Double Forced Compliance and Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Abstract

Festinger and Carlsmith's (1959) experiment has been reexamined by means of the paradigm of double forced compliance. In this paradigm, the dissonance reduction process was observed after the performance of two behaviors instead of only one as in the classical paradigms of this theory. In this experiment, French students first performed a boring task (button-turning) and then described it negatively to their peers. Because these two behaviors were related to dissonance, the total dissonance was expected to be higher among those who performed both behaviors than among those who performed only the first. The hypothesis was confirmed. The participants who described the task negatively after performing it rated it more positively than those who only performed it.     

Cognitive Discrepancy,Dissonance, and Selective Exposure

Abstract

Although cognitive dissonance is regarded as one of the most recognized causes of selective exposure [N. J. Stroud, Niche News (Oxford University Press, 2011)], the mechanism for such causation is still unclear. By inducing dissonance in a web-based experiment, this study demonstrates how cognitive dissonance relates to information preferences—the intention to seek congruent information and the intention to seek incongruent information. The findings suggest that perceived hostility with respect to one’s belief (cognitive discrepancy) can enhance the intention to seek out for attitude-consistent information. More importantly, individuals were found to have the intention to avoid counterattitudinal information, but only when they experienced some sort of psychological discomfort (dissonance). In other words, while cognitive discrepancy leads individuals to crave for confirming information, only those who encounter negative emotions are likely to employ avoidance of disconfirming information as a dissonance-reduction strategy.     

Using Cognitive Dissonance to Encourage Water Conservation1

In a field experiment on water conservation, we aroused dissonance in patrons of the campus recreation facility by making them feel hypocritical about their showering habits. Using a 2 × 2 factorial design, we manipulated subjects “‘mindfulness” that they had sometimes wasted water while showering, and then varied whether they made a “public commitment” urging other people to take shorter showers. The “hypocrisy” condition-in which subjects made the public commitment after being reminded of their past behavior-was expected to be dissonance-arousing, thereby motivating subjects to increase their efforts to conserve water. The results were consistent with this reasoning. Compared to controls, subjects in the hypocrisy condition took significantly shorter showers. Subjects who were merely reminded that they had wasted water, or who only made the public commitment, did not take shorter showers than control subjects. The findings have implications for using cognitive dissonance as means of changing behavior in applied settings, especially those in which people already support the desired goal, but their behavior is not consistent with those beliefs.     

Cognitive Dissonance and Post-Decision Attitude Change in Six Presidential Elections

Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) were analyzed. Regression estimates supported a dissonance reduction explanation of observed attitude changes. Voters, as compared to nonvoters, tended to increase the evaluative distance between candidates after an election, whereas supporters of the losing candidate were more likely than supporters of the winning candidate to decrease such evaluative distances. An additional examination of voters yielded results consistent with dissonance theory: After the election, respondents reporting favorable evaluations of both candidates (a difficult choice) tended to spread comparative candidate evaluations compared to respondents who were favorable toward only one candidate (an easy choice). The results both support and cast doubt on prior studies.     

Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Applied to School Counseling

Aspects of Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance were partially integrated with a Rogerian type of orientation to school counseling. Festinger's term “dissonance” was presented as complementary to Rogers' term “incongruence.” A number of counselor activities were derived from the two complementary orientations which, if employed, would seem to enhance the probability of a self-directed change occurring within the student. These included such activities as the school counselor attempting to: (a) provide an accepting non-threatening atmosphere; (b) assist students or counselees in developing sufficient dissonance; (c) have his counselees inform significant others (teachers, parents, or peers) of the outcomes or decisions they arrived at during the counseling process (public commitment).     

Harnessing Cognitive Dissonance to Promote Positive Attitudes Toward Older Workers in Australia

Negative stereotyping of older workers has been identified as a major factor in employment discrimination against them. A study of Australian employers' attitudes toward older workers found systematic negative stereotyping and low likelihood of hiring older workers. The current study employed a national random sample of 267 employers, and tested 3 interventions aimed at promoting positive attitudes toward older workers and increasing the likelihood of their hiring. The first intervention was in the form of a fact sheet; the second aimed at inducing cognitive dissonance; and the third was a combination of the two. The combination intervention produced promising results. Employers in this condition showed more favorable attitudes toward older workers overall, and greater preference toward hiring older workers.     

Cultural Variations in Motivation for Cognitive Consistency: Influences of Self‐Systems on Cognitive Dissonance

Are people always motivated to strive for cognitive consistency? Does culture influence a person’s motivation to maintain cognitive consistency between attitudes and actions or between preferences and choices? When and how do people in different cultures experience cognitive dissonance, engage in justification of their behavior, and use self‐affirmation? When and how are people with different models of agency motivated to maintain a preference‐choice consistency? In this paper, culturally variable self‐schemata and models of agency, independent self and agency dominant in North American culture and interdependent self and agency prevalent in Asian culture, are considered as the source of cultural variations in cognitive consistency. These culturally divergent self‐systems create variance in situations in which North Americans and Asians are motivated to maintain cognitive consistency. In this paper, related cross‐cultural research is reviewed. Some future research agenda are also discussed.     

An Experimental Test of Cognitive Dissonance Theory in the Domain of Physical Exercise

The present study examined cognitive dissonance-related attitude change in the domain of exercise. Experimental participants made a decision to perform a boring exercise task (stepping on a bench/chair) under three different conditions: a free-choice condition (n = 33, Male = 17 female = 16, Age = 14.57), under a no-choice/control condition (n = 28, Male = 15, Female = 13, Age = 14.50), and under a condition that compelled participants to practice bench/chair stepping (forced-choice condition) (n = 31, Male = 15, Female = 16, Age = 14.61). Results showed that participants in the free-choice condition reported more positive attitudes than participants in the control condition and participants in the forced-choice condition. Ancillary analysis indicated that cognitive dissonance is experienced as an aversive state, and that the amount of frustration that participants experienced immediately after the free-choice paradigm predicted attitudes.     

认知失调引起的系列次序错误记忆初探

本实验借鉴认知失调领域自由范式的思路,以系列次序为对象,研究了错误记忆在认知失调影响下的产生特点和机制。结果表明：（1）选择操作对被试的次序回忆产生了显著影响：Z（有选择一无选择）=11．036,p〈0．01;（2）在有选择条件下,接受项目的喜好程度增加（X^2（2）=13．000,P〈0．005）,拒绝项目的喜好程度降低（X^2（2）=9．250．P=0．001）;在无选择的条件下,三种位置的频次分布无显著差异,表明认知失调引发了次序错误记忆;（3）预警变量对于次序回忆的相关程度有显著影响（Z（有提示一无提示）=3．535,P〈0．01）,对于接受项目和拒绝项目的位置回忆无显著影响（接受项目：X^2（2）=0．629,P=0．730;拒绝项目：70（2）=0．180,P=0．914）,表明错误记忆是由认知失调引起,并且难以抑制。     

Some Theoretical Considerations on Attitude,Arousal and Affect during Cognitive Dissonance

This article provides a general overview of cognitive dissonance research with the induced compliance paradigm. We begin by describiang how dissonance affects individuals' attitude change and address issues related to measurement of attitude. Next, we describe the arousal component of dissonance, how it has been measured and the issues that have been raised about its nature. Finally, we explore the emotional component of dissonance and review different ways for measuring and identifying the negative affect associated to dissonance. We conclude by claiming that a more intensive study of the process of dissonance, and particularly of its arousal and emotional components, will allow a more in‐depth understanding of the mental processes involved in cognitive dissonance.     

Dissonance and abstraction: Cognitive conflict leads to higher level of construal

This study investigated the effects of cognitive conflict on abstract thinking. According to action‐identification theory, an ambiguous and unfamiliar situation might propel an individual to a more abstract mindset. Based on this premise, cognitive conflict was hypothesized to put people in an abstract mindset. The induced compliance paradigm, in which participants are asked to write a counter‐attitudinal essay under either low choice (producing little dissonance) or high choice (producing more dissonance), was employed. Results showed that an abstract mindset was in fact activated in the induced compliance paradigm, and this effect was more pronounced for participants having a more concrete mindset to begin with. The results suggest that the experience of cognitive conflict is closely related to increased abstraction.     

The Importance of Cognitive Dissonance in Understanding and Treating Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

External mechanisms and batterer behaviors have commonly been cited as to why women remain in intimate partner violence relationships. However, past research has generally minimized the focus on individual psychological elements of victims that perpetuate their commitments to abusers. The current review proposes the potential for cognitive dissonance resolution as an underlying mechanism to affect female victims’ stay/leave decisions while in domestically violent relationships. High and low levels of self-esteem differentially affect the resolution of cognitive dissonance as explained by self-consistency and self-affirmation theories. Theories of commitment including the foot-in-the-door principle, justification of effort, and the investment model are applied specifically to the arousal of dissonance in victims. The importance of taking into account the mechanisms of dissonance arousal and subsequent reduction techniques are proposed for treating this population and preventing similar relationships in the future.     

The Impact of the Antitobacco Norm on the Selected Mode of Cognitive Dissonance Reduction

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that when behavior violates an antismoking injunctive norm, dissonance is aroused, but the injunctive norm constrains how people reduce their discomfort. In Experiment 1, participants with positive or negative attitudes toward public smoking wrote an essay for or against a ban on public smoking. Whereas attitude change occurred for those whose counter‐attitudinal essay supported the antismoking norm, those whose counter‐attitudinal essay violated the antismoking norm did not change their attitudes to reduce dissonance. In Experiment 2, participants who wrote against the ban on public smoking eschewed attitude change in favor of reducing dissonance through trivialization and act rationalization. The discussion focuses on how maintaining social connections makes cognitions resistant to change when dissonance is aroused.     

Study of a Cognitive Dissonance Intervention to Address High School Students' Cheating Attitudes and Behaviors

This study examined academic dishonesty (AD) of 586 Taiwanese graduate students, the relationship between students' AD and their perceptions of AD of their peers, and their judgments regarding the seriousness of AD. Results showed that female students were more critical of AD than their male counterparts were in the areas of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification. Male students demonstrated more awareness of peer involvement in AD in the area of falsification than did female students. Master's students confessed to greater involvement in AD compared with the PhD students. Doctoral students were more judgmental with respect to unethical acts of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification.     

Dishonesty in the Classroom: The Effect of Cognitive Dissonance and the Mitigating Influence of Religious Commitment

A controlled experiment was conducted with a cohort of graduate accounting students, which involved a mild form of deception during a class ethics quiz. One of the answers to a difficult question was inadvertently revealed by a visiting scholar, which allowed students an opportunity to use the answer in order to maximise test scores and qualify for a reward. Despite an attempt to sensitize students prior to the test to the importance of moral codes of conduct, a high incidence of cheating was reported. Students who took the opportunity to cheat were more condoning of the behaviour compared to control group members and this difference in attitudes was consistent regardless of the intensity of the issue specified in the survey. The cognitive dissonance associated with the academic dishonesty is believed to reveal behavioural orientations that reflect conscious and unconscious desires to alleviate the discomfort associated with the behaviour by attempting to condone it. This inappropriate behaviour appears to attract students professing no religious faith and is significantly influenced by the reported level of religious commitment.     

To Practice What We Preach: The Use of Hypocrisy and Cognitive Dissonance to Motivate Behavior Change

When people fail to practice what they preach, their act of hypocrisy can induce cognitive dissonance and the motivation to change their behavior. The current paper examines the evidence for this assumption by reviewing and analyzing the research that has used the hypocrisy procedure to influence the performance of pro‐social behaviors related to health, the environment, and interpersonal relations. The first section looks at the evidence for the claim that hypocrisy motivates behavior change as opposed to other forms of dissonance reduction such as attitude change. We then review studies that suggest that the induction of hypocrisy exerts its greatest effect on behavior change when people publicly advocate the importance of the target course of action and are then privately reminded of their own recent personal failures to perform the target behavior. A third section discusses the limitations to the current body of work and important directions for future research. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of how the hypocrisy procedure relates to other contemporary models of behavior change.     

Creating Harmony Out of Dissonance

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that the intimate relation ship offers an opportunity for transforming self-experience and re suming individual development. By applying theories of intersubjec tivity, three levels of contextual relatedness are discussed. The first is; that of the infant and caregiver, in which the self is developed and characterological styles of relating become entrenched, and from which stem the unconscious organizing principles that become activated in significant adult relationships. The second is the context of intimate partners and suggests that mate selection is based in a mutual dovetailing of narcissistic transference. This explains how the romantic illusion is shattered when internal conflicts between main taining the selfobject tie and attempts to self-demarcate occur in the intersubjective context. The third is that of conjoint treatment, in which problems and solutions are viewed as two-person events. The therapist'S task is to facilitate the de-construction of archaically derived interpretations through mutual self-validating interactions.