Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals largely become psychologically distressed. His basic hypotheses are listed below:
"The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance"
"When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance"
Magnitude of dissonance
The amount of dissonance produced by two conflicting cognitions or actions (as well as the subsequent psychological distress) depends on two factors:- The importance of cognitions: The more elements that are personally valued, the greater the magnitude of the dissonant relationship will be.
- Ratio of cognitions: The proportion of dissonant to consonant elements
Cognitive dissonance theory is founded on the assumption that individuals seek consistency between their expectations and their reality. Because of this, people engage in a process called dissonance reduction to bring their cognitions and actions in line with one another. This creation of uniformity allows for a lessening of psychological tension and distress. According to Festinger, dissonance reduction can be achieved in four ways:
- 1. Change behavior/cognition
- (Ex: Stop eating the doughnut)
- 2. Justify behavior/cognition by changing the conflicting cognition
- (Ex: "I'm allowed to cheat every once in a while")
- 3. Justify behavior/cognition by adding new cognitions
- (Ex: "I'll spend 30 extra minutes at the gym to work it off")
- 4. Ignore/Deny any information that conflicts with existing beliefs
- (Ex: "I did not eat that donut. I always eat healthy.")
Belief disconfirmation paradigm
Dissonance is felt when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, the dissonance can result in restoring consonance through misperception, rejection or refutation of the information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others.Induced-compliance paradigm
A variant of the induced-compliance paradigm is the forbidden toy paradigm. An experiment by Aronson and Carlsmith in 1963 examined self-justification in children. In this experiment, children were left in a room with a variety of toys, including a highly desirable toy steam-shovel (or other toy). Upon leaving the room, the experimenter told half the children that there would be a severe punishment if they played with that particular toy and told the other half that there would be a mild punishment. All of the children in the study refrained from playing with the toy. Later, when the children were told that they could freely play with whatever toy they wanted, the ones in the mild punishment condition were less likely to play with the toy, even though the threat had been removed. The children who were only mildly threatened had to justify to themselves why they did not play with the toy. The degree of punishment by itself was not strong enough, so the children had to convince themselves that the toy was not worth playing with in order to resolve their dissonance.
A 2012 study using a version of the forbidden toy paradigm showed that hearing music reduces the development of cognitive dissonance.The researchers concluded that music may inhibit cognitions that result in dissonance reduction. Music is not the only example of an outside force lessening post-decisional dissonance; a 2010 study showed that hand-washing had a similar effect.
Free-choice paradigm
This can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance. When making a difficult decision, there are always aspects of the rejected choice that one finds appealing and these features are dissonant with choosing something else. In other words, the cognition, "I chose X" is dissonant with the cognition, "There are some things I like about Y." More recent research has found similar results in four-year-old children and capuchin monkeys.In addition to internal deliberations, the structuring of decisions among other individuals may play a role in how an individual acts. Researchers in a 2010 study examined social preferences and norms as related, in a linear manner, to wage giving among three individuals. The first participant's actions influenced the second's own wage giving. The researchers argue that inequity aversion is the paramount concern of the participants.
Effort justification paradigm
Dissonance is aroused whenever individuals voluntarily engage in an unpleasant activity to achieve some desired goal. Dissonance can be reduced by exaggerating the desirability of the goal.Washing one's hands has been shown to eliminate post-decisional dissonance, presumably because the dissonance is often caused by moral disgust (with oneself), which is related to disgust from unsanitary conditions.
Cognitive dissonance has also been demonstrated to occur when people seek to:
- Explain inexplicable feelings: When a disaster occurs in a community, irrationally fearful rumors spread in nearby communities not involved in the disaster because of the need of those who are not threatened to justify their anxieties
- Minimize regret of irrevocable choices: Bettors at a racetrack are more confident in their chosen horse just after placing the bet because they cannot change it (the bettors felt "post-decision dissonance").
- Justify behavior that opposed their views: Students judge cheating less harshly after being induced to cheat on a test.
- Align one's perceptions of a person with one's behaviour toward that person: the Ben Franklin effect refers to that statesman's observation that the act of performing a favour for a rival leads to increased positive feelings toward that individual.
- Reaffirm already held beliefs: Congeniality bias (also referred to as Confirmation Bias) refers to how people read or access information that affirms their already established opinions, rather than referencing material that contradicts them. For example, a person who is politically conservative might only read newspapers and watch news commentary that is from conservative news sources. This bias appears to be particularly apparent when faced with deeply held beliefs, i.e., when a person has 'high commitment' to their attitudes.
Therapy
The general effectiveness of psychotherapy and psychological intervention has been explained in part through cognitive dissonance theory. Some social psychologists have argued that the act of freely choosing a specific therapy, together with the effort and money invested by the client in order to continue to engage in the chosen therapy, positively influences the effectiveness of therapy.Promoting healthy and pro-social behavior
It has also been demonstrated that cognitive dissonance can be used to promote behaviours such as increased condom use. Other studies suggest that cognitive dissonance can also be used to encourage individuals to engage in prosocial behaviour under various contexts such as campaigning against littering, reducing prejudice to racial minorities, and compliance with anti-speeding campaigns. The theory can also be used to explain reasons for donating to charity.Balance theory ("P-O-X" Theory) (Heider)
Fritz Heider proposed a motivational theory of attitude change that functions on the idea that humans are driven to establish and maintain psychological balance. This drive is known as the consistency motive—the urge to maintain one's values and beliefs over time. According to balance theory there are three things interaction: (1) you (P) (2) another person (O) (3) an element (X). These are each positioned at one point of a triangle and share two relations:- Unit relations – things and people that belong together based on similarity, proximity, fate, etc.
- Sentiment relations – evaluations of people and things (liking, disliking)
No comments:
Post a Comment