Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Question 1

Who is considered to be the father of social psychology?

Answer 1

Leon Festinger.

Question 2

What are cognitions?

Answer 2

A thought, piece of knowledge, emotion, belief, value, attitude, etc.

Question 3

What are the three types of cognition?

Answer 3

Irrelevant, consonant, and dissonant.

Question 4

What are irrelevant cognitions?

Answer 4

Cognitions that have nothing to do with one another. E.g., liking rainbows has nothing to do with knowing the cost of an iPhone.

Question 5

What are consonant cognitions?

Answer 5

When two cognitions go together, we like them. E.g., I believe in civil rights, and I joined a civil rights group.

Question 6

What are dissonant cognitions?

Answer 6

Cognitions that contradict or do not fit with one another. E.g., I believe in civil rights, but I hang out with racists.

Question 7

What is dissonance?

Answer 7

An aversive state that people are motivated to reduce.

Question 8

What is the basic model of dissonance?

Answer 8

Cognitions not consistent -> experience dissonance -> motivated to reduce dissonance -> make efforts to reduce dissonance -> consistency (consonance restored).

Question 9

What dictates the strength of the dissonance?

Answer 9

The importance of the cognition.

Question 10

How do people reduce dissonance?

Answer 10

Add consonant cognitions, change the attitude, change the behaviour, trivialize the cognitions.

Question 11

What is the induced compliance paradigm?

Answer 11

The knob turning experiment.

• Control disliked the experiment.
• Those given $20 (significant amount) to convince someone it was fun didn’t enjoy the task
• Those given $1 (insignificant amount) to convince someone it was fun enjoyed the task.

Question 12

Explain the results of the induced compliance paradigm.

Answer 12

In the $20 condition, people had an external reason for why they lied about how fun it was. In the $1 condition, they didn’t have any legitimate external reasoning, so this creates dissonance - in response they changed their attitudes.

Question 13

What conditions give rise to dissonance?

Answer 13

Perception of choice, low external justification, and commitment to the cognition.

Question 14

Do we love the things we suffer for? Or suffer for the things we love?

Answer 14

Probably both, but dissonance theory would suggest that we love the things we struggle for.

Question 15

What is effort justification?

Answer 15

The more time, money, and effort you put into something, the more you have to justify why you like something.

Question 16

What is minimal deterrence?

Answer 16

If you can get someone to stop doing something with minimal threat, then the person will think they stopped by choice - not threat.

Question 17

What study by Aronson and Carlsmith (1963) supports the minimal deterrence implication?

Answer 17

The forbidden toy experiment. Mild threats made children actually lower their preference for the toy; they stopped playing with the toy, but had no strong justification for why.

Question 18

What is an example of a real world (field study) dissonance phenomenon?

Answer 18

The Straw (1974) study with reserve officers training corp.