Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The Key Points:

• People seek consistency in their lives.
• People are sensitive to contradictions and inconsistencies.
• Dissonance (discomfort, guilt, doubt) fosters attitude change.

The Rules of Consistency

People Expect Consistency: “My behavior is consistent with my self- concept”

Inconsistencies Create Dissonance
 -- Uncomfortable and tense experiences
 -- Stress-like physiology
 -- If dissonance was a pill, would you buy it?

Dissonance fosters the desire for consistency
   --  Dissonance can be reduced by changing one’s perception of the relevant behavior .
 --  Dissonance can be reduced by changing perception of one’s self.

Doing Dissonance

Planning Is Important

Get and Hold Internal Attribution
 -- Free Choice
 -- No Rewards
 -- No External Excuse (e.g., external cause or blame)

Cause Negative Inconsistency
 -- Get a behavioral commitment.
      The person(s) should actually do the inconsistency (the inconsistent behavior)
 -- Let the person(s) do the work.
      Don't you criticize the person’s "stupidity."

Focus on Behavior, not Self Concept
-- Let attitude change toward Behavior be your Goal
-- Avoid direct attacks on Self Concept

Implications
Worse Is Best: more inconsistency, more dissonance, more change
Interesting Explanation for Counter-Intuitive Behaviors:
-- Initiation, Military boot camp, Collegel
-- Abusive Relationships
-- Relatively Small Advertising Effects (Politics)
Internal and External Attribution
Consequences of Failed Persuasion

Social Influence

Definition of an Attitude
Attitude = one's evaluative orientation toward a person, thing, idea, etc.

• Do you like Shredded Wheat?
• Will you vote for Al Gore for president?
• Do you prefer lecture course or seminars?
• What's your favorite Friday evening activity?
• Is Seinfeld funny?

•  Often studied as changing people's attitudes
•  Goal is usually to change their behavior
•  Attitude-behavior link too often is weak
•  Communication focuses on noncoercive verbal influence
•  Most real situations are partly coercive
•  How would you define coercion? Voluntary?
•  Think about choice within constraints

Key Point:  attitude change (persuasion) is mediated by judgmental processes and effects.  Put differently, persuasion occurs at the end of the process where a person understands a message then compares the position it advocates to the person's position on that issue.

A person's position on an issue is dependent on:

• the person's most preferred position (his/her anchor point)
• the person's judgment of the various alternatives (spread across their latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment)
• the person's level of ego-involvement with the issue.

 Levels of attitudinal statements
1. Most acceptable to me: A "best guess."
2. Acceptable to me: The set of these attitudinal statements comprise my Latitude of Acceptance (LoA)
3. Whatever (Lattitude of Indifference or Noncommitment)
4. Unacceptable to me: The set of these attitudinal statements comprise my Latitude of Rejection (LoR)
5. Most unacceptable to me

 Mental representation of attitudes
Social Judgment Theory says:

• Not just a single point: "This is where I am."
• Need to know range of acceptable options.
• Need to know what is objectionable.

Implications for Influence

• Messages in LoA seen as closer to your X than they may be--easy to nestle in with them
• Messages in LoR seen as farther from your X than they may be--no felt need to seriously consider these messages
• Adjust our attitude according to where messages falls In LoA attitude moves toward message
• In LoR attitude moves away from message

• How much does this attitude matter to you?
• How important is it to you that you be right?
• How much is your identity tied up in the concept?
• Think about how identity and attitudes go together.

• How does being certain affect your attitude latitudes?
• For today I'll assume certainty = short LoA
• According to Social Judgment Theory can only influence within LoA
• If that's true, high certainty people are less subject to influence.

• What if the attitude object is yourself?
• Self-Esteem is the attitude you have toward yourself.
• What about other self-judgments?
• What about neutral judgments?
• Prefer blues or reds?
• Quiet or rowdy?

Key Point: The strength and durability of attitude change depends upon the extent to which people people think about (elaborate on) the contents of persuasive communication.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model . . .
is an approach to understanding the persuasion process which illustrates the decision-making path to belief, attitude, and behavior change.

Belief and Attitude Change May Take One of Two Routes

• The Central Route to persuasion is when the receiver has high-involvement information processing-- whether the person ponders the content and logic of message.
• Central route leads to more enduring attitude change.
• The Peripheral Route to persuasion is when the receiver has low-involvement information processing-- persuasion depends on nonmessage factors.

• The receiver attends more carefully to the message being received and compares it to his or her own attitudinal position.
• Likely generates a number of cognitive responses to the communication.
• Central Cues refer to ideas and supporting data that bear directly upon the quality of the arguments developed in the message.

• Cognitive responses are much less likely to occur, because the receiver is not carefully considering the pros and cons of the issue.
• Peripheral persuasion cues include such factors as the attractiveness and expertise of the source, the mere number of the arguments presented, and the positive or negative stimuli that form the context within which the message was presented (e.g., pleasant music).

Two Factors
This theory proposes that human behavior is influenced by two factors:

• attitudes towards the behavior
• the influence of social environment and general subjective norms on the behavior. Social norms are determined by examples that significant others set for us and by the attitudes they convey to us.

• Behavior dynamically influences the environment and personal constructs.
• Likewise, the environment and personal characteristics affect each other and the person's behavior.
• For a person to perform a particular behavior s/he needs to know what the behavior is and know that he/she has the skills to do the behavior. Individuals learn what to expect through their own experience and through their social groups.
• Individuals act in their self interest to get likely outcomes they value.
• Individuals learn through imitating the behavior of others around them.
• Individuals learn through reinforcements and rewards they receive from their behavior.