Psychology and Society: Week 4
Cognitive Dissonance theory:
- Predicts that undergoing an unpleasant experience beforehand will influence how
our attitudes towards doing a specific activity afterwards
- Persuade ourselves that outcome of activity isn’t as bad as previous bad experience
- Might persuade ourselves that its quite enjoyable
- Occurs due to cognitive dissonance
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959):
- Research questions: can ppt’s ratings of the boring task be determined by how much
the ppts were paid to convince student the task was fun?
- Ppts asked to complete very boring task for 30 mins
- Asked to take 12 spools and put them on a tray then take them off the tray and
repeat this process for 30 mins
- Ppts then split to 3 groups
- 2 of which were asked to persuade a student to take part in the study whilst being
paid either $1 or $20
- The third group (control) were not paid not asked to convince student
- All 3 groups were asked to rate task enjoyment, scientific importance and willingness
to participate again
Ratings for enjoying the task:
- Control group: neural (-0.45)
- $1 group: task was quite enjoyable (+1.35)
- $20 group: less enjoyable than $1 group (-0.05)
Ratings for how much they learnt:
- No significant differences between groups
Scientific importance:
- $1 group rated task with more importance than 2 other groups
Willingness to participate again:
- Control and $20 group less willing to participate compared to $1 group
- Those ppts paid less ($1) reported to form more positive attitudes toward boring
task
- Due to experiencing cognitive dissonance
- Arises when we become aware that we have two or more incompatible/unbalanced
beliefs or cognitions
- In study incompatible beliefs are task was boring, but had to convince student task
was fun (incompatible)
Cognitive dissonance:
- Where cognitions are inconsistent, this leads to psychological discomfort (cognitive
dissonance)
- People strive to be consistent n their beliefs/cognitions
- But when person is aware of inconsistency person feels physical uncomfortable
, Psychology and Society: Week 4
- Lack of equilibrium in cognition- creates state of negative affect
- Negative affective state motivates us to restore state of cognitive harmony
(consonance)
Dissonance reduction strategies:
Festinger (1957)
1. Add consonant cognitions
- E.g. $20 group ppts able to attribute dissonant cognition to payment (sufficient
justifications for telling student task was fun)
- Ppts in $1 struggled to convince themselves they did it for the money as amount of
money was an insufficient sum (couldn’t justify lying to student)
2. Remove dissonant cognitions
- Replace one inconsistent cognition with a more consistent cognition
- Group $1 removed cognition that task was boring and replace it with cognition that
task was actually fun
- Remove cognitive dissonance by changing attitudes to task so it is now in line with
behaviour
3. Reduce importance of dissonant cognition
Cognitive Dissonance theory:
- Predicts that undergoing an unpleasant experience beforehand will influence how
our attitudes towards doing a specific activity afterwards
- Persuade ourselves that outcome of activity isn’t as bad as previous bad experience
- Might persuade ourselves that its quite enjoyable
- Occurs due to cognitive dissonance
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959):
- Research questions: can ppt’s ratings of the boring task be determined by how much
the ppts were paid to convince student the task was fun?
- Ppts asked to complete very boring task for 30 mins
- Asked to take 12 spools and put them on a tray then take them off the tray and
repeat this process for 30 mins
- Ppts then split to 3 groups
- 2 of which were asked to persuade a student to take part in the study whilst being
paid either $1 or $20
- The third group (control) were not paid not asked to convince student
- All 3 groups were asked to rate task enjoyment, scientific importance and willingness
to participate again
Ratings for enjoying the task:
- Control group: neural (-0.45)
- $1 group: task was quite enjoyable (+1.35)
- $20 group: less enjoyable than $1 group (-0.05)
Ratings for how much they learnt:
- No significant differences between groups
Scientific importance:
- $1 group rated task with more importance than 2 other groups
Willingness to participate again:
- Control and $20 group less willing to participate compared to $1 group
- Those ppts paid less ($1) reported to form more positive attitudes toward boring
task
- Due to experiencing cognitive dissonance
- Arises when we become aware that we have two or more incompatible/unbalanced
beliefs or cognitions
- In study incompatible beliefs are task was boring, but had to convince student task
was fun (incompatible)
Cognitive dissonance:
- Where cognitions are inconsistent, this leads to psychological discomfort (cognitive
dissonance)
- People strive to be consistent n their beliefs/cognitions
- But when person is aware of inconsistency person feels physical uncomfortable
, Psychology and Society: Week 4
- Lack of equilibrium in cognition- creates state of negative affect
- Negative affective state motivates us to restore state of cognitive harmony
(consonance)
Dissonance reduction strategies:
Festinger (1957)
1. Add consonant cognitions
- E.g. $20 group ppts able to attribute dissonant cognition to payment (sufficient
justifications for telling student task was fun)
- Ppts in $1 struggled to convince themselves they did it for the money as amount of
money was an insufficient sum (couldn’t justify lying to student)
2. Remove dissonant cognitions
- Replace one inconsistent cognition with a more consistent cognition
- Group $1 removed cognition that task was boring and replace it with cognition that
task was actually fun
- Remove cognitive dissonance by changing attitudes to task so it is now in line with
behaviour
3. Reduce importance of dissonant cognition
