lecture 3 - attitudes and rationalisation Flashcards
predicting attitudes from behaviour
-behaviour can powerfully influence _____
attitudes
-people tend to bring their attitudes in line with their actions
what do cognitive consistency theories suggest
that the impact of behaviour on attitudes reflects the powerful tendency we have to justify or rationalise our behaviour and to minimise any inconsistencies between our attitudes and actions
cognitive dissonance theory
(festinger - (1957))
-theory that inconsistencies among a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions cause an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency
-theory states that our minds go through a process of confusion ad logical conflict called cognitive dissonance when faced with new information that conflicts with existing information. we aim to resolve this to return to a state of cognitive equilibrium
-eg smoking vs health
cognitive dissonance can occur due to:
-inconsistency between two cognitions
-inconsistency between our cognitions and our behaviour
-this theory has inspired a tremendous amount of research and a greater understanding of psychological conflict and rationalisation
why can hard decisions cause feelings of dissonance?
because a hard decision means that the rejected alternative must have some desirable features, and the chosen alternative must have some undesirable features, which creates inconsistency and lead to dissonance
once a decision is made people will exert ____ ______ to reduce the dissonance by rationalising their decisions
mental effort
-eg feeling more confident about holiday destination
-however research shows that the process of rationalisation can start even before making a decision, people anticipate the future and try to minimise or eliminate dissonance altogether
what is effort justification
-give examples
-the tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time , effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
-this sweet lemons rationalisation can be seen in many contexts
-pet owners exaggerating the pleasure they get from their pets to offset the negative aspects of owning one
-parents exaggerating the pleasure of having children to offset the negative aspects of parenting
study of female undergraduates
-effor justification
An early study where female undergraduates were made to go through a mild or severe initiation to join a discussion group, only to find out the discussion was boring and uninteresting
-results showed that participants in the severe initatiation group rated the discusion more highly , to reduce dissonance
what is induced (forced) compliance
-subtly compelling people to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs , attitudes, or values, in order to elicit dissonance, and therefore a change in their original views
an example of induced compliance
-Festinger Carlsmith 1959
-participants are asked to lie about the experimenting being interesting or boring for a small amount of money or a larger amount of money
-$1 was not enough to justify the lie, thus rationalise thebehaviour by changing the attitude about the task
what constitutes inconsistency?
-what makes dissonance arise more
-elliot aronson 1969
-example
-he argues that inconsistency will arouse dissonance if it challenges a persons core sense of self
-also dissonance is more likely to occur when a persons actions call into question their rationality, morality or worthiness
eg- expending great effort to join a boring group calls into question our wisdom and rationality; telling another student that a tedious task is interesting challenges our integrity
when is dissonance more likely to occur
-dissonance is more likely to occur when a persons actions call into question their rationality, morality or worthiness
-dissonance may also be more likely to occur if the behaviour was freely chosen, not sufficiently justified, had negative consequences, and the negative consequences were foreseeable
free choice experiment
linder et al 1967
-university students were offered either 0.50dollars or 2.50 dollars to write an essay in favour of state law banning communists from speaking on college campuses (linder et al 1967)
-half participants had freedom to agree (or decline) to write such an essay
-in the free choice group : the standard dissonance effect was obtained
-those paid 0.50 changed their attitude more than those who paid 2.50
insufficient justification
linder et al exp
-if a persons behaviour is justified by the existing incentives, even behaviour that is dramatically in conflict with the persons beliefs and values will not produce dissonance -or rationalisations that arise to combat it
ppts who paid 2,50 (about 20 today) for writing an essay that was inconsistent with their true beliefs felt no pressure to change their attitudes because their behaviour was psychologically justified by the large cash payment
-thos who paid only 0.50 (about 4 today) had no such justification and thus felt the full weight of their behavioural inconsistency
negative consequences and dissonance
-is dissonance more likely to occur when there are consequences
Festinger and Carlsmith ( 1959)
-people experience dissonance only when their behaviour results in harm of some sort
-festinger and carlsmith experiment that asked ppts to lie
-this study found that when their were no negative consequences, such as deception, there was no dissonance effect
