Chapter 6: Cognitive Dissonance

1. Chapter 6: Cognitive Dissonance

2. Irrationality in decision making: sunk costs

3. The tennis elbow problem • Imagine you enjoy playing tennis. One day, on the court you develop tennis elbow. It is extremely painful to play. Your doctor tells you that the pain will continue for about a year. Estimate the number of times you will play tennis in the next 6 months. • Imagine you have paid $400 (nonrefundable) to join a tennis club for 6 months. During the first week of your membership, you develop tennis elbow. It is extremely painful to play. Your doctor tells you that the pain will continue for about a year. Estimate the number of times you will play tennis in the next 6 months.

4. Previous results from a large-scale study (N = 287) Difference significant at p < .001 5.9 4.2 Paid $400 fee no fee

5. Other potential examples of sunk costs • Waiting for the elevator, trains, etc • Tickets and blizzards • Wars, other armed conflicts? (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq) • These latter two cases—not as clear-cut

6. Traditional (normative) models of decision making: Choices should be driven by future consequences, not past expenditures • All previous examples, which are “sunk cost” problems, appear to violate that principle. • Definition of “sunk cost” problems: choices appear to be driven by past, irrecoverable expenditures • Traditional models of human motivation and decision making cannot easily explain such decisions.

7. You and a companion plan to go skiing at a resort. You each have paid 100 dollars for lift tickets and rental. When you arrive, the conditions are horrible—it’s cold, icy, and even the best lifts are not operating because of the wind. In addition, you both feel lousy physically and out of sorts psychologically. Your companion turns to you and says, “It’s too bad that the money is not refundable, we’d have a much better time back home, relaxing in front of the fire. But I can’t afford to waste 100 dollars.” You agree. But you also both agree that it’s unlikely that you will have a better time struggling with the bad conditions on the slopes, compared to being inside. What do you do? Stay and ski, or go home?

8. Paid 100 dollars for tickets and equipment (decrease in net assets by $100) Give up and go home Decision? Stay and ski Staying at home feels aversive, because of the sense that you have “wasted” the 100 dollars. However, the past expenditure is irrelevant to your decision, because it is a constant in both cases. Better day at home (minus 100 dollars) Lousy day skiing (minus 100 dollars)

9. Paid 50 cents for tickets and equipment (decrease in net assets by 50 cents) Give up and go home Decision? Stay and ski Lousy day skiing (minus 50 cents) Better day at home (minus 50 cents)

10. Paid 100 dollars for very expensive meal (and waiter brings you three times as much food as you would normally eat) (decrease in net assets by $100) Eat the amount you usually do Decision? Eat the entire portion Decrease dining pleasure, and now you feel fat (minus 100 dollars) Increased dining pleasure (and no need to go on a diet) (minus 100 dollars)

11. Cognitive Dissonance:Theoretical background

12. Models of humanmotivation: • Classical conditioning • Instrumental conditioning • Homeostasis models

13. Psychological Imbalance Metabolic Imbalance Aversive state of arousal (hunger) Efforts to reduce arousal Regain consistency Homeostasis Aversive state of arousal (dissonance)

14. Dissonance theory can potentially explain sunk costs (Red arrows represent behavior that could potentially trigger dissonance.) pre-existing cognition contemplated behavior Paid great deal of money to ski Don’t ski? Waited 2 minutes for elevator Take stairs instead? Spent X billion in Iraq already Pull out troops?

15. Initiation rites: Aronson & Mills (1959) • Three screening conditions • Control (e.g. chair, table, sad, book) • Mild (e.g. prostitute, virgin) • Extreme (obscene words--sorry, I can’t put these up!) • All participants then listen to sample tape of discussion group • Discussion is horribly boring! (pre-tested) • Dependent variable: expressed liking for the discussion group and desire to join

16. Initiation (cost) High (---) None (0) Initial evaluation of group (-) Initial evaluation of group (-) + Don’t join Don’t join Join Join STRONG dissonance

17. Alternate explanations of Aronson & Mills (1959)? Gerard & Mathewson (1966 )

18. UCS (shock) UCR (pain) CS (group)

19. Festinger & Carlsmith (1957) Control group Two additional conditions • Participants paid $1.00, or $20.00 to tell lie to incoming participant • DV: all participants express OWN enjoyment of task

20. Dependent variable: liking for task $1.00 control $20

21. Subsequent behavior: “told other participant that I liked task” Initial attitude: “I didn’t enjoy task” Sufficient justification ($20) Insufficient justification ($1) low dissonance higher dissonance Minimal attitude change Attitude change

22. Practical applications of dissonance theory:(e.g. The condom study: Aronson, Fried, & Stone, 1991) • Participants compose set of arguments about safe-sex in private vs. public • Complete survey indicating past difficulty in using condoms (control: no questionnaire) Greatest short and long term condom use Contexts of arguments: Private public yes * survey: no

23. Necessary conditions for dissonance to arise: Behavior must be: • be perceived as freely chosen • have foreseeable, negative consequences • viewed by others • Also: must assume that people think of themselves as good decision makers.

24. Post-decisional dissonance • Suppose you are having a tough time choosing between two alternatives. • Choice X (x+, x+, x+, x-, x-, x-) • Choice Y (y+, y+ y+, y-, y-, y-) • Suppose you choose x • All positive elements of y, and all negative elements of x, can produce dissonance • Brehm (1956)

25. evidence that arousal is directly mediating attitude change? • Direct self report measures: Devine, 1998; Eliot & Devine, 1994 • Physiological data—Croyle & Cooper (1983)--GSR –galvanic skin response • Misattribution studies….

26. Misattribution paradigm(e.g. Zanna & Cooper (1974) • Pill expectations • arouse • none • relax • counter-attitudinal essay • DV: attitude change Degree of attitude change relax none arouse Expectations about pill

27. On the Larger Influence of Dissonance Theory • Two core assumptions throughout all of psychology: • need for consistency • People are careful and accurate monitors of their own internal states • Homeostasis model dominant force • lingering influence of Freud • intra-personal processes emphasized

28. Interesting phenomena associated with dissonance effects • The disgusting grasshopper study (Zimbardo et al. 1965) • Ss are asked to eat a grasshopper by a friend or an enemy • Which group reported greater liking for this tasty morsel? • The Ben Franklin effect • Want to get someone to like you? • Have them do a favor for you! • Hating our victims because they are victims

29. “On the Nature of Scientific Revolutions”(Thomas Kuhn) • bedrock assumptions of an established theory or “world views ”challenged Nicolai Copernicus Charles Darwin Sigmund Freud

30. Social psychology experiences its own paradigm shift: • By early 1970’s some bedrock assumptions in social psychology are challenged: • Homeostasis model incorrect? • Maybe human being aren’t motivated by consistency after all. • Maybe we aren’t so good at knowing our own feelings. • Emergence of an “information processing” view

31. Self perception theory (again)

32. “Inconsistency, [dissonance theorists] try to tell us, motivates behavior and attitude change. But I don’t believe it. At least not very much. My own suspicion is that inconsistency is our most enduring cognitive commonplace. That is, I suspect for most people most of the time…inconsistency just sits there.” Bem (1970)

33. Dissonance theory YES A  B YES Tension reducers Self-perception theory NO B A NO Information processors People good at assessing own internal states through introspection? Assumptions about relation between attitudes (A) and behavior (B) Drive for consistency? Basic view of people as ….

34. Reinterpretation of classic studies in dissonance paradigm • Small vs. large incentives for writing counter-attitudinal essays • Outside observers and self in similar position, says Bem • Festinger and Carlsmith (1957)

35. Resolution of Debate: Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper (1977) • Both theories are correct, but apply under different “boundary” conditions • Dissonance theory: • Initial attitude is strong, and person acts in ways clearly inconsistent with it • “hot” processes mediate (tension reduction) • Self-perception • Initial attitude is weak, OR person acts in ways not radically inconsistent with attitude • “cold” processes mediate (logical inference)

36. Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977

37. Essays written in these latitudes trigger dissonance But self perception processes apply here Latitude of acceptance Latitude of rejection Latitude of rejection 0% tuition hike 20% tuition hike Initial attitude

38. Fazio et al. 1977:Methodology Initial assessment of attitude Assigned to write essay in latitude of acceptance vs. rejection (all under high choice) Participants’ expectations about room: “tense” vs. no expectations DV: attitude change after writing essay

39. “Tense” Degree of attitude change No expectations Latitude of rejection Latitude of acceptance SELF PERCEPTION DISSONANCE

40. Summary • Two processes • Dissonance • Attitude change; “hot”; homeostasis • Self perception • Attitude formation; “cold”; information processing