Download cognitive dissonance

Social Psychology
Why does the same person act differently in
different situations?
Module 74
Social Psychology
The branch of psychology that studies
how people think, feel, and behave in
social situations
Two Basic Areas of Social Psychology:
1. Social cognition - study of the mental
processes people use to make sense of other
people
2. Social influence - study of the effect of
situational factors and other people on an
individual’s behavior
Themes of Social Psychology
1. We construct our social reality
2. Our social intuitions can be wrong
3. Our behavior is shaped by social
influences, our attitudes, our
personality, and our biology
4. Social psychology is practical
Attribution:
Explaining the Causes of Behavior
Attribution Theory
• People tend to give a causal explanation for
someone’s behavior, often by crediting either
the situation or the person’s disposition
Effects of Attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error
• Explains how we view behaviors of OTHERS
• The tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s
behavior, to give too much weight to personality and not
enough to situational variables
• People tend to blame or credit the person more than the
situation.
• It is common in individualistic cultures
Actor-Observer Bias
• Explains how we view our OWN behavior
• Attribute personality causes of behavior when observing
someone else’s behavior
• Attribute situational causes when evaluating our own
behavior (when we’re the actor)
• We tend to judge a person on their actions we see whether
these are a true reflections of that person or not.
• Why?
– hypothesis 1:
• we know our behavior changes from situation to situation, but we don’t
know this about others
– hypothesis 2:
• when we see others perform an action, we concentrate on actor, not situation
-- when we perform an action, we see environment, not person
– See the Active Psych Demo for more info on this.
Self-Serving Bias
• Tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own
behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to
external, situational causes
– Individualistic Cultures do this.
• Self-handicapping – person creates a preliminary excuse
they can fall back on if they do poorly
– Scared you won’t do well on test so stay up late and tell everyone
you didn’t study so you have an excuse if you don’t do as well as
you hope.
Self-Effacing Bias
• Modesty bias - involves blaming
failure on internal, personal factors,
while attributing success to external,
situational factors
– Collectivist cultures do this.
– Less likely to commit the fundamental
attribution error
– More likely to attribute the causes of
another person’s behavior to external,
situational factors rather than to
internal, personal
Cross-Cultural Differences
• Western culture
• Some Eastern cultures
– fate in charge of destiny
– more attributions to
situation
0.70
United States
Attributions to internal
disposition
– people are in charge
of own destinies
– more attributions to
personality
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
India
0.20
0
8
11
15
Adult
Age (years)
Attitudes
What is an attitude?
– predisposition to evaluate some people, groups, or issues in
a particular way
– can be negative or positive
– Has three components
• Cognitive—thoughts about given topic or situation
• Affective—feelings or emotions about topic
• Behavioral—your actions regarding the topic or situation
Components of Attitudes
• An attitude is a positive or negative
evaluation of an object, person, or idea
Attitudes Affecting Actions
• Many studies suggest a person’s attitudes do NOT
match their actions
HOWEVER…
• Attitudes can predict behavior if:
– Outside influences are minimal
– People are aware of their attitudes
– Attitude is relevant to behavior
Actions Affecting Attitudes
• Can our actions change our attitudes? YES
– Persuasion Techniques:
• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
• Peripheral route
• Central route
– Role playing
– Cognitive dissonance
PERSUASION
The deliberate attempt to influence the attitudes
or behavior of another person in a situation in
which that person has some freedom of choice
2 Forms of Persuasion
1. Peripheral Route – people make snap
judgments based on incidental cues
(celebrity endorsements, music, images)
2. Central Route – offers evidence and
arguments to trigger favorable views.
– Works best when you’re involved in the
issue
Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon
• Ask for something small at first, then hit customer with
larger request later
• Small request has paved the way to compliance with the
larger request
– Used in brainwashing
• Cognitive dissonance results if person has already
granted a request for one thing, then refuses to give the
larger item
• “Can I go the movies with Jim? Can I sleep over at
Jim’s house?”
Four-Walls Technique
• Question customer in such a way that
gets answers consistent with the idea that
they need to own object
– Once you say “Yes” to a string of questions hard to say
to know to buying something.
• Feeling of cognitive dissonance results if
person chooses not to buy this thing that
they “need”
Low-Ball Technique
• Persuader gets you to commit to a low-ball offer
they have no intention of keeping.
• After you commit, they later tell you can’t do it for
that price.
• Since you have already committed, it is hard to say
no to the new higher price demand.
The Reciprocity Norm
and Compliance
We feel obliged to return favors, even those
we did not want in the first place
– opposite of foot-in-the-door
– salesperson gives something to customer with idea
that they will feel compelled to give something
back (buying the product)
– even if person did not wish for favor in the first
place
– “I’ll let you copy off my AP Psych notes if I can copy off
your notes for Physics.”
Other Persuasive Techniques
• Door-in-the-Face – Make a large request you
know they will say no to and then follow with
smaller request.
– “Can I have a car for my birthday? How about a cell
phone?”
• That’s-Not-All – Make an offer but before it can
be accepted you throw in something extra to
make it even more attractive
• Rule of Commitment - Once you make a public
commitment, it applies pressure to you to stay
consistent with your earlier commitment.
Defense against
Persuasion
Techniques
• Sleep on it—don’t act on something right away
• Play devil’s advocate—think of all the reasons you
shouldn’t buy the product or comply with the
request
• Pay attention to your gut feelings—if you feel
pressured, you probably are
Cognitive Dissonance
(Leon Festinger)
1919-1989
• The theory that people act to reduce the
discomfort (dissonance) they feel when their
thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent with
their actions
• When our attitudes are inconsistent with our
actions, we change our attitudes to reduce
the tension/dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance
• Unpleasant state of psychological tension or arousal
that occurs when two thoughts or perceptions are
inconsistent
• When Attitudes and behaviors are in conflict
– It is uncomfortable for us
– We seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by the
inconsistency
– Easiest way to do this is change our views/attitudes to match our
actions
How Cognitive Dissonance
Leads to Attitude Change
When your behavior conflicts with your attitudes, an uncomfortable
state of tension is produced. However, if you can rationalize or
explain your behavior, the conflict (and the tension) is eliminated
or avoided. If you can’t explain your behavior, you may change
your attitude so that it is in harmony with your behavior.
Insufficient-justification effect
• Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
– gave subjects a boring task, then asked subjects to lie to the next
subject and say the experiment was exciting
– paid ½ the subjects $1, other ½ $20
– then asked subjects to rate boringness of task
– $1 group rated the task as far more fun than the $20 group
– each group needed a justification for lying
• $20 group had an external justification of money
• since $1 isn’t very much money, $1 group said task was fun
The less coerced and more responsible we feel for a troubling
act, the more dissonance/tension we feel & the more pressure
we feel to change our attitudes to justify the act.
Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms
• Firming up an attitude to be consistent
with an action (Festinger’s Studies)
– once we’ve made a choice to do something,
lingering doubts about our actions would cause
dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside
– “People come to believe and love the things they
have to suffer for.”
• Avoiding dissonant information
– we attend to information in support of our
existing views, rather than information that
doesn’t support them
• Create an extraordinary excuse
Cognitive Dissonance: A Review
– If you have a good excuse for a behavior that
does not go with your attitude then you avoid
dissonance.
– If you do not have a good excuse for a behavior
that is against your attitude you must change
your attitude to fit your behavior.
“Fake it ‘til you make it”
• What we do we become.
• If your attitude is poor, act positive and
before long your attitude will match
your actions. 
Role Playing
What we do, we gradually become
• Playing a role can influence or change one’s attitude
• Zimbardo’s Prison Study
– College students played the role of guard or
prisoner in a simulated prison.
– The study was ended after just 6 days when the
guards became too aggressive and cruel.
– Want to learn more about this famous study? See
the Stanford Prison Experiment Online Slide
Show or watch Stanford Prison Experiment video
(8 minutes)
– Modern issues of Prison Abuse – see CNN
Report on Juvenile Jails and Abuse – 3 min.
Dr. Phillip
Zimbardo
Exit Slip
• On a half sheet of paper:
– 1. Give an example of a time you committed the
fundamental attribution error.
– 2. Give an example of a time you felt cognitive
dissonance and changed your actions or attitudes to
compensate.