Leon Festinger created the cognitive dissonance theory as an attempt to explain why people desire to have consistency between their behaviors and actions. Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state people feel when they find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold (Festinger, 1957; as cited in Griffin, 2009). Thus, people are motivated to change either their behavior or their belief when feelings of dissonance arise. Dissonance is reduced using three mental strategies. Selective exposure is the strategy used before a decision is made. The premise of this strategy is to avoid information that is likely to increase dissonance. The second …show more content…
The difference between condition one and three is that condition three allowed the participants to self-affirm after finding out their verdict was in disagreement with the other group members. Festinger argues that the lack of choice adds consonant cognitions which reduce the overall amount of dissonance that otherwise would be experienced (Festinger, 1957, 1958; as cited in Matz & Woods, 2005). Additionally, the opportunity to self-affirm strengthens self-worth and thereby reduces the dissonance created when people’s actions threaten their personal integrity (Simon, Greenberg, & Brehm, 1995; as cited in Matz & Woods, 2005). Thus, Matz and Woods hypothesize that dissonance will be reduced by the lack of choice and the opportunity to self-affirm. The results show low levels of discomfort in the lack of choice and self-affirmation conditions, providing an explanation of the kinds of strategies people use to reduce dissonance. Study three introduces an interpersonal strategy introduced by Festinger: changing one’s own attitude to align with others’ opinions (Festinger, 1957; as cited in Matz & Woods, 2005). Building off of Festinger’s idea of changing one’s attitude three conditions are used in this study. The three strategies used are: (a) changing one’s own attitudes to agree with others in the group, (b) influencing others to change their opinion, and (c) joining a different, attitudinally congenial group. The end results show
In this part of the assignment the author will explain the contribution of contrasting psychological theories to the understanding of two specific behaviours
In reading "Mistakes were Made but Not by me," multiple accounts are given of traits exhibited by humans that are displayed subconsciously. The authors, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, begin by defining these traits and give readers the actual terminology to these characteristics. With various examples being provided to the reading audience they are then able to make a clear correlation between the behaviors displayed and how they may impact not only themselves but others around them. "Mistakes were Made but Not by me" has a theme which is centralized around the two key facets which are cognitive dissonance and self- justification.
Sometimes the greatest test of a theory is its longevity. Over time, some theories will be disproved, some will be modified, and some will become the basis for a whole new group of theories. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance has stood up to challenge for over forty years, and is considered by many to be the single most important theory of social psychology. Though there have been modifications to the theory after many recreations and simulations of the original 1957 experiment, few have been able to really disqualify Festinger’s findings. It would be safe to say that many people don’t even have a full grasp of the incredible
Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith (1959) were interested in the cognitive dissonance, which can influence a person decision to choose one action or thought over another. The researchers were also interested in forced compliance, where authority can force individuals to say or act in a way that is conflicting to one’s own private opinion, whereas, the individual's attitude is altered through persuasion and authority. “Force” was operationally defined as the amount of reward offered for lying and cognitive dissonance experienced from the participant’s rated enjoyment of the tasks. Therefore, the researchers investigated if cognitive dissonance could be created through forced compliance behavior. Furthermore, Festinger and Carlsmith hypothesized
Pool and Schwegler proposed, in 2007, three distinctions among motives for norm conformity: 1) acknowledging accuracy, 2) acknowledging self-related motives, and 3) acknowledging other-related motives. The assumption was when motivation was accuracy, individuals comply with norms because they believe others’ behavior provides adaptive cues for success. Self-related motivation occurs because social identity adopted by conforming to the behavior and the implications of the conformity produces a positive self-evaluation. Other-related conformation motivation stems from concern with others and the
Cognitive dissonance is the internal state that arises when either an attitude and behavior or two attitudes conflict. The resulting psychological discomfort remains until subjects can reach consonance between the two. They reach consonance by changing an attitude, rationalizing a behavior, or undervaluing the importance of the discrepant attitude. Balcetis & Dunning (2007) investigated whether cognitive dissonance influenced subjects’ visual perception of natural environments. In two judgment tasks, the researchers manipulated the degree to which subjects felt that they had freely chosen to participate in an aversive task. Those in the first study donned a Carmen Miranda costume and walked the length of a school courtyard, while subjects in the second study used a skateboard to push themselves uphill. High-choice subjects experienced more dissonance than did their low-choice and control condition counterparts. In the
Do attitudes predict behaviour? It is not easy to find the correct answer to this question. The relationship between attitudes and behaviour is one of the most controversial topics in social psychology. This essay explores whether attitudes can predict behaviours using two of theories of behaviour change: Cognitive Dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) and Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1965, 1967).
The words Cognitive Dissonance were fascinatingly interesting; therefore more research went into the origin of these two words. Both words are Middle English, which was the English in use from 12th to 15th centuries and both used in the 15th century [ (Merriam-Webster, 2011) ]. Cognitive is an adjective meaning, there is physical activity involving the mind; be it: thinking, reasoning or remembering. Dissonance is a noun meaning, when there is a tug-of- war between one’s actions and one’s mind [ (Merriam-Webster, 2011) ].This paper will explore that tug-of-war of the mind (conscious) and actions (subconscious) and how one can and will justify behavior that a direct dissension from his or her values, beliefs, attitudes and
how we feel if we do something we don’t like or want to do. Around college campus you see many students smoking and they are around an educational environment. They know that smoking causes cancer but they still smoke. When people smoke that’s their behavior and they know that smoking cause’s cancer is cognition. Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony or dissonance (Mcleod, 2016). College campuses have become a place where students and teachers have to think twice before they speak. Our speech can be offensive to some students from different cultural backgrounds. Lukianoff and Haidt, authors of The Atlantic, argue we live in a world full of potential offenses.
In the 1950s, Leon Festinger had come up with this theory of Cognitive Dissonance when a cult leader had persuaded his followers to believe that life on earth was going to end, and that those who were believers would be rescued by aliens. When this did not occur, they rationalized their beliefs by instead coming to the conclusion that aliens, rather, had saved the entire world. Cognitive Dissonance occurs when we hold a strong belief about something and then do something else that contradicts that belief. Look at a person who smokes cigarettes, but knows that the nicotine and all that goes inside one cigarette are bad. The tension they feel is “dissonance,” and to ease that tension they can do one of three things: change their behavior, justify their behavior by changing their conflicting thoughts, or justify their behavior by adding on new thoughts. This paper will use research articles that were previously written, to explain the relationship between dissonance and moral/non-moral
We get cognitively dissonant when our attitudes and behaviors are challenged. When something you expect is not correlated to what is occurring, it creates an uncomfortable state that we need to resolve what perception is being challenged. We contour in multiple solutions to find stability for a realistic interpretation. As selective creatures, we cognitively avoid dissonance; the
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is a model of attitude-behavior relations which suggests that human behavior can be reduced to rational assessments on the probable costs and benefits of a given action based on how one's peers view the action (Perloff, 2014, p. 90). The essential idea is that the agent deliberately weighs the social boon or penalty that comes from the action against the agent's instinctive desire, or lack thereof, to execute said action. The operative component of this theory is that this deliberation is conscious and not subconscious—we humans actively place a great conscious emphasis on how our actions are perceived by others.
she is a jerk, but we cannot be sure whether there is an emergency as taking his pregnant wife to the hospital or is in hurry to catch a flight. Cognitive dissonance is the procedure we use to justify our experiences so that they are meaningful to us. A classical example of cognitive dissonance is one of the most famous Aesopian myths the story of the fox and the sour grapes. The fox, however diligent, was unable to reach the grapes.
cause that individual to change overall attitudes toward an object. An alternative to Rosenberg's theory is Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. While Rosenberg's theory deals with affect and cognition, Festinger's theory examines consistency among cognitive elements or beliefs about oneself, behavior, or environment. Dissonance occurs when elements are logically inconsistent or psychologically inconsistent because of cultural mores, specific opinions deviating from more encompassing opinions, or information or experiences that are contrary to previous information or experiences. Dissonance motivates the individual to reduce the dissonance and return to consonance. When faced with dissonance, the individual seeks to avoid situations or information that may increase dissonance.
side from being testable through experiments such as the mentioned above, cognitive dissonance theory can predict future events, which is a criteria of a good theory according to Griffin (p. 25), by helping to explain human behavior. “Social psychologists have been trying for many years to predict the conditions under which attitudes and opinions are changed...first major breakthrough in this area came [from] Leon Festinger” (Chapanis, 1964). Objective theorist aim for reality, and when they measure and report their experiments, they prefer to use numerical terms rather than linguistic terms (Griffin, 215, p.28). The most eye grabbing criteria of any theory is simplicity. “No matter how complex the social situation, Festinger assumes that it is possible to represent the meaning which the situation has for an individual by a series of elementary cognitions—statements that an individual might make describing his knowledge, opinions or beliefs“ (Chapanis, 1964).