When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.
Leon Festinger
In 1957 Leon Festinger published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
- CDT has had a major influence on the field of social psychology:
- “one of the most influential theories in social psychology (Harmon-Jones & Mills (2019, p. 3)
- “Cognitive dissonance theory and research dominated social psychology from the 1950s until the 1970s.” (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones (2007)
- Festinger’s original monograph postulated that:
- pairs of cognitions (elements of knowledge) can be relevant or irrelevant to each other
- If two cognitions are relevant to one another, they are either consonant or dissonant
- two elements are consonant if one follows from the other
- they are dissonant if the obverse (opposite) of one cognition follow from the other
- the existence of dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable and motivates the person to reduce the dissonance
- (dissonance reduction occasions negative reinforcement)
- the greater the magnitude of the dissonance, the greater the pressure to reduce dissonance
- dissonance can be reduced in four ways:
- 1. removing dissonant cognitions
- 2. adding new consonant cognitions
- 3. reducing the importance of dissonant cognitions
- 4. increasing the importance of consonant cognitions (Harmon-Jones & Mills (2019) note that this was not specified by Festinger in his original monograph but does logically follow from consideration of his discussion of the dissonance ratio)
- Festinger’s smoking example
- A habitual smoker learns that smoking is bad for health will experience dissonance because this knowledge is at odds with his continued smoking. He can reduce the dissonance be: 1 quitting smoking, 2. dismissing the evidence of smoking effect on health, 3. focusing on the positive effects of smoking (anxiety reduction), qualifying the effects of health risks of smoking (less dangerous than driving to work).
- Consider some of the current discussions of vaping, especially about and among adolescents. If you know any teenagers (or young adults) who vape, listen to what they say about their behavior and the recent publicity regarding health risks.
- CDT is fundamentally a theory about motivation (Elliot & Devine 1994), “Festinger (1057) theorized that persons are motivated by the unpleasant state of dissonance to engage in ‘psychological work’ so as to reduce the inconsistency, and this work will typically support the cognition most resistant to change.” (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones (2007)
- Dissonance theory has been used to explain changes in social attitudes where opinions often seem to follow behavior
- expressed view of various targets of integration during the civil rights error of the 60s
- the observations of clinical practitioners that attitudes changes often follow from (rather than precede) behavior changes
- as your text notes: “‘Saying, or doing, is believing.'” (Reeve, 2018, p. 224)
- Your text points out that dissonance theory has been used to explain behavior in dissonance-arousing situations
- choice
- choices, once made, are appreciated and rejected options depreciated, and our confidence in our choice increases after a decision is made
- insufficient justification
- new consonant beliefs often appeared to be added post hoc to our self-image to explain our behavior to others or ourselves
- effort justification
- The old comedy quip: “I wouldn’t want to belong to any group that would accept me.” reflects one facet of the dissonance view that the attractiveness of a goal/task/membership increases with the effort (difficulty) to achieve it
- new information
- What happens when prophecy fails?
- drop out of group (accommodation)
rationalize and increase belief (assimilation)
- drop out of group (accommodation)
- Dissonance theory has been used to explain changes in social attitudes where opinions often seem to follow behavior
Case studies
When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World. Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, & Stanley Schachter (1956). Dorothy Martin, receives a message from aliens that Chicago will be destroyed by a flood on December 21, 1954. A group of believers quit jobs, leave families, give away possessions and gather to be taken away to safety in a flying saucer. Festinger and colleagues infiltrate group to observe reactions to the failure of the predictions and predict subsequent efforts to enhance social support and gain new members.
Stelle, IL; founded in 1973 by the Stelle Group, anticipating cataclysmic changes predicted by Richard Kleninger for May 5th, 2000. In 1963 Kieninger, an engineer in Chicago, wrote The Ultimate Frontier using the pen name of Eklai Kueshana and reported visits from a “Brotherhood” who gave him guidance to help humankind survive enpending castrophies. He convined a group of believers to set up a self-reliant community that would have it own power, water, sewage, and communication (and eventually migrate to a Pacific island to repopulate with world). Kleninger was eventually expelled from the community and began a second community in Adelphi, Texas. Stelle has continued to exist but largely moved away from it beginning as a doomsday vision.
The world was supposed to end (again) on May 21, 2011 (or 12-21-2012, or 2024, those Mayan’s could never get their dates straight).
Issues in CDT
- the definition of “dissonance”
- Festinger (1957) used the term dissonance to refer to three different entities (Vaidis & Bran, 2019): the theory itself, the triggering situation, and the generated state.
- Vaidis and Bran (2018) recommended using three different terms to define these entities:
- the trigger: inconsistency
the evoked arousal: a cognitive dissonance state (CDS)
the theory: cognitive dissonance theory (CDT)
- the trigger: inconsistency
- the nature of the Cognitive Dissonance State
- Classical CDT requires two demonstration of two relationships:
- dissonance causes discomfort
discomfort decreases following attitude change - methodological issues and conflicting date kept this basic question from general resolution until work by Elliot & Devine (1994) demonstrated to most investigators’ satisfaction that both predictions held,
- their conclusion:
- “Gerard (1992) has described cognitive dissonance theory as ‘cognitive theory with an engine” (p. 324). In the present set of experiments we have provided direct empirical evidence that there is indeed an engine within the body of Festinger’s influential conceptualization.” (Elliot & Devine, 1994).
- dissonance causes discomfort
- but there remain considerable questions regarding the dissonance state itself
- “Concerning the nature of CDS, we still know quite little.” (Vaidis & Bran, 2019, p. 4), they point out that:
- Festinger (1957) defined cognitive dissonance as a state of psychological discomfort that motivates it regulation, and then late as a state of arousal (Lawrence & Festinger, 1962)
- other authors have defined it as a state of tension, an unpleasant feeling, a state of aversive arousal
- is it a specific state or nonspecific emotion?
- Cooper (2019) raises the question: “Why is there a dissonance drive?”, “why humans should have a drive for consistency. Normally, drives serve functions that re adaptive. The experience of hunger motivates eating and leads to survival. What function does dissonance serve that can confer it an adaptive value?” He suggests the Action-Orientation Model (Harmon-Jones, 1999) provides one possible answer: our response to the world is adaptively better without ambivalence and conflict, “Inconsistent cognitions interfere with our action tendencies and create a negative emotion, motivating us to rid ourselves of the inconsistency. We are not driven to reduce inconsistency per se, but rather driven to have an unambivalent stance toward the world to prepare us for effective action.”
- Cooper himself endorses the idea that dissonance is a learned drive, “I consider dissonance to be a secondary drive that is learned early in childhood and then becomes generalized to myriad issues that we deal with as we develop.” He presents this idea in his New Look Model (Cooper & Fazio, 1984).
- methodological questions regarding induction and assessment of the dissonance state continue
- Alternative conceptualizations
- early challenges to Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Bem’s non-motivational, cognitive processes and impression management perspectives) have been largely discarded by research confirming that dissonance is a motivated process (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007), but various alternative models have been brought forth:
- Self-consistency theory (Aronson, 1968, 1999)
- Self-affirmation (Steele, 1988)
- New Look (Cooper & Fazio, 1984)
- Action-Based Model of Dissonance (Harmon-Jones, 1999, 2000)
- Classical CDT requires two demonstration of two relationships:
- One measure of a theory’s value is its promotion of meaningful investigations and questioning, certainly by this standard the theory of cognitive dissonance has been and continues to be a very successful theory.
A view from the other side: deliberate efforts to create dissonance to further cognitive change
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy (arguably the dominant model in psychotherapy today) and Cognitive Therapy (Aaron Beck and many others) and Rational-Emotive Therapy (Albert Ellis and others) all posit that maladaptive cognitions lead to emotional and behavioral maladjustment, and that changing these cognitions lead to reduced emotional suffering and better adaptation. These approaches recognize that producing these changes is often difficult. Much of the work of therapy from these perspectives involves creative approaches to increasing the “dissonance” clients experience around their “maladaptive beliefs.”
- One strategy is using behavioral experiments to generate personal date inconsistent with the rigid and self-limiting ideas the client holds (Aaron Beck and his followers make use of this approach)
But conflicting information can be easily discounted when in conflict with “core schema” [Piaget’s assimilation]. Some cognitive therapists have focused on how to weaken old schema and strengthen new ones (Padesky, 1994), using techniques such as:- continuum ratings
- positive data logs
- historical reviews of schema
- role play recreations such as psychodrama and behavioral social skill training
- One strategy is using behavioral experiments to generate personal date inconsistent with the rigid and self-limiting ideas the client holds (Aaron Beck and his followers make use of this approach)
- One purpose (among others) of these activities is to raise questions regarding the truth status of a client’s rigid perceptions of themselves, other people, and the world (create doubt) to open the possibility of developing new, more adaptive perspectives (Piaget’s accommodation).
- Judith Beck (a clinical psychologist and daughter of CBT founder Aaron Beck) encourages focusing on what she calls “hot cognitions” [thoughts associated with abrupt changes in emotional state] and suggests that targeting change efforts at these mental events will lead to the greatest changes in a client.
- Increasing there is the recognition that the Emotion/Thought/Action cycle can be entered (and modified) at multiple points: changing behavior can lead to changes in emotions (Behavior Activation Therapy) and thoughts (the therapeutic experiments of CBT), changing emotions [with drugs or meditation or progressive relaxation training] can lead to changes in behaviors and thoughts, changing thoughts can lead to changes in feelings and actions. There is a need for theoretical models that can deal with these multiple interactions. In terms of applications there is a need to better understand which client characteristics, which problem characteristics, and which situational characteristics determine the most efficacious interventions.