Opinion change in the advocate as a function of the persuasibility of his audience: A clarification of the meaning of dissonance.

Nel, Elizabeth M.; Helmreich, Robert L.; Aronson, Elliot

doi:10.1037/h0027566

Cited by 120 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Literature supports that dissonance is a motivational state that drives individuals to implement a reduction strategy to diminish the psychological discomfort (Elliot and Devine 1994). Moreover, dissonance-based interventions have been shown to shift attitude with college student smokers who created anti-smoking videos (Simmons et al 2004), eating disordered adolescent girls (Stice et al 2008), youth in a low income neighborhood through community awareness videos (Ager et al 2008), and in a historical study of college females who created legalization of marijuana videos (Nel et al 1969). Dissonance-based interventions can create momentum for shifts from pro-drug norms to drug-averse norms, thus resulting in the changed behavior of less substance use.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

The Value of Cultural Adaptation Processes: Older Youth Participants as Substance Abuse Preventionists

Steiker

Goldbach

Hopson

et al. 2011

Child Adolesc Soc Work J

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This National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Drug Abuse) funded study employed focus groups to explore the value of: (a) engaging youth as experts in their own drug culture to engage them in open, honest discussion around substance use in their communities; and (b) allowing youth within a range of settings to systematically recreate unique workbook and video scenarios while maintaining the core components of an evidence-based substance abuse prevention program. Researchers collaborated with community based agencies that serve high risk youth, including youth who were incarcerated, homeless, in alternative high schools, in low-income housing programs, and on the US-Mexico border. The research indicates that high-risk youth in community settings can be actively engaged in adapting evidence-based prevention curricula. Youth emphasized their reasons for using drugs, as well as the salient consequences, and the value of tailored scenarios that incorporate their life experiences, language, drugs of choice, and relevant motivators. Serendipitous findings noted attitude changes related to dissonance between the adaptation component participants' behaviors and their input as ''Preventionists.'' Findings have implications for developing prevention strategies that may be helpful for older, high-risk youth.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

The Value of Cultural Adaptation Processes: Older Youth Participants as Substance Abuse Preventionists

Steiker

Goldbach

Hopson

et al. 2011

Child Adolesc Soc Work J

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show abstract

“…Thus, the past experiments on the necessity of aversive consequences may have had inducing forces that were so great that little or no dissonance was produced, and the addition of feeling personally responsible for producing aversive consequences may have been necessary to produce sufficient dissonance to cause measurable discrepancy reduction (e.g., attitude change). In addition, a low level of dissonance may have been generated in the past aversive consequences experiments because the preexperimental attitudes held by participants were moderately negative or positive (e.g., Calder, Ross, & Insko, 1973;Nel, Helmreich, & Aronson, 1969). Thus, these attitudes were not extreme and they may have reflected ambivalence or a mix of positive and negative attitudes toward the issues.…”

Section: A Challenge To the Aversive Consequences Revisionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Cognitive Dissonance and Experienced Negative Affect: Evidence that Dissonance Increases Experienced Negative Affect Even in the Absence of Aversive Consequences

Harmon‐Jones

2000

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

188

139

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Research has suggested that the dissonance produced in the induced compliance paradigm is accompanied by experienced negative affect. This research, however, used a paradigm in which participants' counterattitudinal action had the potential to bring about an aversive consequence, thus leaving the question of whether the dissonance produced in the absence of aversive consequences causes increased negative affect. Results from two experiments demonstrated that individuals report more negative affect following freely choosing (high choice) than following being told (low choice) to write a counterattitudinal statement that would produce no aversive consequences. The second experiment also demonstrated that the negative affect is reduced following attitude change and eliminated an alternative explanation of similar, past experiments. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings.In the original statement of cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger (1957) proposed that "the existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance" (p. 3). Although the idea that cognitive dissonance creates an unpleasant feeling state is a central postulate of the theory, no previous research has tested the idea that cognitive discrepancy per se produces feelings of dissonance. The present research sought to address this lacuna in research on cognitive dissonance theory.The theory has generated much interest in psychology (Jones, 1985) and has been used to better understand the dynamic interplay of cognition, affect, motivation, and behavior. It also has been used to increase the understanding of a variety of important psychological issues concerning the formation, maintenance, and change of attitudes, beliefs, and values. Several revisions to the theory have been proposed (for a recent review, see Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999), and many of these accept the premise that genuine cognitive changes occur as a result of the psychological discomfort known as dissonance and that these cognitive changes are the result of motivational pressures prompted by psychological discomfort. However, only a paucity of research has directly examined the idea that psychological discomfort results from cognitive discrepancy.The research strategy most often employed in testing predictions derived from revisions to the theory was one in which conditions were created that would intensify or eliminate the attitude change that occurred in the induced compliance paradigm, developed by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959). As such, the induced compliance became one of the most investigated research paradigms in social psychology. In this paradigm, participants are induced to act contrary to a belief or attitude. If the justification for acting in this manner is just barely sufficient to induce the behavior, then persons are likely to experience dissonance. The experienced dissonance may then motivate them to reduce it, and they may reduce it by changing their attitude or belief t...

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“…For example, Frey and Wicklund (1978) demonstrated that confirmation bias in information search is stronger when participants had made the decision under high-rather than lowchoice conditions. An early study by Nel et al (1969) revealed another factor that has an impact on the degree to which people reduce dissonance. The authors reported that they had observed a dissonance effect (attitude change) only when participants had expected their attitude-inconsistent behavior, in this case publicly proposing to legalize marihuana, to affect other people negatively (see also Cooper & Fazio, 1984).…”

Section: Classic Formulation Of Dissonance Theorymentioning

confidence: 97%

The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: State of the Science and Directions for Future Research

Fischer

Frey²,

Peus³

et al. 2008

Knowledge and Space

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The theory of cognitive dissonance is one of the most influential theories in social psychology. Since its initial publication 50 years ago, it has inspired more than 1,000 empirical papers. However, dissonance theory has not only had a profound impact on research in social psychology, it has also been used for designing interventions to address a variety of societal problems. In this short overview of the empirical literature on dissonance theory, we first introduce the definition of dissonance theory in its classic formulation by Festinger (1957). Second, we review the most important paradigms used in empirical dissonance research and summarize the most prominent empirical results. Third, we present the main features of the self-based revision of dissonance theory and introduce our own self-based modification of dissonance theory including related data on ego-depletion and selective exposure. Finally, we present directions for future dissonance research, in particular in the areas of self-regulation and information-processing, and discuss the application of dissonance theory to societal problems. Classic Formulation of Dissonance TheoryCognitive dissonance is defined as the subjective perception of incompatibility between two self-relevant cognitions. A cognition can be any element of knowledge, belief, attitude, value, emotion, interest, plan, or behavior. In other words, cognitions are dissonant when one specific cognition implies the opposite of another cognition. The resulting cognitive discrepancy is associated with a psychological state of unpleasantness (cognitive dissonance) that motivates the individual to reduce this state of discomfort by reducing the discrepancy between the dissonant cognitions (Festinger, 1957;Harmon-Jones, 2000). The magnitude of the cognitive dissonance is determined by the importance of the cognitions involved and their relation to a personal standard. Dissonance can be reduced in five ways or some combination thereof: (a) adding consonant cognitions, (b) subtracting dissonant cognitions (by ignoring, suppressing, or forgetting them), (c) replacing existing cognitions with others, that is, subtracting dissonant cognitions while adding consonant ones, (d) increasing the importance of consonant cognitions, and

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Opinion change in the advocate as a function of the persuasibility of his audience: A clarification of the meaning of dissonance.

Cited by 120 publications

References 10 publications

The Value of Cultural Adaptation Processes: Older Youth Participants as Substance Abuse Preventionists

The Value of Cultural Adaptation Processes: Older Youth Participants as Substance Abuse Preventionists

Cognitive Dissonance and Experienced Negative Affect: Evidence that Dissonance Increases Experienced Negative Affect Even in the Absence of Aversive Consequences

The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: State of the Science and Directions for Future Research

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