Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Dissonance An unpleasant physiological state of
  arousal
• Cognitive Dissonance When individuals hold
  inconsistent cognitions (or when cognitions are
  inconsistent with behavior), they experience
  dissonance and are motivated to reduce or
  eliminate that dissonance

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Five easy ways to reduce dissonance

• Change one of the inconsistent cognitions
  (attitudes)
• Change behavior or perceptions of behavior
• Add consonant cognitions
• Minimize importance of conflict
• Reduce degree of perceived choice

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Types of dissonance effects

• Insufficient Justification
• Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
• Insufficient Deterrence/Punishment
• Aronson and Carlsmith (1963)
• Justifying Difficult Decisions (Postdecisional
  Dissonance)
• Brehm (1956)
• Justification of Effort
• Aronson and Mills (1959)

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Attribution Theory

• Attribution theory is the study of how people
  explain the causes of their own and other
  people's behavior.
• Heider Personal vs. Situational attributions
• Behavior engulfs the field People prefer
  personal attributions

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Correspondence Bias

• Correspondence Bias The tendency to expect
  peoples behavior to agree with their
  dispositions
• Jones Harris (1967)
• Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz (1977)
• Gilbert Jones (1986)

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Explanations of Correspondence Bias Cognitive
processes

• Attributions are a two step process
• Characterization Infer the persons dispositions
  correspond to their behavior
• Correction Adjust your initial inference for
  situational constraint information
• Characterization is relatively automatic
  Correction is relatively effortful.
• If Correction does not occur, attributions show
  correspondence bias.

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• Cognitive busyness When your mind is occupied
  with something else, you might not have enough
  resources to think about your attributions.
• Gilbert, Pelham and Krull (1988).

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Explanations of Correspondence Bias Motivation

• The need for prediction and control increases
  personal attributions
• Learned helplessness and attributions

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Explanations of Correspondence Bias Salience

• Salience Behavior engulfs the field (Heider),
  and the most salient aspect of the perceptual
  field is likely to be viewed as having more
  causal power.
• Storms (1973)

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Attribution and Stereotyping

• Stereotypes Cognitive schemas that allow for
  easy and efficient organization of information
  about people based on their membership in certain
  groups
• Self-fulfilling prophecies People tend to behave
  in ways that confirm their own or others
  expectations