Social Psychology: Chapter 6; Cognitive Dissonance

dissonance in collectivist cultures

dissonance reducing behavior might be less prevalent at least on the surface in collectivist societies - more likely to find behavior aimed at maintaining group harmony and less likely to see people justifying their own personal misbehavior - more likely to see dissonance when behavior shames or disappoints others

how does impact bias occur

dissonance reduction is largely unconscious and it works better that way - wouldn't work to hear ourselves try to convince ourselves there's no dissonance

Cognitive dissonance

discomfort when two cognitions conflict or when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves

insufficient punishment

dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden activity or object - less external justification = higher internal justification

how can dissonance theory be used to keep people from doing bad things

- can help black students do well in school by reducing anxiety around not having what it takes - can't be done in artificial way or it backfires: inflated praise; repeating self-loving statements over and over - self affirmation must be grounded in reality: need to focus on actual strengths, positive values, and good qualities then strive to make them consonant with their actions

how can we reduce dissonance

1. changing our behavior 2. changing the cognition 3. add new cognitions (rationalization) - the inconsistency isn't really there because - it really makes sense becasue 4. trivializing the dissonance - i'm inconsistent but it's no big deal

why does lowballing work

1. commitment exists: illusion of irrevocability 2. feeling of commitment triggered the anticipation of an exciting event: driving out with a new car - big letdown 3. price is slightly higher than at other dealerships, you've already put in the effort to fill out stuff and be there

experiment on dissonance involving the self

1. personality test destroying or upping self esteem 2. opportunity to cheat and win more money in a card game - students who got positive feedback were least likely to take the opportunity to cheat

Self affirmation

a way of reducing dissonance by reminding oneself of one or more of one's positive attributes

consequences of successfully dehumanizign the victim

guarentess a continuation or escalation of the cruelty - sets up endless chain of violence followed by self-justification

consequences of relieving dissonance created by acting immorally or resisting acting immorally

adopt a more lenient attitude toward cheating if you cheat and adopt a harsher attitude if you didn't

why does the grasshopper taste better when it comes from a stranger rather than a friend

ample justification when it comes from a friend

hypocrisy induction

arousal of dissonance by having individuals make statements that run counter to their behaviors and then reminding them of the inconsistency b/t what they advocated and their behavior - purpose is to lead individuals to more responsible behavior

Postdecision dissonance

aroused after making a decision typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternative - your cognition that oyu are a smart person is dissonant with all the negative things about what you chose; also dissonant with all the positive aspects of what you rejected

how is dissonance reduced during war or cruelty

dehumanizing the enemy by saying "i'm a good person, but we are fighting and killing these other people; therefore, they must desrve whatever they get, because they are fully human like us" - name calling that compares groups of people to animals - dissonance is not as great when killing a enemy in the heat of battle and therefore killing that person isn't as heavy a burden; one of the major causes of PTSD among veterns is their inability to reduce dissonance over killing children, bystanders, and innocent civilians - belittle the victim when they dno't believe they can harm them back; the other person deserves it when they can fight back --> more likely to demean civilians than military victims

hypocrisy paradigm

evoking dissonance by getting people to engage in desired speech acts that contradict undesirable behavior - get them to recognize dissonance and hypocrisy

how do people reduce the dissonance of being guilty of ethical violations they condemn in others

hypocrites judge others more harshly than do people who have not committed the same unethical acts - present themselves as being more virtuous and ethical

dissonance across cultures

most causes of dissonance are international and intergenerational

how can you induce a person to change an attitude about things that matter

no by offering large cash reward for writing an essay supporting the excessive force used by the local police, the did not need to convince themselves that they believed wha thtey had written - small reward does this

does punishment teach people to obey laws and value honest behavior

no it teaches trying to avoid getting caught: do it when they're not watching

who feels the greatest dissonance after doing something cruel, foolish, or incompetent

person with high self esteem - work harder to reduce it

external justificaiton

reason or explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual - ex. to recieve a large reward or avoid a punishment - ex. cognition that it's important not to embarrass or cause pain to people you like provides ample external justification for having told a harmless lie

lowballing

salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a low cost, subsequently claims ti was an error, then raises the prices - customer will agree to make the purchase at the inflated price - decision is not irrevocable yet people will go ahead with the deal than if the original asking price was the high price

counter-attitudinal advocacy

saying becomes believing - stating an opinion or attitude that runs counter to one's private belief or attitude - when we do this with little external justification (without being motivated by something outside ourselves), what we believe begins to conform to the lie

self persuasion

self justification leads to self persuasion which is a long lasting form of attitude change that results from attempts at self-justification

adaptive function of cognitive dissonance

sticking with tried and true option and rejecting a novel alternative which could be risky or dangerous - Win-stay strategy

areas of brain activated during dissonance

striatum and highly specific areas in the prefrontal cortex (planning and decision making) - reasoning areas shut down when confronted with dissonant info - emotion circuits light up happily when consonance is restored

experiment on dissonance involving the self- cheater vs. cheating

task = told they want to learn about cheating in college; pick a number b/t 1 and 10; win $5 if number is even (bc of strong bias towards odd numbers); self report number IV1 = identity (please don't be a cheater) IV2 = behavior (please don't cheat) - DV: how much money was claimed that wasn't theirs - cheater group less likely to cheat because self concept was invoked

justification of effort

tendency to increase liking for somehting when they've worked hard to attain it

when is dissonance greatest when making a decision

the more important and permanent the decision the more dissonance - when a choice is irrevocable, you like it more; when there's a chance to go back and change your mind, you are unhappier with your decision

why isn't punihsment effective

under severe threat, you have a convincing answer in the form of external justification

cognitive dissonance in Japanese participants

vicariously experience dissonance for someone they know and like - justified their choices when they felt others were observing them while they were making their decision but not later (reversed for Americans) --> perceived privacy or public visibility of the choice being made interacts with culture to determine whether dissonance is aroused and the choice

how is dissonance reduced when you perform an immoral behavior

when one engages in immoral acts, since the already done, almost all dissonance reduction strategies involve moving cognitions closer to behavior - trivialization and rationalization

when is dissonance most painful

when one of the cognitions is about the self and the self-concept/self-esteem is threatened

ben franklin effect

when you do something nice for a person you mildly don't like with little external justification, it makes you like them because you have to find some reason for what you did

counter-attitudinal advocacy experiment

- spend hour performing excruciatingly boring and repetitive tasks - told purpose was to determine whether or not people would perform better if they had been informed in advance that the tasks were interesting - told they were the control condition - asked to lie to next participant about how enjoyable it was and offered $1 (small external justification) or $20 (large external justification) - Results: $20 = not enjoyable; $1 = enjoyable task - people who had received an abundance of external justification for lying told the lie but didn't believe it, whereas those who told the lie without much external justification convinced themselves that what they said was closer to the truth

hyposcrisy induction experiment

Group 1- compose speech on dangers of STDs and advocating the use of condoms Group 2- compose speech and recite in front of video that will be used for high school students - each made list of times they failed to use a condom - group 2 felt the most dissonance bc they were made aware of their hypocrasy so they started to use condoms to reduce the dissonance

internal justification

reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself when you can't find external justification for your behavior - ex. one's attitude or behavior - ex. friend is wealthy and can easily afford to absorb the cost of the ugly dress or she sincerely wanted to know your opinion but you still lied to her then the external reasons for lying to her are minimal; so you look for positive things about the dress and change your attitude --> saying becomes believing

low balling experiment- early morning psych experiment

task = students in intro psych are required to be participants; experimentor calls to ask them to come in at 7:00am IV1 = no low ball IV2 = low ball script (get them to agree to come in before telling them the time) - results = significantly increased compliance

impact bias

tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of one's emotional reactions to future negative events - not aware that we'll successfully reduce dissonance like we always have - ex. see how much better off they are without that difficult partner

when is there a greater need to reduce dissonance when people are committing acts of cruelty

the closer the people are, the greater the need to reduce by blaming the victim