Cognitive dissonance theory of attitude

Module 5: Attitudes Module Overview An important part of how we think about ourselves and others comes from our knowledge of how we view the world. This view, as we have seen from previous modules, is shaped by our self-knowledge and the ways we think and perceive, which we saw are often filled with errors and biases. In this module, we are turn our attention to our attitudes. They are the final piece to understanding how we think about ourselves and others. This module will focus on what they are, why they are important – focusing on the predictive nature of attitudes and finally how our behavior can impact our attitudes. Module Outline • • • Module Learning Outcomes • Describe an attitude. • Explain why attitudes are important. • Introduce behavior prediction models. • Explain how our behavior impacts our attitudes. Section Learning Objectives • Define an attitude • Examine the structure and function of an attitude • Investigate the origins of attitudes First, an attitude is our assessment of ourselves, other people, ideas, and objects in our world (Petty et al., 1997) Ask yourself, what do you think about Jenny in your social psychology course, your discussion board question that is due this week, or puppies and ice cream? Your responses to these questions are your attitudes toward them. You might respond with “Jenny is really nice and always helps her classmates” or “I hated the discussion board question because it was really boring”. For most people, their attitude re...

Nationality Almamater Knownfor research on Awards Scientific career Fields Institutions Doctoral students Influences Elliot Aronson (born January 9, 1932) is an American The Social Animal, he stated Aronson's First Law: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy," thus asserting the importance of situational factors in bizarre behavior. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the Early life and education [ ] Aronson grew up in extreme poverty in Influenced by his father, he began his college career majoring in economics. However, he promptly changed his major to psychology after accidentally wandering into an Introductory Psychology lecture taught by Aronson earned his bachelor's degree from Brandeis in 1954. He went on to earn a master's degree from Professional history [ ] Aronson has taught at Review of General Psychology. Research topics [ ] Cognitive dissonance [ ] Aronson's interests and research have paid particular attention to the theory of Theories of Cognitive Consistency (1973), he states: "Dissonance theory does not rest upon the assumption that man is a rational animal; rather, it suggests that man is a rationalizing animal – that he attempts to appear rational, both to others and to himself." The Jigsaw Classroom [ ] Aronson led the development of a classroom technique for defusing inter-group tension and promoting self-esteem. It was discovered that it is rare for classrooms of students to cooperate towards a common goal. In 1971 the new...

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is not a disease or illness. It is a psychological phenomenon that can happen to anyone. American psychologist Leon Festinger first developed the concept in the Read on to learn more about cognitive dissonance, including examples, signs a person might be experiencing it, causes, and how to resolve it. Share on Pinterest Sadie Culberson/Getty Images Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two related but contradictory cognitions, or thoughts. The psychologist Leon Festinger came up with the concept in In his book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance , Festinger proposed that two ideas can be consonant or dissonant. Consonant ideas logically flow from one another, while dissonant ideas oppose one another. For example, a person who wishes to protect other people and who believes that the COVID-19 pandemic is real might wear a mask in public . This is consonance. If that same person believed the COVID-19 pandemic was real but refused to wear a mask, their values and behaviors would contradict each other. This is dissonance. The dissonance between two contradictory ideas, or between an idea and a behavior, creates discomfort. Festinger argued that cognitive dissonance is more intense when a person holds many dissonant views, and those views are important to them. It is However, Festinger believed that all people are motivated to avoid o...

We typically view the interaction between attitudes and behaviors as a causal sequence that progresses linearly from attitude to behavior. We might have an attitude towards work ethic, for example, which would translate into some behavior, like working overtime to get the job done. To assume a reversal in the sequence of causation; for example, behavior leading to attitude would seem counterintuitive. It can certainly seem backwards to presume working overtime causes a belief in work ethic, rather than work ethic causes hard work. Self perception theory proposes such a causal link. This theory argues that people become aware of certain attitudes by observing their own behavior. This is the case when internal cues such as sentiment are unclear, and the individual attributes their attitude or belief to some form of self perception around their behavior. It is a similar process to how we would infer another individual’s inner state by observing their behavior. Consider Dave, a carpenter who works 50 hours a week. Dave has never really stopped to think about how he feels towards standardized work weeks and labor regulations, or work ethic in general. One evening, at the bar with some friends, someone mentions the 35-hour work week in France and an article she read about increased productivity gains at companies who introduced four-day work weeks. Dave has never heard such talk and doesn’t have any preexisting attitudes towards the concept. When someone asks what he thinks, he ...

David Trafimow, in Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, 2004 10Direct and Indirect Attitude Measures Several expectancy–value attitude theories were proposed during the 1950s and 1960s. According to these theories, attitudes are a function of people’s assumptions about the probability of various consequences arising from the performance of a behavior and evaluations of how good or bad those consequences are. Although the theories differ in the precise ways in which people are postulated to combine subjective probabilities and evaluations of consequences, they nevertheless have a common implication. Because attitudes are caused by a combination of beliefs about consequences and evaluations, this combination can be used as an indirect attitude measure. Consistent with expectancy–value theories, a large number of findings indicate that indirect and direct attitude measures are highly correlated, at least when the measures are created in accordance with the principle of correspondence. Consequently, many researchers have used indirect attitude measures, rather than direct ones, to predict other variables of interest, notably behavioral intentions and behaviors. There has been some controversy about whether direct or indirect attitude measures are better predictors of behavioral intentions or behaviors. Although indirect measures have the advantage of specifying the subjective probabilities and evaluations of consequences that determine attitudes, there are both theoretical and ...