1. Chapter 6: Cognitive Dissonance

2. Irrationality in decision making: sunk costs

3. The tennis elbow problem
Imagine you enjoy playing tennis. One day, on the court you develop tennis elbow. It is extremely painful to play. Your doctor tells you that the pain will continue for about a year. Estimate the number of times you will play tennis in the next 6 months.
Imagine you have paid $400 (nonrefundable) to join a tennis club for 6 months. During the first week of your membership, you develop tennis elbow. It is extremely painful to play. Your doctor tells you that the pain will continue for about a year. Estimate the number of times you will play tennis in the next 6 months.

4. Previous results from a large-scale study (N = 287)
Difference significant at p < .001
5.9
4.2
Paid $400 fee no fee

5. Other potential examples of sunk costs
Waiting for the elevator, trains, etc
Tickets and blizzards
Wars, other armed conflicts? (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq)
These latter two cases—not as clear-cut

6. Traditional (normative) models of decision making: Choices should be driven by future consequences, not past expenditures
All previous examples, which are “sunk cost” problems, appear to violate that principle.
Definition of “sunk cost” problems: choices appear to be driven by past, irrecoverable expenditures
Traditional models of human motivation and decision making cannot easily explain such decisions.

7. You and a companion plan to go skiing at a resort
You and a companion plan to go skiing at a resort. You each have paid 100 dollars for lift tickets and rental. When you arrive, the conditions are horrible—it’s cold, icy, and even the best lifts are not operating because of the wind. In addition, you both feel lousy physically and out of sorts psychologically.
Your companion turns to you and says, “It’s too bad that the money is not refundable, we’d have a much better time back home, relaxing in front of the fire. But I can’t afford to waste 100 dollars.”
You agree. But you also both agree that it’s unlikely that you will have a better time struggling with the bad conditions on the slopes, compared to being inside.
What do you do? Stay and ski, or go home?

8. Better day at home (minus 100 dollars)
Paid 100 dollars for tickets and equipment (decrease in net assets by $100)
Give up and go home
Decision?
Stay and ski
Staying at home feels aversive, because of the sense that you have “wasted” the 100 dollars. However, the past expenditure is irrelevant to your decision, because it is a constant in both cases.
Better day at home (minus 100 dollars)
Lousy day skiing (minus 100 dollars)

9. Paid 50 cents for tickets and equipment (decrease in net assets by 50 cents)
Give up and go home
Decision?
Stay and ski
Lousy day skiing (minus 50 cents)
Better day at home (minus 50 cents)

10. Paid 100 dollars for very expensive meal
(and waiter brings you three times as much food as you would normally eat)
(decrease in net assets by $100)
Eat the amount you usually do
Decision?
Eat the entire portion
Decrease dining pleasure, and now you feel fat
(minus 100 dollars)
Increased dining pleasure (and no need to go on a diet)
(minus 100 dollars)

11. Cognitive Dissonance: Theoretical background

12. Models of human motivation:
Classical conditioning
Instrumental conditioning
Homeostasis models

13. Metabolic Imbalance
Aversive state of arousal
(hunger)
Efforts to reduce arousal
Regain consistency
Homeostasis
Psychological Imbalance
Aversive state of arousal
(dissonance)

14. Dissonance theory can potentially explain sunk costs
(Red arrows represent behavior that could potentially trigger dissonance.)
pre-existing cognition contemplated behavior
Paid great deal of money to ski
Don’t ski?
Waited 2 minutes for elevator
Take stairs instead?
Spent X billion in Iraq already
Pull out troops?

15. Initiation rites: Aronson & Mills (1959)
Three screening conditions
Control (e.g. chair, table, sad, book)
Mild (e.g. prostitute, virgin)
Extreme (obscene words--sorry, I can’t put these up!)
All participants then listen to sample tape of discussion group
Discussion is horribly boring! (pre-tested)
Dependent variable: expressed liking for the discussion group and desire to join

16. Initiation (cost) + High (---) None (0) Don’t join Don’t join Join
Initial evaluation
of group (-)
Initial evaluation
of group (-) +
Don’t join
Don’t join
Join
Join
STRONG dissonance

17. Alternate explanations of Aronson & Mills (1959)?
Gerard & Mathewson (1966 )

18. UCS (shock) UCR (pain)
CS (group)

19. Festinger & Carlsmith (1957)
Control group
Two additional conditions
Participants paid $1.00, or $20.00 to tell lie to incoming participant
DV: all participants express OWN enjoyment of task

20. Dependent variable: liking for task
$1.00
control
$20

21. Subsequent behavior: “told other participant
that I liked task”
Initial attitude:
“I didn’t enjoy task”
Sufficient justification ($20)
Insufficient justification ($1)
low dissonance
higher dissonance
Minimal attitude change
Attitude change

22. Practical applications of dissonance theory: (e. g
Practical applications of dissonance theory: (e.g. The condom study: Aronson, Fried, & Stone, 1991)
Participants compose set of arguments about safe-sex in private vs. public
Complete survey indicating past difficulty in using condoms (control: no questionnaire)
Greatest short and long term condom use
Contexts of arguments:
Private public
yes *
survey: no

23. Necessary conditions for dissonance to arise:
Behavior must be:
be perceived as freely chosen
have foreseeable, negative consequences
viewed by others
Also: must assume that people think of themselves as good decision makers.

24. Post-decisional dissonance
Suppose you are having a tough time choosing between two alternatives.
Choice X (x+, x+, x+, x-, x-, x-)
Choice Y (y+, y+ y+, y-, y-, y-)
Suppose you choose x
All positive elements of y, and all negative elements of x, can produce dissonance
Brehm (1956)

25. evidence that arousal is directly mediating attitude change?
Direct self report measures: Devine, 1998;
Eliot & Devine, 1994
Physiological data—Croyle & Cooper (1983)--GSR –galvanic skin response
Misattribution studies….

26. Misattribution paradigm (e.g. Zanna & Cooper (1974)
Pill expectations
arouse
none
relax
counter-attitudinal essay
DV: attitude change
Degree of attitude change
relax
none
arouse
Expectations about pill

27. On the Larger Influence of Dissonance Theory
Two core assumptions throughout all of psychology:
need for consistency
People are careful and accurate monitors of their own internal states
Homeostasis model dominant force
lingering influence of Freud
intra-personal processes emphasized

28. Interesting phenomena associated with dissonance effects
The disgusting grasshopper study (Zimbardo et al. 1965)
Ss are asked to eat a grasshopper by a friend or an enemy
Which group reported greater liking for this tasty morsel?
The Ben Franklin effect
Want to get someone to like you?
Have them do a favor for you!
Hating our victims because they are victims

29. “On the Nature of Scientific Revolutions” (Thomas Kuhn)
bedrock assumptions of an established theory or “world views ”challenged
Nicolai Copernicus
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud

30. Social psychology experiences its own paradigm shift:
By early 1970’s some bedrock assumptions in social psychology are challenged:
Homeostasis model incorrect?
Maybe human being aren’t motivated by consistency after all.
Maybe we aren’t so good at knowing our own feelings.
Emergence of an “information processing” view

31. Self perception theory (again)

32. “Inconsistency, [dissonance theorists] try to tell us, motivates behavior and attitude change. But I don’t believe it. At least not very much. My own suspicion is that inconsistency is our most enduring cognitive commonplace. That is, I suspect for most people most of the time…inconsistency just sits there.”
Bem (1970)

33. Dissonance theory
YES
A  B
Tension reducers
Self-perception theory NO
B A
Information processors
People good at assessing
own internal states through
introspection?
Assumptions about relation
between attitudes (A) and
behavior (B)
Drive for consistency?
Basic view of people as ….

34. Reinterpretation of classic studies in dissonance paradigm
Small vs. large incentives for writing counter-attitudinal essays
Outside observers and self in similar position, says Bem
Festinger and Carlsmith (1957)

35. Resolution of Debate: Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper (1977)
Both theories are correct, but apply under different “boundary” conditions
Dissonance theory:
Initial attitude is strong, and person acts in ways clearly inconsistent with it
“hot” processes mediate (tension reduction)
Self-perception
Initial attitude is weak, OR person acts in ways not radically inconsistent with attitude
“cold” processes mediate (logical inference)

36. Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977

37. Essays written in these latitudes trigger dissonance
But self perception processes apply here
Latitude of acceptance
Latitude of rejection
Latitude of rejection
0% tuition hike
20% tuition hike
Initial attitude

38. Fazio et al. 1977: Methodology
Initial assessment of attitude
Assigned to write essay in latitude of acceptance vs. rejection (all under high choice)
Participants’ expectations about room: “tense” vs. no expectations
DV: attitude change after writing essay

39. Degree of attitude change
“Tense”
Degree of attitude change
No expectations
Latitude of rejection
Latitude of acceptance
SELF PERCEPTION
DISSONANCE

40. Summary Two processes Dissonance Self perception
Attitude change; “hot”; homeostasis
Self perception
Attitude formation; “cold”; information processing