support for their original beliefsystem. As Festinger et al. put it, "If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief iscorrect, then clearly it must after all be correct." As in the formulation of the magnitude of dissonance thathas been suggested on p. 120, the magnitude would decrease when cognitions that were consonant with aparticular element were increased. In Mrs. Keech's case, if she could add consonant elements by convincingothers that the basic premises under which she had been operating were correct, then the magnitude of her

dissonance following disconfirmation would be lessened. In short, Festinger et al. predicted that theinevitable disconfirmation would be followed by a wholehearted effort at proselytizing.

Festinger and his colleagues infiltrated Mrs. Keech's group and reported the following sequence of events:

1. Prior to December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access toMrs. Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers

The group evolves a belief systemprovided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarionto


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explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the groupwould be saved from the disaster.

2. December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and toescort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove allmetallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects arediscarded. The group waits.

3. 12:05 A.M., December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the roomshows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.

4. 12:10 A.M. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The

cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away. 5. 4:00 A.M. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations

have failed. Mrs. Keech begins to cry. 6. 4:45 A.M. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Mrs. Keech. It states, in effect, that the

God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off:"The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world fromdestruction."

7. Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previousdistaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad anaudience as possible.

In summary, the disconfirmation of the prophecy hit Mrs. Keech's group hard. But they could neither deny its

occurrence nor belittle the preparations that they had undertaken in support of their strongly held belief.Their disconfirmed prophecy probably resulted in a state of heightened, unpleasant arousal as Russell andJones ( 1980) later found in their study of a different group who had their expectations disconfirmed. Mrs.Keech's group's answer for reducing tile arousal and making sense of their plight was to seek social supportfollowing the disconfirmation. By persuading others that their central belief system had been correct, theycould minimize the pain caused by the dissonant information.

Equivocal disconfirmation: I want what I thought I would get.

Occasionally, the disconfirmations which give rise to the experience of dissonance are not completelyunequivocal. There is room to alter events so that the expectation can be confirmed. This is particularly truewhen it is your own behavior that causes the disconfirmation.

Consider the following instance. A boy who is currently in the sixth grade had come to consider himself agood student. He receives a grade on a spelling test which indicates that he is not quite as good as hethought he was. But by some quirk of fate, the teacher has forgotten to record his grade. She asks thestudent for the grade. Is there motivation to "distort" the performance to bring it in line with the student'soriginal expectation? Certainly there is from the viewpoint of dissonance theory, but it does not take too longto think of other explanations that would account for the student's misreporting his low grade.

But consider the opposite side of the coin. A student has come to believe that he has no chance of successin school. All standardized tests have been telling him, his parents, and his teachers that he is not equippedfor school. But now he receives a very good grade on a spelling test. Dissonance is created by thediscrepancy between the cognitions "I am supposed to be a bad student" and "I did well on the test." Is there

motivation in this case to distort the performance in order to conform to the expectancy?

Aronson and Carlsmith (1962) conducted a study to shed light on this question. Student volunteers were ledto believe that they were taking a new test of "interpersonal perception." Their task was to identifyaccurately which of two pictures was a photograph of a diagnosed schizophrenic. Subjects looked at 10 pairsof pictures in each of 5 blocks of trials After making judgments of the first 10 pairs, they were given theiraccuracy score and then proceeded to the next set of 10 pairs. They continued in this fashion for 4 blocks of10 trials.


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The subjects' scores on the first four blocks of trials were rigged by the investigator. Actually, the pictureshad been taken at random from the Harvard University yearbook, and scores were arranged so that subjectswere either doing very well (that is, they had a lot of interpersonal empathy) or very poorly (that is, they hadvery little interpersonal empathy). Therefore, as subjects entered the fifth block of trials, they had built anexpectation of either success or failure.

The experimenter manipulated scores on the fifth block of trials such that subjects who expected to besuccessful found out either that they were successful or that they were unsuccessful. That is, in half thecases the scores on the fifth block confirmed the subjects' expectations and, in the other half, the scoresdisconfirmed them. Similarly, half of the subjects who expected to fail had their expectations confirmed, and

the other half had them disconfirmed.

The experimenter used an ingenious technique to discover whether the disconfirmation resulted indissonance-produced distortions. He "suddenly realized" that his recording apparatus had gone awry for thefifth block and that the fifth block would have to be repeated. He used the same set of 10 photographs andasked the subjects to respond again. Since the subjects could remember their responses, they could answerthe same way, improve their scores, or reduce their scores as they wished.

Common sense tells us that because people want to do better, those who had done well on the original fifthset would answer as they had before, whereas those who had done poorly would change their responses. As

Table 4-6 reveals, this was not the only thing thathappened. Although there was some tendency for subjectsto want to do better on their second tries, it is clear that subjects who had expected to do poorly on the fifthtrial but had done well actually changed their responses so that they would do poorly! Faced with the

dissonance produced by the disconfirmation of a strong expectancy, and given the opportunity to alter thatdisconfirmation, subjects preferred to fail as a means of reducing or avoiding cognitive dissonance.

The results of Aronson and Carlsmith's study, which have been supported by Taylor and Huesmann (1974)and in different contexts by Carlsmith and Aronson (1963) and by Aronson, Carlsmith, and Darley ( 1963 ),have profound implications for our educational system. Although it is risky to generalize from a fewexperimental studies to a complex social situation such as the classroom, a few tentative statements can bemade. If we convince some of our youths that they are not capable of performing well in school, anyevidence to the contrary will arouse dissonance. As we have seen, such youths may reduce or avoiddissonance by making sure that their performance is consistent with their expectations.

The reasons for such negative expectations can be manifold. Negative expectation may be nurtured by thetraditions of a particular family. It is not uncommon for teachers to be told by their students' parents thatthey expect their children to fail in school: "My father was not promoted, I was not promoted, my older childwas not promoted, and I don't expect Johnnie to be promoted either." Sometimes negative expectations arecreated in a whole class of children. The U.S. Office of Education has reported that it is common for bothparents and teachers of American Indians to expect Indian children not to do well in school. Occasionally,negative expectations are created by a combination of membership in minority cultures and standardizedtests of intelligence and aptitude which may systematically discriminate against members of those cultures(see Kamin, 1974). Whatever the cause of negative expectations, the dissonance analysis suggests thatsuch expectations can have deleterious effects upon performance. It may be more pleasant for the child toconform to his or her negative expectations and avoid dissonance than to suffer from their disconfirmation.

It is also reasonable to believe that the state of dissonance established by a disconfirmed expectancy playeda role in the problem of school desegregation. With local offficials proclaiming that desegregation would not

work, that it was not wanted by blacks or whites, and that it would only lead to violence, an invidiousexpectation may have been established. Disconfirmation of that expectation would lead to dissonance. It ispossible, therefore, that people holding the expectation that desegregation would not work may have beenmotivated to confirm rather than to violate those expectations.

The free-choice paradigm.


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Dissonance is a pervasive phenomenon which occurs every time we make a free decision. And we makemany free decisions. Your choices of which college to attend, which brand of butter to buy, which person toask out to dinner all evoke a certain amount of dissonance.

Consider a person who is prepared to purchase an automobile and has narrowed her choice down to a Hondaor a Continental. She knows that there are certain features of each car that she likes and dislikes. Since sheis ultraorganized, she decides to make a list of these features, such as the one below

Honda

Goodo Gas mileageo Costo Cute-looking

Bado Accident damageo Small capacityo Costly repair

Continental

Goodo Fasto Big Capacityo Many Dealerso Sporty Look

Bado Gass gobblero Costo Breaks down easily

If she decides to purchase a Honda, then all of the good features of the rejected Continental and all of thebad features of the chosen Honda stand in a dissonant relationship with the decision to purchase the Honda.A decision to buy the Continental also creates dissonance, due to the good features of the Honda and thebad features of the Continental.

In this example, assume that all elements are of equal importance. Then assume that the person makes alogical choice to purchase the Continental, since she could think of more desirable features for theContinental than for the Honda. What will she do with the dissonance that has been created? The samealternatives are open to her as in any reduction of dissonance: She can change her cognitions, alter theirimportance, or add new cognitions. In this case, the woman may decide that the Honda is really not cute-looking (a change Of an attitudinal cognition), that she really does not care about gas mileage (minimizingthe importance of a discrepant cognition), or that there are six more good aspects of the Continental thatshe forgot to put on her list and now remembers (adding consonant elements)

In general, a decision-making process is said to create dissonance in its postdecisional phase. Prior tomaking a decision, the individual is thought to be receptive to all information in an attempt to make themost rational decision (Festinger, 1964). But after a decision has been made, dissonance-reducing processesbegin, and cognitions are distorted and added in order to minimize the magnitude of dissonance. Therefore,although a decision between two items (such as the Continental and the Honda) may be very difficult, withone item being thought of as only a hair better than the other, the postdecisional period marks an attemptto spread apart the value of the two items. After the decision has been made, the chosen item is seen asincreasingly attractive, whereas the nonchosen item is seen as increasingly unattractive.


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The first study to provide data to this effect was conducted by Brehm (1956). Women college students wereasked to help a marketing firm to evaluate a number of consumer items, such as a toaster, an electriccoffeepot, and a silk-screen print. The women were to rate each item on a scale, and they would then beallowed to choose an item to take home with them in appreciation for their having participated in the study.

In the high-dissonance condition, the subjects were allowed to choose between two items that were ratedvery closely on the rating scale. In the low-dissonance condition, the two items from which the subjects wereto choose were rated quite far apart on the scale. Clearly, there is less dissonance when the chosenalternative is far more attractive than the nonchosen alternative to begin with. In the control condition, one

of the items was selected by the experimenter and given to the women as a gift.After having chosen one of the items (or, in the control condition, after having been given one of the items),the women were asked to read some research reports written by the manufacturers of the items and then torerate all of the items. The measure of interest to Brehm was the degree to which the two items involved inthe dissonance-producing decision were spread apart after the decision was made.

Table 4-7 presents the results, which are strongly in support of dissonance theory. First, it is clear that theitem given as a gift did not change in perceived value (there was no change in the control condition).Second, in the high-dissonance condition, the two items were spread apart more in value than they were inthe low-dissonance condition.

Frey (1981) conducted a study in Mannheim, West Germany, with teenagers as participants. He had theparticipants rank and evaluate 14 books in terms of their reading desirability. After the rankings were

completed, the investigator offered each student a choice of two of the books to take home as a token ofappreciation for having performed the rating task. Three levels of dissonance magnitude were established ina manner similar to Brehm's research. High dissonance was created by giving the students a choice betweentheir 2nd and 3rd ranked books; low dissonance was created by giving them a choice between their 2nd and13th choice; while in a medium dissonance condition, a choice was provided between the 2nd and 7thalternatives.

The reduction of cognitive dissonance in Frey's study was not attitude change toward the books but ratherthe subjects' attempts to find consonant cognitions to support their choice. The subjects were told that theinvestigator had collected some magazine and journal articles about each of the books and that they couldread any of these articles if they desired. In fact, Frey had articles that praised and articles that criticizedeach of the 14 original books. The question is: Were subjects motivated to read articles praising the bookthey had chosen as a gift? The answer was yes, and it was an increasing function of the magnitude of

dissonance. In the high-dissonance condition, students were likely to ask to see more articles praising theirchoice than they were in the medium- or low-dissonance conditions. Frey also had half of the studentsbelieve that their decision as to which book to receive was irreversible, while the other half believed thatthey could change their mind within the next few days. The predicted effect of greater dissonance leading toa desire for more consonant information was true only when the selection was irreversible. Only when thedecision was indeed a final choice did the dissonancereducing activity occur.

Knox and Inkster (1968) took to the racetrack to find evidence for free-choice dissonance reduction in a fieldsituation. They reasoned that people who have already placed a bet at the track have made a choice amongdecision alternatives. However, potential bettors who are on line at the $2 window have declared theirintention to bet but have not yet committed themselves irrevocably to a choice. These two classes of peopleat the track, then, should be at different stages of the decision process. The former should be moremotivated to spread the choice alternatives than the latter. Knox and Inkster interviewed people who werereturning from the window and people on line at the window. As predicted, the people who had alreadyplaced their bet were more confident in their selection and in the outcome of the race than were the peoplewho had not yet bet.

Younger, Walker, and Arrowood (1977) replicated the basic design of Knox and Inkster's study at the midwayof the Canadian National Exposition. They interviewed as many people as possible who had just placed 25-cent bets on various games of chance (for example, a wheel of fortune and bingo) and who were on theirway to place bets. The interviewers asked the respondents how confident they were that they would win andhow lucky they felt that day. Consistent with Knox and Inkster's study, the people who had already placed


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their bets felt luckier and more confident than did the people who were on their way to bet. Figure 4-7presents the results of the confidence measure for the subjects in the Younger et al. study.

Criticisms of the theory

Dissonance theory has had its share of critical analyses. Chapanis and Chapanis (1964) foundmethodological ambiguities with many of the original dissonance experiments. Rosenberg (1965) suggestedthat in much of the research, a subject may feel that his or her honesty and integrity are being tested. Hesuggested that this in turn may produce results that appear to be consistent with dissonance theory butactually tap a subject's apprehension that he or she is being evaluated. Although investigators haveresponded to each of the specific criticisms (Silverman, 1964; Linder et al., 1967), the input of Chapanis andChapanis and of Rosenberg has resulted in more carefully designed experiments which have continued toyield evidence consistent with dissonance theory.

Two theories have been proposed that purport to account for the data generated by dissonance theory whileconsidering the motivation to be quite different from that proposed by Festinger. One of theseBem's theoryof self perception (Bem, 1965, 1972)is best considered as a general theory about the way in which peoplecome to think of their own attitudes, values, and behaviors. That theory will be considered in detail inChapter 6. In the present context, we will consider a second theory which offers an explanation forphenomena usually thought of as supportive of dissonance theory. Tedeschi, Schlenker, and Bonoma's

(1971) theory of impression management takes the position that laboratory demonstrations in which peopleseem to reduce inconsistency simply manifests the fact that we are all socialized to appear consistent.Others in our environment reward us for seeming to be consistent, and they sanction us negatively for beinginconsistent. Consequently, we learn to manage the impressions that we give to others in order to producethe appearance of consistency and reliability. Tedeschi et al. believe that in laboratory situations peopleattempt to rationalize or justify inconsistent behavior to the significant other person in their immediateenvironmentthat is, the high-status experimenterjust as they would in other situations. The crux of theimpression management interpretation is that individuals do not have an internal need for consistency.Rather, they manage their image in the laboratory environment in the same way that they manage it in therest of their social world.

In assessing the contribution made by the impression management critique, two conclusions can be agreedupon. First, the management of impressions is an important and subtle concern for most people. Second,

many but not all of the experiments that were conducted to test dissonance theory can be interpretedafter the factwithin the framework of impression management. However, the question for research iswhether impression management is the only reason which causes people to present themselves asconsistent in the studies that we have considered. Are the changes of attitudes that restore consistency onlya ploy to convince the experimenter? Since impression management theory specifically rules outintrapsychic tension as a motivation for changing cognitive elements (such as attitudes), then researchwhich finds evidence that psychological arousal accompanies the perception of inconsistency would becontrary to the position taken by impression management theory. The following section will consider some ofthe research.

The arousal properties of dissonance

The crucial tenet of Festinger's original theory was that inconsistency led to an uncomfortable state oftension which sought reduction. Most of the research that we have considered assumed this motivationalproperty to be present and derived hypotheses based upon that assumption. In general, research has usedan "as if" strategyacting as if the motivation were there. As we have seen, however, impressionmanagement theory can offer alternative explanations of at least some dissonance phenomena by makingthe assumption that inconsistency does not produce arousal.


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Indirect measurements.

In 1967, Waterman and Katkin reasoned that, if dissonance were arousing, then it ought to produce effectssimilar to those of other states that we are certain are arousing. The literature from other fields ofpsychology has established that such physiological drives as hunger and thirst have specific consequencesfor the way in which people learn (Spence, Farber, & McFann, 1956). Those arousal states cause interferencewith complex learning tasks but facilitate simple learning tasks. When students are hungry, for example,they will not be able to learn a complex lesson, but will perform exceptionally well on a simple task.

Therefore, Waterman and Katkin put participants through a counterattitudinal essay-writing procedure andthen examined the way in which that activity affected their learning. The results were partially supportive of

the arousal point of view. Simple learning tasks were performed better after subjects participated in theinduced compliance situation, as would be predicted from the arousal point of view. However, inconsistentwith that point of view, complex learning was not affected. Pallack and Pittman (1972) reviewed the severalstudies that sought evidence for dissonance arousal in this way (Cottrell & Wack, 1967; Waterman, 1969)and concluded that the evidence was at best equivocal.

Zanna and Cooper (1974) took a different approach. They argued that if attitude change following inducedcompliance were due to arousal, then it should be possible to eliminate attitude change by misleadingsubjects about the source of that arousal. If people who write attitude-discrepant communications believethat any arousal they experience is due to a drug that they have taken, then they should hardly bemotivated to change their attitudes in order to eliminate their arousal. If the source of the arousal isperceived to be a drug, then attitude change should be viewed as irrelevant to reducing the arousal andshould not occur.

To test this hypothesis, Zanna and Cooper had volunteers participate in a study that the volunteers believedto be related to the effects of various drugs on memory. The volunteers ingested a pill which, unknown tothem, was actually milk powder. But some of the subjects were led to believe that there was a side effect tothe pillthat they would become aroused and tense within the next few moments. Other subjects were ledto believe that the pill would relax them, and still other subjects were led to believe that the pill would haveno side effects at all. After taking the pill, the subjects were asked to participate in "another experimentunrelated to the memory project." They wrote an essay advocating a ban on controversial speakers at theircollegea position which was known to be discrepant from their true attitudes. Half of the subjects wrotetheir essays under high-choice conditions, so that dissonance should have been aroused. The other halfwrote their essays without having a choice, and thus dissonance should have been eliminated (recall Linderet al. 1967).

After writing their essays, participants had their attitudes assessed. Zanna and Cooper predicted that atypical induced compliance effect would occur in conditions in which no side effects were expected from thedrug. More favorable attitudes in the direction of the essay under high- rather than low-choice conditionswould be consistent with much of the research that we have considered. The middle panel of Figure 4-8supports this prediction. More important, it was predicted that if subjects believed that they were arousedbecause of a pill that they had taken, they should not have been motivated to change their attitudesConsequently, no difference between high- and low-choice essay conditions was expected among this group,and as the left-hand panel of Figure 4-8 demonstrates, none was found. In contrast, Zanna and Cooperpredicted that if subjects believed that they should be relaxed by the pill, then any I arousal that they didexperience (presumably caused by the writing of the essay) would am- plify attitude change. It is as thoughsubjects were to argue "If I ingested a pill to relax me, but I still feel aroused, I really must be upset by theinconsistency between my attitude and my behavior." The right-hand side of Figure 4-8 demonstrates thathigh-choice subjects in the relaxation condition did, in fact, change their attitudes more than any othergroup in the experiment.

The results found by Zanna and Cooper and supported in further studies reviewed by Kiesler and Pallack(1976) and by Zanna and Cooper ( 1976) support the view originally suggested by Festinger. Recentinvestigations have been directed toward specifying the precise form of the arousal and toward makingcareful distinctions between related concepts such as tension and arousal (for example, Comer & Rhodewalt1979; Cooper, Zanna, & Taves, 1978;

499078 the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

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