Lecture 8

Question 1

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 1

Feeling of discomfort caused by two or more contradictory cognitive elements

Question 2

What are ways to reduce cognitive dissonance?

Answer 2

1. Adding new congruent beliefs - e.g smoking causes cancer but also weight loss. Having stronger beliefs about the other ideas counteracts the discrepancy
2. Direct discrepancy to external source - saying we can’t stop due to addiction, it’s ‘out of our control’
3. Changing behaviour to be consistent with attitude e.g. stop smoking
4. Changing attitude to be consistent with behaviour

Question 3

What is post-decision dissonance?

Answer 3

When the choice of one alternative is inconsistent with indifference to the other option

By liking 2 things equally and having to choose 1, technically we are behaving against one of our attitudes

Question 4

How do we resolve post-decision dissonance?

Answer 4

We look for a reason why the option we chose was a better choice than the alternative option

Attitudes tend to align with our decisions, becoming consistent with freely chosen behaviour

Question 5

Describe Effort Justification

Answer 5

Putting in more effort towards achieving a goal than the goal seems to warrant

Question 6

Describe how dissonance affects effort justification

Answer 6

There is a dissonance based pressure for attitudes to match amount of effort put into achieving a goal. This is why difficult rights of passage make us like being ‘in’ more

Question 7

Describe the insufficient reward/induced compliance effect

Answer 7

You behave counter to attitudes for no apparent external reason

Question 8

Describe the study depicting the insufficient reward/induced compliance effect

Answer 8

Gave people either $20 or $1 to do a boring task. Those in the low reward group didn’t have a sufficient external attribution to explain their behaviour, whilst the higher reward group did.

Question 9

Describe the Insufficient Punishment effect

Answer 9

You refrain from behaving in accordance with attitudes for no apparent external reason

Question 10

Describe the study depicting the insufficient punishment effect

Answer 10

• Kids were threatened with light or severe punishment to not play with a toy
• Children threatened the LEAST came to dislike the toy, their attitude changed to be consistent with their behaviour
• Threats didn’t influence likelihood of kids not playing with the toy, but their attitude towards it

Question 11

What could be concluded from the Insufficient Punishment and Reward studies?

Answer 11

• Large punishments can change behaviour
• Small incentives will change attitudes using dissonance methods
• External explanations need to be minimised for attitude change

Question 12

Describe the Self-Perception Theory

Answer 12

• Drawing logical inferences from observations of our own behaviour
• No motivational component i.e doesn’t assume people are trying to minimise discrepancies
• Main opponent to dissonance theory

Question 13

Describe the Over Justification Effect

Answer 13

Undermining intrinsic motivation by offering external rewards. By being externally rewarded for something, it makes you less intrinsically motivated to do the action

Question 14

What is intrinsic motivation?

Answer 14

Doing something because you like it

Question 15

What was the effect of undermining intrinsic motivation by offering external rewards in relation to the experiment used?

Answer 15

In the experiment, children who initially liked playing with felts were given a reward element, once this was removed children found they had no motivation to play with the felts

Question 16

What is the Misattribution Paradigm used to determine?

Answer 16

Used to determine if someone is feeling arousal

Question 17

In an experiment combining the Misattribution Paradigm and Counter-attitudinal Essay paradigm experimenter manipulated a pill taken by participants who were writing apposing opinion essay, what were the results of attitude change from this?

Answer 17

1. Pill would make participants anxious = individuals weren’t motivated to change opinion/attitude as they attributed these feelings to the pill
2. Pill would relax them = participants showed greater change as they felt dissonance despite taking the pill

Question 18

Using the example of the pill study, how can we determine if the effect is Dissonance or Self Perception?

Answer 18

Can determine which mechanism by the influence of the pill.

• If attitude change depends on misattribution pill = sign that there is some arousal
• If pill has no effect = attitude change due to self perception

Question 19

Describe the Latitude of Acceptance in reference to effect of the pill

Answer 19

• When people express attitudes outside their natural comfort range they experience arousal therefore they can be offset by the misattribution pill
• When there is no arousal (expressing attitudes in the comfortable range) the pill has no effect

Question 20

What did NIsbett and Wilson theorise in terms of Self Perception?

Answer 20

• That people don’t know why we feel the way we do. We can observe the behaviour but can’t explain the cognitive mechanisms
• We have no privileged introspective access. We rely on causal schemas and cultural theories to explain something e.g why do you love your wife? We have a lot in common
• Trying to introspect can change judgments for the worse and we can later regret them