CA 368 Exam 3

- feeling of uncomfortable tension -comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time-increase with- importance of the subject, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, inability to rationalize and explain conflict

- most powerful when its about our self image- feelings of foolishness or immorality -internal projections during decision making- if an action had been done and cannot be undone--> after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs-if beliefs are moved then dissonance appears during decision making forcing us to take action we have not taken before

-evaluations-decisions-central mechanism by which we experience new differences in the world -when we see people behave differently to our images of them -->hold conflicting thoughts-->dissonance occurs

-the importance and impact of the decision along with the difficulty of reversing it -ex. discomfort about making the wrong choice of a car is bigger than when choosing a lamp

- the fact that lying is wrong and hurtful not the inconsistency between cognitions is what makes people feel bad-people experience dissonance even when they feel they have done nothing wrong

-motivation to appear consistent-inconsistency arousing for social reasons;motivations to change attitudes is interpersonal

-an account of attitude change- we develop our attitudes by observing our behavior and concluding what attitudes must have caused them-counterintuitive in nature as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes come prior to behavior-a person induces attitudes without assessing internal cognition and mood states -reasons for their own behaviors rationally in the same way he attempts to explain other behaviors

- they do not posit any psychological arousal occurring due to inconsistency

- -often strong when we believe something about ourselves and then do something against that belief -if i believe i am good but do something bad then the discomfort i feel is a result of cognitive dissonance

-peoples self image/self concept has been threatened they are motivated to affirm the integrity of the self-people have a desire to restore their general self-image not simply to resolve the specific threat-people have a strong desire to maintain a positive self-image -when people experience a specific self threat they can overcome the unpleasant arousal associated with the threat by affirming an equally important yet unrelated aspect of the self

- change attitude-add more beliefs consistent with attitude -derogate unchosen alternative-alter the importance of cognitive elements-suppress thoughts, alter behaviors

- change behavior to make it more consistent with their cognition ex. smokers can stop smoking- changing cognitions ex. smokers can lower their perception of the health risks associated with smoking- adding new cognitions to belief system ex. smokers can focus on counterexamples to the health risk by focusing on people who smoke but have lived a very long life

-comes from the fact that the person is being induced gently persuaded to comply wit h the persuaders request-person freely chooses to perform an action that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs or attitudes

- ex1 someone is paid a dollar to make a speech banning the use of cellphones in cars- that person privately disagrees with that theory -under these conditions one would actually come to evaluate the proposal as favorable-ex2- participants perform boring task and either paid 1 or 20 to tell a stranger the task was interesting- people who were paid 1 had a more positive attitude towards the experiment than those who had been paid 20

- rewards do not lead to liking or positive attitudes- paying people less changes their attitudes more