Dissonance motivation: Its nature,persistence, and reinstatement

This paper examines whether arousal is a necessary component of the motivation to reduce dissonance. Alternative responses to attitude-behavior inconsistency include attitude change, explaining the behavior by a consonant cognition (i.e., low choice), and attributing the dissonance-induced state to an alternative source, such as the purported side effects of an ingested “drug.” For conditions in which there are few consonant cognitions (i.e., high choice), a comparison of different “drug” conditions in which attitude change does or does not occur was expected to clarify which components of the dissonance-induced state mediate attitude change. Attitude change occurred in high choice conditions where the “drug” was described as pleasant, but not in high choice conditions where the “drug” was described as unpleasant or in a low choice condition. In addition, when the “drug” was descibed as arousing there was, if anything, more attitude change than when the “drug” was described as nonarousing. These results suggest that unpleasantness and not arousal per se is the motivating factor in dissonance reduction. The effects of the passage of time and reinstating the counterattitudinal behavior on the alternative responses to attitude-behavior inconsistency were also examined. Subjects returned 2 weeks later, stated their attitudes, recalled their original counterattitudinal essay, and again stated their attitudes. Although there was a general decrease in attitude change during this period, the pattern of attitude change remained basically the same. Attitude change following reinstatement increased from its original level only in those conditions where it had been initially attenuated through misattribution or a consonant cognition.     

Physiological arousal, dissonance, and attitude change: evidence for a dissonance-arousal link and a "don't remind me" effect

Two experiments replicated and extended research by Croyle and Cooper (1983) indicating that cognitive dissonance involves physiological arousal. In Experiment 1, subjects wrote counterattitudinal essays under conditions of high or low choice, and, to assess arousal effects owing to effort, with or without a list of arguments provided by the experimenter. In high-choice conditions only, and regardless of effort, subjects showed both arousal (heightened galvanic skin response) and attitude change. Arousal, however, did not decline following attitude change. The more effortful task (no arguments provided) produced increased arousal but not greater attitude change. In Experiment 2, the opportunity to change one's attitude following a freely chosen counterattitudinal essay was manipulated. As in Experiment 1, arousal increased following the essay but did not decline following a postessay attitude change opportunity. When subjects were not given an attitude change opportunity, however, arousal did decline. Thus, dissonance seems to create arousal, but attitude change sustains rather than reduces the arousal. It is suggested that if dissonance is a drive state, drive reduction typically may be accomplished through gradual cognitive change or forgetting.     

Perceived normative pressure and majority adolescents' implicit and explicit attitudes towards immigrants

The aim of the present study was to examine if perceived normative pressure (i.e., perception of the normative expectations of family and friends regarding one's intergroup attitudes) had a direct impact on majority youth's (N = 93) explicit attitudes and moderated the relationship between their implicit (measured with the ST-IAT) and explicit attitudes towards Russian immigrants in Finland. The results indicated that normative pressure is positively associated with the explicit attitudes of adolescents, and that the implicit attitudes of the adolescents towards immigrants surface on the explicit level only when they do not perceive a normative pressure to hold positive intergroup attitudes. More specifically, when there is no normative pressure, the explicit attitudes of youth are, at best, neutral, and reflect their implicit attitudes. In contrast, when normative pressure is perceived to be high, the level of explicit attitudes is generally more positive, and the expression of explicit attitudes is not determined by implicit attitudes. The effects of age, sex, quality of past intergroup contact experiences, and intergroup anxiety were controlled for in the analysis. The findings highlight the importance of taking normative pressure into consideration when studying socially sensitive ethnic attitudes among adolescents.     

The effect of commitment on relative left frontal cortical activity: tests of the action-based model of dissonance

The action-based model of dissonance and recent advances in neuroscience suggest that commitment to action should cause greater relative left frontal cortical activity. Two experiments were conducted in which electroencephalographic activity was recorded following commitment to action, operationalized with a perceived choice manipulation. Perceived high as compared to low choice to engage in the action, regardless of whether it was counterattitudinal or proattitudinal, caused greater relative left frontal cortical activity. Moreover, perceived high as compared to low choice caused attitudes to be more consistent with the action. These results broaden the theoretical reach of the action-based model by suggesting that similar neural and motivational processes are involved in attitudinal responses to counterattitudinal and proattitudinal commitments.     

Cognitive dissonance and self-monitoring: A matter of context?

In Study 1, high and low self-monitors wrote counterattitudinal essays. For some, we made it salient that they would be endorsing an opinion contrary to that of their peers. For others, no context was provided. Post-essay attitudes of high, relative to low, self-monitors were more consistent with essay topic after opposing peers. Post-essay attitudes of low and high self-monitors did not differ significantly in the no-context condition. In Study 2, high and low self-monitors wrote counterattitudinal essays in the context of opposing either their peers' beliefs or their own values. Post-essay attitudes of low, relative to high, self-monitors tended to conform more to their essays when they believed that they had written in opposition to their values. When writing in opposition to their peers, however, post-essay attitudes of high and low self-monitors did not differ significantly. We discuss the results in terms of the role that self-concept plays in the initiation of dissonance processesStudy 2 is based on the senior honors thesis of the second author conducted under the supervision of the first author, and both studies were supported by a Faculty Research Grant from Union College to the first author. We would like to thank Alice M. Isen, Mark Snyder, Hugh Foley, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article, and Nicole Audette, Amy Goldstein, Suzanne Shaker, and Courtney Shapiro for their assistance in collecting and analyzing data.     

Vicarious dissonance: attitude change from the inconsistency of others

Three studies support the vicarious dissonance hypothesis that individuals change their attitudes when witnessing members of important groups engage in inconsistent behavior. Study 1, in which participants observed an actor in an induced-compliance paradigm, documented that students who identified with their college supported an issue more after hearing an ingroup member make a counterattitudinal speech in favor of that issue. In Study 2, vicarious dissonance occurred even when participants did not hear a speech, and attitude change was highest when the speaker was known to disagree with the issue. Study 3 showed that speaker choice and aversive consequences moderated vicarious dissonance, and demonstrated that vicarious discomfort--the discomfort observers imagine feeling if in an actor's place--was attenuated after participants expressed their revised attitudes.     

Reexploring the connection between terror management theory and dissonance theory

Building upon suggestive earlier findings, the present study sought to test more informatively the notion that reminders of mortality can intensify efforts at dissonance reduction. Toward this end, an induced-compliance experiment was conducted in which participants were given high versus low choice to write a counterattitudinal statement regarding a boring topic under conditions of either mortality salience (MS) or uncertainty salience (control). It was predicted that although dissonance reduction (via attitude change) would be provoked in the control group, MS would significantly exacerbate this effect. These predictions were borne out empirically. The findings, obtained using the historically preeminent paradigm for assessing dissonance reduction, provide firm support for the notion that MS amplifies concerns with cognitive consistency.     

Is dissonance phenomenologically aversive?

This study examined whether dissonance is, phenomenologically, an aversive state. Experimental subjects were induced to write counterattitudinal essays under a high-choice condition. One group of subjects was led to believe that a pill, which they had just taken in the context of a separate experiment, would cause them to feel pleasantly excited. A second group was led to believe that the pill would make them feel tense. A third group was given no information about the pill's potential side effects, while a fourth group expected to have no side effects at all. In this last condition, the results yielded the usual dissonance effect: subjects stated attitudes more congruent with the essay than did subjects in a survey control condition. When subjects were given an opportunity to attribute their arousal to an arousing, but nonaversive pill (i.e., the pleasant excitement condition), this effect was unchanged. In contrast, when subjects could attribute their arousal to an aversive pill (i.e., in the tensè and the no information conditions), this effect was virtually eliminated. These results are consistent with the notion that dissonance is an aversive state and that subjects will seize, when possible, an external attribution for this state.     

Consequences of discrepant explicit and implicit attitudes: Cognitive dissonance and increased information processing

Attitudes research has shown that evaluations assessed directly (explicit attitudes) and indirectly (implicit attitudes) can diverge for many reasons. However, only recently has work begun to examine the phenomenology of experiencing discrepant explicit and implicit attitudes, and a number of important questions remain unanswered. What are the consequences of explicit-implicit attitude discrepancies on information processing? What psychological states accompany these discrepancies, and can they account for behavior? In two experiments, the current work examined whether dissonance-related discomfort results from discrepant explicit and implicit attitudes and considered its role in directing subsequent information processing. Dissonance and additional information processing were observed in experimental conditions where explicit and implicit attitudes diverged (and increased dissonance-related discomfort accounted for greater information processing; Experiment 1), but they were eliminated by a manipulation that reduced dissonance (i.e., self-affirmation; Experiment 2). The role of cognitive dissonance in explicit-implicit attitude inconsistencies and information processing is discussed.     

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.     

Implicit and explicit attitudes respond differently to increasing amounts of counterattitudinal information

This research examined the processes by which explicit and implicit attitudes changed to systematically differing levels of counterattitudinal (CA) information. Explicit attitudes changed quickly in response to relatively small amounts of CA information, reflecting rule‐based reasoning. On the other hand, implicit attitudes changed more slowly in the face of CA information, reflecting the progressive accretion of evaluation‐attitude object pairings. Thus, explicit attitudes were extremely malleable and changed quickly when CA information was presented, however, implicit attitudes revealed a slow, linear change trajectory resulting from the on‐going accrual of information about the attitude object. Implications for the processes underlying implicit and explicit attitudes are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of induced compliance on relative left frontal cortical activity: a test of the action‐based model of dissonance

The action‐based model of dissonance and recent advances in neuroscience suggest that commitment to action should cause greater relative left frontal cortical activity. An induced compliance experiment was conducted in which electroencephalographic activity was recorded following commitment to action, operationalized with a perceived choice manipulation. Perceived high as compared to low choice to engage in the counterattitudinal action caused attitudes to be more consistent with the action. Also, high choice caused greater relative left frontal cortical activity than low choice. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Framing (implicitly) matters: The role of religion in attitudes toward immigrants and Muslims in Denmark

Denmark is currently experiencing the highest immigration rate in its modern history. Population surveys indicate that negative public attitudes toward immigrants actually stem from attitudes toward their (perceived) Islamic affiliation. We used a framing paradigm to investigate the explicit and implicit attitudes of Christian and Atheist Danes toward targets framed as Muslims or as immigrants. The results showed that explicit and implicit attitudes were more negative when the target was framed as a Muslim, rather than as an immigrant. Interestingly, implicit attitudes were qualified by the participants’ religion. Specifically, analyses revealed that Christians demonstrated more negative implicit attitudes toward immigrants than Muslims. Conversely, Atheists demonstrated more negative implicit attitudes toward Muslims than Atheists. These results suggest a complex relationship between religion, and implicit and explicit prejudice. Both the religious affiliation of the perceiver and the perceived religious affiliation of the target are key factors in social perception.     

The ironic impact of intergroup apologies on intergroup attitudes: Understanding the role of perceived power for post‐apology outgroup attitudes

The present research investigates how intergroup apologies, defined as apologies between two groups, affect perceived remorse and outgroup attitudes (e.g., explicit and implicit), in the context of power asymmetries. We recruited participants from two countries that differ in perceived power: South Korea and the United States. Participants read a vignette describing a violent act committed by an outgroup member (Korean or American), with or without an intergroup apology. Participants answered questions assessing perceived remorse and explicit attitudes toward the outgroup, followed by the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Results revealed that Koreans perceived less remorse following an intergroup apology from the United States, compared to when they did not read an intergroup apology. Further, a mediated moderation analysis indicated that perceived remorse mediated the relationship between apology and explicit attitudes towards the United States. However, an analogous effect for implicit attitudes was only marginally significant. In contrast, among American participants, no effect of the apology on perceived remorse, explicit attitudes, or implicit attitudes and no evidence for a mediation was found. We discuss the implications of these effects on understanding the effectiveness of intergroup apologies between countries that differ in perceived power.     

想象接触对大学生内隐态度和外显态度的影响

本研究旨在探讨想象接触对不同民族群体内隐态度和外显态度的影响。实验1和实验2分别随机选取不同先前接触经验的汉族大学生和维吾尔族大学生进行想象接触,采用“单类内隐联想测验(SC-IAT)”和外显态度量表评估不同条件下的内隐态度和外显态度。结果表明：想象接触显著提高了不同群体对外群体的内隐态度,对外显态度影响不显著;而先前接触经验对不同群体的内隐态度影响不显著,对外显态度影响显著。研究还发现,即使是已经发生过面对面接触的个体,也可以通过想象接触来提高对外群体的内隐态度,进一步拓展了想象接触在整个群际接触体系中地位和作用。     

What do you think about ink? An examination of implicit and explicit attitudes toward tattooed individuals

Tattoos are increasing in popularity, yet minimal research has examined implicit attitudes or the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes toward tattooed individuals. Seventy-seven online participants (Mage = 36.09, 52% women, 78% white, 26% tattooed) completed measures assessing implicit and explicit attitudes toward tattooed individuals. Results revealed evidence of negative implicit attitudes, which were associated with less perceived warmth, competence, and negative explicit evaluations. However, implicit attitudes were not correlated with measures of disgust or social distance. In addition, age predicted implicit prejudice, but other individual difference measures—such as personal tattoo possession, political identity, and internal/external motivations to respond without prejudice—did not. These findings are discussed in terms of how attitudes toward tattooed individuals may be multifaceted, and research may benefit from measuring implicit and explicit attitudes.     

Influencing Republicans’ and Democrats’ attitudes toward Obamacare: Effects of imagined vicarious cognitive dissonance on political attitudes

The field of experimental social psychology is appropriately interested in using novel theoretical approaches to implement change in the social world. In the current study, we extended cognitive dissonance theory by creating a new framework of social influence: imagined vicarious dissonance. We used the framework to influence attitudes on an important and controversial political attitude: U.S. citizens’ support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 36 Republicans and 84 Democrats were asked to imagine fellow Republicans and Democrats, respectively, making attitude discrepant statements under high and low choice conditions about support for the ACA. The data showed that vicarious dissonance, established by imagining a group member make a counterattitudinal speech under high-choice conditions (as compared to low-choice conditions), resulted in greater support for the Act by Republicans and marginally diminished support by Democrats. The results suggest a promising role for the application of vicarious dissonance theory to relevant societal issues and for further understanding the relationship of dissonance and people’s identification with their social groups.     

Selective exposure to information and cognitive dissonance

Despite numerous attempts, the selective exposure prediction of Festinger's (A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1957) theory of cognitive dissonance has not been consistently demonstrated. In previous studies, this failure can be attributed to design deficiencies, and other related problems. The present study manipulated dissonance by having subjects write a counterattitudinal essay under conditions of high or low choice. Information in the form of pamphlets and discussion groups was offered to the subjects such that they could choose information that was consonant and dissonant with the decision to write the essay. The information was offered either before or after an attitude measure on the essay topic, as the attitude measure could also be a source of dissonance reduction. The results indicate that the high choice manipulation yielded greater attitude change than the low-choice manipulation. High-choice subjects desired consonant information more and dissonant information less than did low-choice subjects. This effect was found for both measures of information desire (pamphlets and discussion groups). Low-choice subjects who received the attitude questionnaire before the information measures wanted information more than if offered the information before the attitude questionnaire, implying a sensitizing effect produced by the attitude questionnaire for the low-choice subjects. The various effects are discussed as providing support for predictions from Festinger's dissonance theory.     

Secure and defensive high self-esteem

Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensiveness. In Studies 2 and 3, the correspondence between implicit and explicit SE predicted defensive behavior (in-group bias in Study 2 and dissonance reduction in Study 3), such that for high explicit-SE participants, those with relatively low implicit SE behaved more defensively. These results are consistent with the idea that high SE can be relatively secure or defensive.     

Source Credibility and Attitude Certainty: A Metacognitive Analysis of Resistance to Persuasion

Recent research (Tormala & Petty, 2002) has demonstrated that when people resist persuasion, they can perceive this resistance and become more certain of their initial attitudes. This research explores the role of source credibility in determining when this effect occurs. In two experiments, participants received a counterattitudinal persuasive message. When participants counterargued this message, they became more certain of their attitudes, but only when it came from a source with high expertise. When the message came from a source with low expertise, resisting it had no impact on attitude certainty. This effect was shown using both a traditional measure of attitude certainty (Experiment 1) and a well‐established consequence of certainty—the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions (Experiment 2). In addition, the effect was confined to high elaboration conditions, and occurred even when participants were not explicitly instructed to counterargue. These results are consistent with a metacognitive framework proposed to understand resistance to persuasion.