Transcript
Page 1: Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive Dissonance

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Page 2: Cognitive Dissonance

Persuasion - Cognitive Dissonance Theory

1 For example, a person who is addicted to smoking cigarettes but

also suspects it could be detrimental to his health suffers from cognitive

dissonance.

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Page 3: Cognitive Dissonance

Persuasion - Cognitive Dissonance Theory

1 The most famous example of how Cognitive Dissonance can be used for persuasion comes from Festinger and

Carlsmith’s 1959 experiment in which participants were asked to

complete a very dull task for an hour

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Page 4: Cognitive Dissonance

Interpersonal communication - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 The theory of cognitive dissonance, part of the Cybernetic Tradition, explains how humans are

consistency seekers and attempt to reduce their dissonance, or discomfort, in new

situations.Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press. The theory was developed in the 1950s by Leon Festinger.Donsbach,

Wolfgang (2008). Cognitive Dissonance Theory. The International Encyclopedia of

Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing.

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Page 5: Cognitive Dissonance

Interpersonal communication - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 For this reason, cognitive dissonance is considered a drive state that

encourages motivation to achieve consonance and reduce dissonance.

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Page 6: Cognitive Dissonance

Interpersonal communication - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 An example of cognitive dissonance would be if someone holds the belief that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important, but they don’t regularly work out or eat healthy, they may

experience dissonance between their beliefs and their actions

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Page 7: Cognitive Dissonance

Choice-supportive bias - Relation to cognitive dissonance

1 The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce Cognitive dissonance|dissonance.

Choice-supportive bias is potentially related to the aspect of cognitive dissonance

explored by Jack Brehm (1956) as postdecisional dissonance. Within the

context of cognitive dissonance, choice-supportive bias would be seen as reducing the conflict between I prefer X and I have

committed to Y.https://store.theartofservice.com/the-cognitive-dissonance-toolkit.html

Page 8: Cognitive Dissonance

Persuade - Cognitive Dissonance Theory

1 For example, a person who is addicted to smoking cigarettes but

also suspects it could be detrimental to his health suffers from cognitive

dissonance.

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Page 9: Cognitive Dissonance

Persuade - Cognitive Dissonance Theory

1 The most famous example of how Cognitive Dissonance can be used for persuasion comes from Festinger and

Carlsmith’s 1959 experiment in which participants were asked to

complete a very dull task for an hour

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Page 10: Cognitive Dissonance

Motivation - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 Suggested by Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance occurs when an individual experiences some degree

of discomfort resulting from an inconsistency between two

cognitions: their views on the world around them, and their own personal

feelings and actions

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Page 11: Cognitive Dissonance

Motivation - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 While not a theory of motivation, per se, the theory of cognitive

dissonance proposes that people have a drive theory|motivational

drive to reduce dissonance

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Cognitive dissonance

1 Cognitive dissonance

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Cognitive dissonance

1 Leon Festinger's 'theory of cognitive dissonance' focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When

inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals largely

become psychologically distressed. His basic hypotheses are listed

below:

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Page 14: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Magnitude of dissonance

1 The pressure to reduce cognitive dissonance is a function of the magnitude of said

dissonance.

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Page 15: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Reducing cognitive dissonance

1 Cognitive dissonance theory is founded on the assumption that individuals seek

consistency between their expectations and their reality. Because of this, people

engage in a process called dissonance reduction to bring their cognitions and actions in line with one another. This

creation of uniformity allows for a lessening of psychological tension and distress.

According to Festinger, dissonance reduction can be achieved in three ways:

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Page 16: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Theory and research

1 Most of the research on cognitive dissonance takes the form of one of four

major paradigms. Important research generated by the theory has been

concerned with the consequences of exposure to information inconsistent with a prior belief, what happens after individuals act in ways that are inconsistent with their

prior attitudes, what happens after individuals make decisions, and the effects

of effort expenditure.https://store.theartofservice.com/the-cognitive-dissonance-toolkit.html

Page 17: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Belief disconfirmation paradigm

1 If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, the dissonance can result in

restoring consonance through misperception, rejection or refutation of the information,

seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade

others.Harmon-Jones, Eddie, A Cognitive Dissonance Theory Perspective on

Persuasion, in The Persuasion Handbook: Developments in Theory and Practice, James

Price Dillard, Michael Pfau, eds

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Page 18: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Belief disconfirmation paradigm

1 They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in

vain? Most members chose to believe something less dissonant to resolve

reality not meeting their expectations: they believed that the aliens had given Earth a second chance, and the group

was now empowered to spread the word that earth-spoiling must stop

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Cognitive dissonance - Induced-compliance paradigm

1 A 2012 study using a version of the forbidden toy paradigm showed that

hearing music reduces the development of cognitive dissonance

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Page 20: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Free-choice paradigm

1 This can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance

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Cognitive dissonance - The Fox and the Grapes

1 A classic illustration of cognitive dissonance is expressed in the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop (ca

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Page 22: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Other related phenomena

1 Cognitive dissonance has also been demonstrated to occur when people seek to:

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Cognitive dissonance - Other related phenomena

1 There are other ways that cognitive dissonance is involved in shaping our

views about people, as well as our own identities (as discussed more in

the sections below)

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Page 24: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Applications of research

1 In addition to explaining certain counter-intuitive human behaviour, the theory of cognitive dissonance

has practical applications in several fields.

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Page 25: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Education

1 Creating and resolving cognitive dissonance can have a powerful

impact on students' motivation for learning.Aronson, E

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Cognitive dissonance - Education

1 Psychologists have incorporated cognitive dissonance into models of basic processes of learning, notably

constructivism (learning theory)|constructivist models

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Page 27: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Education

1 Meta-analysis|Meta-analytic methods suggest that interventions that provoke cognitive dissonance to achieve directed conceptual change

have been demonstrated across numerous studies to significantly increase learning in science and

reading.

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Page 28: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Therapy

1 Cognitive dissonance: 50

years of a classic theory

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Page 29: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Therapy

1 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(85)90012-5 Cognitive

dissonance and psychotherapy: The role of effort justification in inducing weight loss.] Journal of Experimental

Social Psychology, 21, 149 –160.

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Page 30: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Promoting healthy and pro-social behavior

1 Other studies suggest that cognitive dissonance can also be used to

encourage individuals to engage in prosocial behaviour under various

contexts such as campaigning against littering,Fried, C

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Page 31: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Marketing

1 Research and understanding of cognitive dissonance in consumers

reveals potential for developing marketing practices.

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Page 32: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Marketing

1 Cognitive dissonance is also useful to explain and manage post-purchase

concerns. If a consumer feels that an alternate purchase would have been better it is likely he will not buy the product again. To counter this marketers have to convince

the buyer constantly that the product satisfies their need and thereby help to

reduce his cognitive dissonance and ensure repurchase of the same brand in the future.

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Page 33: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Social engineering

1 Exploitation of weaknesses caused by inducing cognitive dissonance in

targets is one of the techniques used by perpetrators.

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Page 34: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Challenges and alternative theories

1 While cognitive dissonance theory has been utilized in experiments and is generally (although not entirely)

accepted by those in the psychology field, there are alternative theories

that account for human attitudes and behaviors.

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Page 35: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Self-perception theory (Bem)

1 Daryl Bem was an early critic of cognitive dissonance theory

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Cognitive dissonance - Self-perception theory (Bem)

1 [http://dbem.ws/SP%20Theory%20Cognitive%20Dissonance.pdf

Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena.]

Psychological Review, 74(3), 183–200.

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Cognitive dissonance - Self-perception theory (Bem)

1 This provides support for cognitive dissonance theory and makes it

unlikely that self-perception by itself can account for all the laboratory

findings.

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Page 38: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Self-perception theory (Bem)

1 Cognitive dissonance: Private ratiocination or public spectacle?

American Psychologist, 26(8), 685–695

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Page 39: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Averse consequences vs. inconsistency (Cooper Fazio)

1 [http://www.socialemotiveneuroscience.org/pubs/hj_etal96.pdf Evidence that the production of aversive consequences is not necessary to create cognitive dissonance.] Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 5–16.

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Page 40: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Free-choice paradigm criticism (Chen et al.)

1 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1011879108 Neural correlates of cognitive dissonance and choice-

induced preference change.] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 107(51), 22014-

22019.Sharot, T., Velasquez, C

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Page 41: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Neuroscience findings

1 [http://www.researchgate.net/publication/

26817210_Neural_activity_predicts_attitude_change_in_cognitive_dissona

nce/file/3deec51b8bf291652a.pdf Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance.]

Nature Neuroscience, 12(11), 1469–1474.

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Page 42: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Neuroscience findings

1 [http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/Egan%20Santos%20Bloom

%20-%20origins%20cog%20diss%20-%20Psy%20Sci%202007.pdf

The origins of cognitive dissonance: Evidence from children and monkeys] Psychological Science, 18(11), 978-

983.

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Page 43: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Modeling in neural networks

1 Neural network models of cognition have provided the necessary

framework to integrate the empirical research done on cognitive

dissonance and attitudes into one model of explanation of attitude formation and change.Read, S.J.,

Vanman, E.J., Miller L.C

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Page 44: Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance - Modeling in neural networks

1 Various neural network models have been developed to predict how

cognitive dissonance will influence an individual's attitude and behavior.

These include:

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Page 45: Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger - Cognitive dissonance

1 Festinger's seminal 1957 work integrated existing research

literature on influence and social communication under his theory of

cognitive dissonance.Festinger, 1957 The theory was motivated by a study

of rumors immediately following a severe earthquake in India in 1934

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Page 46: Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger - Cognitive dissonance

1 Carlsmith published their classic cognitive dissonance experiment in 1959.Festinger Carlsmith, 1959 In

the experiment, subjects were asked to perform an hour of boring and

monotonous tasks (i.e., repeatedly filling and emptying a tray with 12

spools and turning 48 square pegs in a board clockwise)

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Page 47: Cognitive Dissonance

Human subject research - Cognitive Dissonance

1 2007 Cognitive Dissonance, Fifty Years of a Classic Theory, SAGE

Publications In 1959, Festinger and Carlsmith devised a situation in

which participants would undergo excessively tedious and monotonous

tasks

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Page 48: Cognitive Dissonance

Rationalization (making excuses) - Cognitive dissonance

1 A rather different, but perhaps complementary, approach to rationalization comes from cognitive dissonance. 'In 1957.

Leon Festinger...argued that when people become aware that their attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs (cognitions) are inconsistent with one another, this realization brings with it an

uncomfortable state of tension called cognitive dissonance '.E. R. Smith and D. M. Mackie, Social Psychology (Hove 2007) p.

277-8

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The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Cognitive dissonance

1 Those who experience cognitive dissonance become either very

flexible and agnostic or very rigid and schizophrenic

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Elliot Aronson - Cognitive dissonance

1 A theory of cognitive dissonance

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Page 51: Cognitive Dissonance

Buyer's remorse - Cognitive dissonance

1 The phenomenon of buyer’s remorse has been generally associated with

the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance, a state of psychological

discomfort when at least two elements of cognition are in

opposition, and which motivates the person to appease it by changing how they think about the situation

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Page 52: Cognitive Dissonance

Buyer's remorse - Cognitive dissonance

1 Low rewards matched with these three conditions will most likely result

in buyer’s remorse via cognitive dissonance

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Buyer's remorse - Cognitive dissonance

1 In this extension of cognitive dissonance, the duality of

satisfaction and intention are separate phenomena within buyer’s

remorse.

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Page 54: Cognitive Dissonance

Ben Franklin effect - Effect as an example of cognitive dissonance

1 This perception of Franklin has been cited as an example within cognitive dissonance theory, which says that

people change their attitudes or behavior to resolve tensions, or

dissonance, between their thoughts, attitudes, and actions

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Page 55: Cognitive Dissonance

Self-justification - Cognitive dissonance: the engine that drives self-justification

1 The need to justify our actions and decisions, especially the ones inconsistent with our beliefs,

comes from the unpleasant feeling called cognitive dissonance.Festinger, L. (1957). A

theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cognitive dissonance

is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two inconsistent cognitions. For example, smoking will shorten the life which I wish to live for as long as possible and yet I

smoke three packs a day.

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Page 56: Cognitive Dissonance

System justification - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 One of the most popular and well-known social psychological theories, cognitive dissonance|

cognitive dissonance theory explains that people have a need to maintain cognitive

consistency in order to retain a positive self-image. System justification theory builds off the cognitive dissonance framework, in that it posits

people will justify a social system in order to retain a positive image of that social system,

which in turn could actually cause more conflict and dissonance within some people.

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Attitude change - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 Cooper Fazio's (1984) have also added that cognitive dissonance does not arise from any simple

cognitive inconsistency, but rather results from freely chosen behavior

that may bring about negative consequences.Cooper J, Fazio RH

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Page 58: Cognitive Dissonance

Attitude change - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 Thus, attitude change is achieved when individuals experience feelings

of uneasiness or guilt due to cognitive dissonance, and actively

reduce the dissonance through changing their attitude, beliefs, or

behavior relating in order to achieve consistency with the inconsistent

cognitions.

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Page 59: Cognitive Dissonance

Selective exposure theory - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 From a motivational account, the cognitive dissonance theory suggests that decision makers systematically

prefer supporting information in order to reduce the aversive

motivational state of dissonance

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Selective exposure theory - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 2) When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the

person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance (Festinger, 1957).Festinger, L. (1957) A Theory

of Cognitive Dissonance, p. 3

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Selective exposure theory - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 Cognitive dissonance also occurs when people feel an attachment to

and responsibility for a decision, position or behavior

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Selective exposure theory - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance p

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Selective exposure theory - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 The reduction in cognitive dissonance following a decision can

be achieved by selectively looking for decision-consonant information and avoiding contradictory information

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Page 64: Cognitive Dissonance

Persuaded - Cognitive dissonance theory

1 For example, a person who is addicted to smoking cigarettes but

also suspects it could be detrimental to his health suffers from cognitive

dissonance.

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