The Origins of Cognitive Dissonance: Evidence From Children and Monkeys

1. The Origins of Cognitive Dissonance: Evidence From Children and Monkeys Emily Slezak Morgan Wilbanks

2. Introduction • Cognitive Dissonance: • “a psychological state in which an individual’s cognitions – beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors – are at odds” • Interpreted as a negative feeling • Motivated to resolve the contradiction • Still up for debate: developmental or evolutionary basis?

3. Past Studies • Aronson & Carlsmith (1963) - Children • Lewis (1964) - Rats • Friedrich & Zentall (2004) - Birds

4. Basic Methods • Combined Comparative-Developmental Approach • Free-Choice Paradigm • Re-rating vs. Two Phase • Hypothesis: • If dissonance is experienced in phase one, then attitude towards unchosen item will change in phase two

5. Child Study Methods • Subjects: • Thirty 4-year-olds • Tested in pre-schools or in the laboratory • Procedure • Assessed child’s preference for stickers with the smiley-face rating scale • Children competency for scale tested (See any issues with this scale?)

6. Child Study Methods • Procedure continued • Experimenter identified at least two triads of stickers the child liked equally • Each sticker within a triad was labeled A, B, or C • Phase one: choice between A & B • Phase two: choice between unchosen option in phase one and C • Choice vs. No choice conditions • Using at least two triads per child, the data was averaged across trials

7. Capuchin Study Methods • Subjects: • Six Capuchin Monkeys • Four adults and two adolescents (one subject group vs. two?) • Procedure • Experimenter determined differential preference for M&Ms based on retrieval time • Tested 20 times in two experimental sessions

8. Capuchin Study Methods • Procedure continued • Equally preferred triads of M&M colors were identified • Choice and no choice conditions

9. Results • Children Study • “Children in the choice condition were more likely to prefer option C (63.0%) than were children in the no-choice condition (47.2%)” • evidence of resolving cognitive dissonance • Capuchin Study • “The monkeys chose option C more in the choice condition (60.0%) than in the no-choice condition (38.3%)” • The monkeys chose the unreceived option over the novel option more often in the no-choice condition

11. Discussion • Evidence for Cognitive Dissonance in human adults and children as well as non-human primates • Current study isolates reason for attitude change to be attributed to cognitive dissonance • The only difference being an intentional choice • Evidence for innate over developmental • Since 4-year-olds have some experience with cognitive dissonance, further studies with infants would be preferred

12. Discussion • Core-knowledge mechanism • Possibly core aspects of cognition give rise to cognitive dissonance • Automatic response • Either mechanistically simpler than thought or assume less cognitively sophisticated individuals (children and monkeys) are more complex

13. Egan, Bloom, Santos (2010) • Follow-up Study • Introduction of blind choice to eliminate prior preferences too fine-grained for measurement • Results • Both children and monkeys chose the third object, consistent with the original study • Indicating that they devalued the rejected object • Pattern did not occur when the subjects did not have a choice • Study gives evidence that there was not a prior preference, but that the choice itself induced preference