Lecture 8

Question 1

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

Answer 1

• A feeling of discomfort caused by two or more inconsistent cognitive elements

Question 2

How can you reduce (mitigate) cognitive dissonance?

Answer 2

• Add new congruent beliefs to counteract discrepancy
  (have other beliefs about smoking)
• Direct discrepancy to an external source
  (addiction)
• Change behaviour to be consistent w/ beliefs
• Change attitudes to be consistent w/ behaviour

Question 3

What’re some examples of changing attitude to be consistent with behaviour?

Answer 3

• Post-decision dissonance (likes the phone they chose better than another phone they really liked but didn’t get)
• Effort Justification (had to wait ages for food, food is average but overcompensate to make ourselves like it more)
  (discussion group - can either join immediately, mild initiation, severe initiation) Severe initiation people found discussion way more interesting
• Insufficient reward (larger rewards decrease the likelihood of believing the lie, as they attribute it to the external source $20)
• Insufficient punishment (not given enough reason to not do it) (forbidden toy paradigm - children were either offered a mild or severe threat of punishment if they played with the toy) severe threat = more likely to play with toy

Question 4

What is the self-perception theory?

Answer 4

• Triple cheeseburger, does he like wendy’s or maccas? He probably likes maccas because he went there
• Drawing inferences from our own behaviour
• No motivational / arousal component

Question 5

What is the overjustification effect?

Answer 5

• People’s intrinsic attitude is undermined by being offered rewards
• Children like colouring, are then offered rewards, rewards are removed and they like it less
• Basketball lost magical qualities after working for money

Question 6

Attitudes have a range of acceptance. Attitudes _____ the range of acceptance cause _____.

Answer 6

• Outside

- Dissonance

Question 7

How do you know if arousal is present?

Answer 7

• Pills study (arousal, no info, relaxed)

Question 8

Is self-perception possible?

Answer 8

• People don’t know why they feel the way they do
• No privileged introspective access (don’t actually know more than what an observer would assume)
• Casual schemas are often right
• Trying to introspect can change your judgement for the worse