Dissonance theory
- Created by: Hannah Jeffery
- Created on: 04-05-15 14:32
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- Cognitive Dissonance Theory
- Festinger
- Accoring to this approach an important influence on our decisions is the need for consistency between attitudes and cognitions
- Individuals are motivated the reduce dissonance by modifying this attitudes to fit their perceptions of their behaviour
- eg smokers are bombarded with messages of the danger of smoking
- their continuing to smoke will create dissonance this will be reduced by
- change of their attitude
- viewing it as an exaggeration that smoking to bad for you
- reduce the behaviour
- giving up smoking
- Adding a third cognition
- eg i intend to give up smoking once I've finished my A-levels
- change of their attitude
- their continuing to smoke will create dissonance this will be reduced by
- Festinger
- male students asked to complete an extremely dull task
- paid to inform other students waiting to complete the task that it was exciting and fun
- those paid $1
- rated it as worthwhile
- to reduce their dissonance they changed their view
- $1 not enough for lying
- those paid $20
- constant cognitions
- said it was dull and boring because they could
- no incentive to change view
- Kleinjan
- smokers decreased dissonance with justifications for smoking
- eg addiction to nicotine
- smokers decreased dissonance with justifications for smoking
- Cooper et al
- cognitive dissonance is only important if
- cognitive inconsistency provides discomfort
- the individual takes responsibility for this inconsistency
- cognitive dissonance is only important if
- Challenges behaviourist approach that actions are governed by reward and punishments
- Post decisional dissonance
- making a decision and feeling that we made the wrong choice
- can be reduced by selective exposure to subsequent information
- Knox et al asked punters how sure they were that their horse would win before and after they made a bet
- evidence of the selective exposure hypothesis
- Challenged with self perception theory
- Bem et al
- people are often unaware of their own attitudes
- we extract our attitudes from our behaviour
- eg the way we feel about a uni
- in festingers experiment those who lied after being paid $1 had belived their own lie
- will be used if
- out initial feelings are weak or unclear
- eg if we meet someone and we're not sure how we feel about them
- no appropriate if we have strong feelings about something
- out initial feelings are weak or unclear
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