PSY 2700 Social Psychology
Lecture Overheads
Chapter 6 - Attitudes
Third Part (7/13/04)
I. Attitudes and Behavior - (See the first part of Ch 6 lecture)
II. Communication and Persuasion - (See the second part of Ch 6 lecture)
III. Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Reducing Cognitive Dissonance - (See the second part of Ch 6 lecture)
Festinger and Carlsmith Study
- Subjects perform a rather boring task
- Afterwards, subjects are asked to tell a new subject (confederate) that the experiment is fun and interesting
- Subjects paid either $1 or $20 for efforts
- Subjects rate their own enjoyment of the task
- Findings:
- Subjects paid $1 reported the task to be more interesting than the subjects who were paid $20 to lie.
Creation and Reduction of Dissonance
- Insufficient justification:
- Freely performing a behavior that is discrepant with one's attitudes, with very little reward
- Creates cognitive dissonance
- Applies to $1 condition in F & C study
- Self-persuasion:
- Changing one's attitudes to become consistent with your own actions
- Reduces cognitive dissonance
- Applies to $1 condition in F & C study
- Insufficient deterrence:
- Refraining from a desirable behavior, even when only mild punishment is threatened
- Creates cognitive dissonance
- Leads to a denigration of the object or activity as a way of reducing dissonance
- Justifying effort -
- The greater the "cost" (effort, embarrassment, money, etc.) the more likely people are to convince themselves the behavior was worth it
- Justifying difficult decisions-
- Choosing between two desirable alternatives
- Once the choice is a made, people tend to emphasize the positive aspects of their choice, and the negative aspects of the thing they did not choose
Four Necessary Conditions
- Attitude-discrepant behavior produces an unwanted negative consequence
- Person feels personal responsibility for the unpleasant outcome
- Person had freedom of choice
- The consequences were foreseeable
- The discrepancy creates physiological arousal and tension
- Person attributes the arousal to the behavior
End of Third Part of Ch 6 lecture - Be sure to download the first and second parts as well.
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