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Attitude Change: Dissonance Versus Self-Perception. MAR 3503 February 2, 2012. Cognitive dissonance theory. Festinger (1957) said… 1. Dissonance is an aversive motivational state, giving rise to pressures to reduce itself
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Attitude Change: Dissonance Versus Self-Perception MAR 3503 February 2, 2012
Cognitive dissonance theory • Festinger (1957) said… • 1. Dissonance is an aversive motivational state, giving rise to pressures to reduce itself • 2. It is aroused when 2 (or more) cognitions are inconsistent. It is especially strong when one cognition is a belief, and the other concerns one’s own behavior • 3. It is reduced, most importantly, by changing one or more cognitions so as to bring them into line; typically attitudes change to be consistent with behavior
Three paradigms • 1. Post-decisional dissonance reduction • 2. Effort justification • 3. Induced compliance
Post-decision dissonance reduction Changes from 1st to 2nd rating Note: A positive sign indicates an increase in attractiveness. Net change indicates the spreading apart of the alternatives after a decision. Low dissonance is a decision between items of very different value. High dissonance is a decision between items of similar value. Brehm, 1956
Dissonance at the race track Chance to win Before After 3 6 7 1 2 4 5 Good Slight Fair Great Know & Inkster, 1968
Dissonance at the polls Regan & Kilduff, 1988
Dissonance and amnesia Lieberman et al., 2001
Dissonance in monkeys • Capuchin monkeys were tested to see whether they showed equal preferences between red, green, and blue M&Ms • Choice #1: • Choice #2: Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Dissonance in monkeys Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Effort Justification: Severity of initiation & liking Aronson & Mills, 1959
Severity of initiation & liking Gerard & Mathewson, 1966
Low introductory prices • A chain of stores in the South randomly assigned certain new items to have a low introductory price or their regular price • After a week and a half, all products were at their regular price. • The higher priced items quickly caught up to the low priced items’ sales, and then surpassed them • The low price people think it’s now not worth it, while the high priced people like it even more
Induced Compliance: Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959 • Students who were paid to lie to a confederate and say an objectively boring task was interesting claimed that the task was more enjoyable if they were paid just $1 than if they were paid $20 to tell the lie
Threat and compliance • Children were brought into the lab and presented with a set of toys, with one really attractive toy • The experimenter told them to play with any toy except the best one, and left them alone • The instruction was either mild (“I’ll be disappointed…”) or severe (“I’ll be very angry and have to do something about it”). All obeyed. • 6 weeks later, a different exp’r came to school and let them play with any toy, including the best one Freedman, 1965
Threat and compliance Freedman, 1965
But…Do we know our attitudes? • There are times when our attitudes are unclear or unknown • Novel issues or events • Jukebox theory of emotion • Can we feel dissonance if we don’t know what our conflicting attitude even is?
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory • Self-perception works like social perception. Namely, people come to understand themselves and their attitudes the same way that they come to understand others—by observing behavior • To the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, we are in the shoes of an observer • These evaluations are not conscious—they are quick inferences • We answer the question of our attitude externally, by observing our behavior • Attitude “change” is not real change. It is a dispassionate inference process
Two-factor theory of emotion • Different emotions are distinguished not by their physiological reactions, but instead by the cognitive interpretation for the reactions • Physiological arousal is the same across emotions, but the strength of the arousal determines emotional intensity • The content of the emotion is determined by the causal attribution for the emotion Physiology + Cognition = Emotion Schacter & Singer, 1962
Misattribution of arousal • Two paradigms • 1. Misattributing irrelevant arousal to an emotional stimulus, thus intensifying one’s emotional reaction • 2. Misattributing arousal due to an emotional stimulus to an irrelevant source, thus diminishing one’s emotional reaction
Love on a bridge • Males were approached by an attractive female experimenter after having crossed either a scary bridge or a non-scary control bridge • They were asked to complete the TAT, then were given her phone number “in case they have any later questions” about the study Dutton & Aron, 1974
Love on a bridge Data: Amount of sexual imagery in their TAT responses, as coded by independent judges, and the percentage of of males who called her to ask her out Dutton & Aron, 1974
Heat produces arousal Mean # of players hit by pitches (HBP) in games played at different temperatures
Misattributing anxiety • Participants were told they were being bombarded with “subliminal noise” • Some told this noise would arouse them • Some told this noise would relax them • Some told this noise would have no effect • DM: number of speech dysfluencies when reading a speech into a camera Olson, 1988
Misattributing anxiety Olson, 1988
Attitude change? • Both cognitive dissonance and self-perception result in a match between attitude and behavior • Dissonance results in attitude change • Self-perception results in attitude creation • How do they both exist? DO they both exist?
Reconsider: Dissonance in monkeys • Capuchin monkeys were tested to see whether they showed equal preferences between red, green, and blue M&Ms • Choice #1: • Choice #2: Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007
Self-perception uniquely explains… • Foot-in-the-door • 1. People look at the fact that they agreed to comply to a small request (with no strong incentive to do so), then… • 2. They infer that they are the kind of person who cares about that particular cause (or the kind of person who agrees to pro-social requests, in general), and… • 3. They are more likely to agree to larger requests
Self-perception uniquely explains… • The overjustification effect • Undermining intrinsic motivation by using overly sufficient rewards • Self-perception explanation: just as an outside observer would, we assume we have less interest in activities performed as a means to some outside end (or because of some outside constraints), rather than as an end in themselves
Dissonance theory uniquely explains… • Misattribution of dissonance motivation Attitude toward target issue Alleged drug effect Zanna & Cooper, 1974
Dissonance theory uniquely explains… • Arousal and attitude change Attitude toward target issue Actual drug taken Cooper et al., 1978
Toward a resolution • Dissonance processes occur when clearly-held attitudes are strongly discrepant with behavior • Self-perception processes occur when attitudes are unclear or weak, or when behavior is not very discrepant from the attitude. Self-perception processes are particularly likely to be important in the realm of attitude formation
Summary • At times, a person’s behavior and attitudes may conflict • Attitudes change to align with the person’s behavior • Other times, a person acts without an underlying attitude • They will assume their attitude matches their behavior • The circumstances under which these attitude change processes occur are systematic and predictable • Next time: How can people be persuaded?