Van Veen, Krug, Schooler, and Carter (2009) investigated the neural mechanisms underlying such attitude change processes, using an experimental paradigm called induced compliance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). While inside an fMRI scanner, participants were asked to tell yet-to-be-tested participants outside the room that they enjoyed performing the boring task in the uncomfortable scanner environment. In one condition, participants were given a monetary incentive to do this, but there was no such incentive provided in the other condition. This monetary incentive was intended to prevent cognitive dissonance by giving the participant external justification for behavior that was inconsistent with his or her beliefs (saying that the task was enjoyable when it was not). On the other hand, the condition with no monetary incentive was meant to cause a discrepancy between belief and behavior, thus inducing cognitive dissonance in the subjects. According to the original theory of cognitive dissonance, the production of aversive consequences would be expected to increase the amount of dissonance produced because an aversive consequence may be an important dissonant cognition.
- The theory was based on the belief that people strive toward consistency within themselves and are driven to make changes to reduce or eliminate an inconsistency (Cooper, 2007).
- Lastly, the discrepancy reduction phase related to dissonance reduction mechanisms.
- The greater the magnitude of dissonance, the greater the pressure for the individual to reduce the dissonance (Harmon-Jones & Mills, 2019).
- After disconfirmation, for example, there was a sharp increase in the frequency with which group members decided that other people who telephoned them or visited their group were actually spacemen.
- Similarly, people might be more likely to help if aid is not so personally costly as to make them victims of injustice in the process (see Holmes, Miller, & Lerner, 2002).
The formula conveys that the greater the amount or importance of dissonant cognitions and the smaller the number or importance of consonant elements the greater the magnitude of dissonance one experiences. The tension of a dissonance can fluctuate over time and does not follow a uniform pattern (Koller & Salzberger, 2012). However, the theory proposed that higher levels of dissonance can forcefully motivate a person to promptly address the psychological discomforts, while small levels of dissonance may not be as effective in encouraging the person to take an immediate action. The minimal tensions rather build up gradually over time before they are addressed (Festinger, 1962). Rather than trying to reduce dissonance after it occurs, we may attempt to avoid dissonance through selective exposure.
Challenge current beliefs
Avoiding, delegitimizing, and limiting the impact of cognitive dissonance may result in a person not acknowledging their behavior and thus not taking steps to resolve the dissonance. The internal discomfort and tension of cognitive dissonance could contribute to stress or unhappiness. People who experience dissonance but have no way to resolve it may also feel powerless or guilty. However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance due to the discomfort it causes.
More aimed at advanced researchers in cognitive dissonance, Harmon-Jones 2019 (the second edition of Harmon-Jones and Mills 1999) is an edited volume that synthesizes modern perspectives on dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person’s behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs. It causes a feeling of discomfort that can motivate people to try to feel better. Sometimes, the ways that people resolve cognitive dissonance contribute to unhealthy behaviors or poor decisions. To deal with the feelings of discomfort then, they might find some way of rationalizing the conflicting cognition.
Cognitive Dissonance: Festinger’s Theory
Female participants were informed they would be helping out in a study funded by several manufacturers. Participants were also told that they would receive one of the products at the end of the experiment to compensate for their time and effort. When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) conducted one of the first studies examining cognitive dissonance. This can be a difficult and uncomfortable process and involves getting additional information. In that sense, the experience of cognitive dissonance is an opportunity to learn and grow, as long as we deal with it constructively and respond in a way that we choose and is beneficial. The concept of cognitive dissonance is nicely explained in this YouTube video by social psychologist Andy Luttrell. Cognitive dissonance leads to the motivation to reduce the dissonance (Festinger, 1957). The stronger the discrepancy between thoughts, the greater the motivation to reduce it (Festinger, 1957).
Introduction to Psychology
These researchers presented a series of sweet or bitter solutions to consumers who evaluated them for their intensity. Before presenting each, they gave a signal to indicate that either a bitter or sweet stimulus would be presented. In some cases the signal accurately cued the taste solution being presented, but in other cases the cue was misleading, e.g. a signal for a bitter solution was given, but a sweet solution was presented. Their results showed that sweet solutions that disconfirmed a taste expectation were rated less intense than sweet solutions that confirmed a taste expectancy. However, bitter solutions that disconfirmed an expectation were rated more intense.
- Upon leaving the room, the experimenter told half the children that there would be severe punishment if they played with the steam-shovel toy.
- Cognitive dissonance theory aims to explain the relationships between the motivation, perceptions and cognitions of an individual.
- The behaviour cannot be changed because it has already occurred; the belief, on the other hand can be changed.
- In essence, you are motivated to engage in whatever behavior is necessary to fulfill an unsatisfied drive.
- The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will increase cognitive dissonance.
- When one learns new information that challenges a deeply held belief, for example, or acts in a way that seems to undercut a favorable self-image, that person may feel motivated to somehow resolve the negative feeling that results—to restore cognitive consonance.
Cognitive dissonance theory might suggest that since votes are an expression of preference or beliefs, even the act of voting might cause someone to defend the actions of the candidate for whom they voted,[72][self-published source? ] and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater. According to this theory, deviations from homeostasis create physiological needs. These needs result in psychological drive states that direct behavior to meet the need and, ultimately, bring the system back to homeostasis. When a physiological need is not satisfied, a negative state of tension is created; when the need is satisfied, the drive to satisfy that need is reduced, and the organism returns to homeostasis. In this way, a drive can be thought of as an instinctual need that has the power to motivate behavior.
Therefore, the brain is an inference machine that attempts to actively predict and explain its sensations. The predictive dissonance account proposes that the motivation for cognitive dissonance reduction is related to an organism’s active drive for reducing prediction error. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ Moreover, it proposes that human (and perhaps other animal) brains have evolved to selectively ignore contradictory information (as proposed by dissonance theory) to prevent the overfitting of their predictive cognitive models to local and thus non-generalizing conditions.
For instance, when you are dehydrated, freezing cold, or exhausted, the appropriate biological responses are activated automatically (e.g., body fat reserves are mobilized, urine production is inhibited, you shiver, blood is shunted away from the body surface, etc.). While your body automatically responds to these survival drives, you also become motivated to correct these disturbances by eating, drinking water, cognitive dissonance treatment resting, or actively seeking or generating warmth by moving. In essence, you are motivated to engage in whatever behavior is necessary to fulfill an unsatisfied drive. One way that the body elicits this behavioral motivation is by increasing physiological arousal. Another way to make sense of what happened is to maintain the same belief about being taken away in a flying saucer but just change the date.
Action–motivation model
That is, there is mental discord related to a contradiction between one thought (in this case, knowing he did something wrong) and another (thinking that he is honest). Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved in a certain way. One solution to this truth problem would be to try to make sense of what happened by establishing some new reality. This solution would involve creating new truths that are consistent with their previous beliefs and actions.
Incentive theory argues that people are primarily extrinsically motivated—meaning that most motivations stem from extrinsic sources. Intrinsically motivated behaviors are performed because of the sense of personal satisfaction that they bring. Extrinsically motivated behaviors, on the other hand, are performed in order to receive something from others or avoid certain negative outcomes. Prevention programs based on cognitive dissonance and the use of the Internet have been widely and successfully implemented among female college models, but their use has not yet filtered down to the school setting. Cognitive Dissonance Theory has generally been used with at-risk women, and outside of the school setting.