Dissonance reduction in the context of group membership: The role of metaconsistency.

Recent work has established that groups can reduce dissonance by providing consonant cognitions, normative support, or an opportunity to diffuse responsibility for counterattitudinal behavior. Adopting a social identity framework, the current research comprised 2 studies examining metaconsistency, which was proposed to underlie these disparate explanations for the effect of social support. In Study 1 (N = 121), participants performed a counterattitudinal behavior with or without attitude and behavior support. As expected, congruence between the participants’ attitude–behavior consistency and another’s attitude–behavior consistency reduced attitude change. Study 2 (N = 69) replicated the results of Study 1; in addition, metaconsistency influenced participants’ perceptions of their own attitude–behavior consistency. The implications of metaconsistency for other contemporary perspectives of dissonance theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

I'm a hypocrite, but so is everyone else: Group support and the reduction of cognitive dissonance.

The impact of social support on dissonance arousal was investigated from a social identity view of dissonance theory. This perspective is seen as augmenting current conceptualizations of dissonance theory by predicting when normative information will impact on dissonance arousal and by indicating the availability of identity-related strategies of dissonance reduction. An experiment was conducted to induce feelings of hypocrisy under conditions of behavioral support or nonsupport. Group salience was either high or low, or individual identity was emphasized. As predicted, participants with no support from the salient in-group exhibited the greatest need to reduce dissonance through attitude change and reduced levels of group identification. Results were interpreted in terms of self being central to the arousal and reduction of dissonance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social reinforcement in attitude change.

Ss were exposed to an attitude different than one they had expressed previously with the purpose of seeing whether postcommunicative conversation would reflect attempts at reducing such cognitive dissonance. Analyzing the conversation of women who had been exposed to attitudes concerning toilet training which was different than the one they had expressed indicated that they did tend to reduce cognitive dissonance by seeking out information that either agreed with their formally held notion or the newly advocated one. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD09M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive dissonance.

This article reviews critically the experimental evidence in support of cognitive dissonance theory as applied to complex social events. The criticisms which can be made of this literature fall into 2 main classes. 1st, the experimental manipulations are usually so complex and the crucial variables so confounded that no valid conclusions can be drawn from the data. 2nd, a number of fundamental methodological inadequacies in the analysis of results—as, e.g., rejection of cases and faulty statistical analysis of the data—vitiate the findings. As a result, one can only say that the evidence adduced for cognitive dissonance theory is inconclusive. Suggestions are offered for the methodological improvement of studies in this area. The review concludes with the thesis that the most attractive feature of cognitive dissonance theory, its simplicity, is in actual fact a self-defeating limitation. (44 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudinal effects of choice in exposure to counterpropaganda.

Conditions are explored "under which exposure to information discrepant form one's own opinion produces cognitive dissonance and consequent attitude change… . The results were discussed in terms of the importance of prior choice in exposure in creating dissonance." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.

Atest of some hypotheses generated by Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, viz., that "if a person is induced to do or say something which is contrary to his private opinion, there will be a tendency for him to change his opinion so as to bring it into correspondence with what he has done or said. The larger the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior… the weaker will be the… tendency… . The results strongly corroborate the theory." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group.

"An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that persons who undergo an unpleasant initiation to become members of a group increase their liking for the group; that is, they find the group more attractive than do persons who become members without going through a severe initiation. This hypothesis was derived from Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance." 3 conditions were employed: reading of "embarrassing material" before a group, mildly embarrassing material to be read, no reading. "The results clearly verified the hypothesis." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive Mediation of Treatment Change in Social Phobia.

Ninety individuals with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) participated in a randomized controlled trial and completed cognitive-behavioral group therapy, exposure group therapy without explicit cognitive interventions, or a wait-list control condition. Both treatments were superior to the wait-list group in reducing social anxiety but did not differ from one another at posttest. Changes in estimated social cost mediated treatment changes in both treatment conditions from pre- to posttest. However, only participants who received cognitive-behavioral therapy showed continued improvement from posttest to 6-month follow-up, which was associated with a reduction of estimated social cost from pretest to posttest. These results suggest that cognitive intervention leads to better maintenance of treatment gains, which is mediated through changes in estimated social cost. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The spontaneous use of a group typology as an organizing principle in memory.

Five studies investigated the spontaneous use of group typology in encoding information about various social groups. Participants saw faces or behaviors along with a label indicating the group membership of the face or the behavior. Labels corresponded to 2 groups each of 3 group types (i.e., 2 intimacy groups, 2 task-oriented groups, and 2 social categories). Recognition results showed more within-group-type errors than between-group-types errors. A free-recall task replicated these results, as the sequence of remembering items showed that memory organization reflected the group typology. A final study investigated the effects of group typology on the speed and accuracy of category membership verification. Results demonstrate the spontaneous use of an implicit group typology and its influence on the cognitive organization of information about groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Denial of responsibility: A new mode of dissonance reduction.

Denial of responsibility as a mode of dissonance reduction and the conditions under which it is likely to occur were explored in 3 experiments. Two experiments tested and supported the hypothesis that following a counterattitudinal behavior, participants prefer the mode of reduction made available to them first, regardless of whether it is attitude change, trivialization, or denial of responsibility. The 3rd experiment tested and supported the hypothesis that denial of responsibility reduces the negative affective state induced by dissonance. The mechanism of denial of responsibility in dissonance reduction is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Experiential Groups in Theory and Practice.

Reviews the book, Experiential Groups in Theory and Practice by Kjell Erik Rudestam (1982). Rudestam's intention in part is to provide a text that would be suitable for instructing both undergraduate and graduate-level students in a number of current approaches offering therapy in groups. His choice of title appears to refer not only to the models he has selected for discussion but also to his general aim of providing opportunities for experiential learning as well as developing "cognitive" understanding. In general, the latter is encouraged by his clear and readable exposition and the systematic approach he has taken to organizing the material. Opportunities for experiential learning are made possible by the inclusion of group exercises which typify those used by each approach. For every exercise, the purpose, time and materials, and preparation on the part of the leader, if any, are specified, and the procedure to be followed is outlined in detail. Apart from these exercises, the reader's first-hand appreciation of an approach is enhanced through the inclusion of segments of actual verbal transactions. As illustrative material, these segments have been well chosen--indeed, one wishes that more such material could have been provided. This book offers a readable introduction to an interesting collection of current approaches to group therapy and suggests the means whereby students' learning can be enhanced through some first-hand experience. Its principal shortcoming lies in the lack of emphasis placed on critical analysis by the author. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic Group Identification and Group Evaluation Among Minority and Majority Groups: Testing the Multiculturalism Hypothesis.

Following social identity theory, the author hypothesized that members of minority groups are more likely than majority group members to endorse multiculturalism more strongly and assimilationist thinking less strongly. In addition, the multiculturalism hypothesis proposes that the more minority groups endorse the ideology of multiculturalism (or assimilationism), the more (or less) likely they will be to identify with their ethnic in-group and to show positive in-group evaluation. In contrast, the more majority group members endorse multiculturalism (or assimilationism), the less (or more) likely they are to identify with their ethnic group and to show negative out-group evaluation. Results from 4 studies (correlational and experimental) provide support for this hypothesis among Dutch and Turkish participants living in the Netherlands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicarious dissonance: Attitude change from the inconsistency of others.

Three studies support the vicarious dissonance hypothesis that individuals change their attitudes when witnessing members of important groups engage in inconsistent behavior. Study 1, in which participants observed an actor in an induced-compliance paradigm, documented that students who identified with their college supported an issue more after hearing an ingroup member make a counterattitudinal speech in favor of that issue. In Study 2, vicarious dissonance occurred even when participants did not hear a speech, and attitude change was highest when the speaker was known to disagree with the issue. Study 3 showed that speaker choice and aversive consequences moderated vicarious dissonance, and demonstrated that vicarious discomfort--the discomfort observers imagine feeling if in an actor's place--was attenuated after participants expressed their revised attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Investigation of Therapeutic Factors in Children's Groups.

The therapeutic factors present in children's groups were examined in this study for the first time. Using recorded interviews and the Group Counseling Helpful Impacts Scale (D. M. Kivlighan, K. D. Multon, & D. F. Brossat, 1996), the authors examined 4 categories: emotional awareness-insight, relationship-climate, other- versus self-focus, and problem identification-change. The sample consisted of 64 10-year-old boys and girls, in all-female or mixed-gender groups (n = 10). Results indicated that group relationship-climate was the therapeutic factor most frequently mentioned by the children and that problem identification-change was least appreciated. One difference was found between boys and girls, and one between all-female and mixed-gender groups. The discussion focuses on the importance and meaning of relationship-climate for children in group therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of worker productivity to cognitive dissonance about wage inequities.

2 hypotheses derived from dissonance theory were tested: (a) when a person is paid by the hour his productivity will be greater when he perceives his pay as inequitably large than when identical pay is perceived as equitable, and (b) when a person is paid on a piecework basis his productivity will be less when he perceives his pay in inequitably large than when he perceives identical pay as being equitable. The first hypothesis was sustained (p     

The phylogenetic roots of cognitive dissonance.

We presented 7 Old World monkeys (Japanese macaques [Macaca fuscata], gray-cheeked mangabey [Lophocebus albigena], rhesus macaques [Macaca mulatta], bonnet macaque [Macaca radiate], and olive baboon [Papio anubis]), 3 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), 6 members of the parrot (Psittacinae) family, and 4 American black bears (Ursus americanus) with a cognitive dissonance paradigm modeled after Egan, Santos, and Bloom (2007). In experimental trials, subjects were given choices between 2 equally preferred food items and then presented with the unchosen option and a novel, equally preferred food item. In control trials, subjects were presented with 1 accessible and 1 inaccessible option from another triad of equally preferred food items. They were then presented with the previously inaccessible item and a novel member of that triad. Subjects, as a whole, did not prefer the novel item in experimental or control trials. However, there was a tendency toward a subject by condition interaction. When analyzed by primate versus nonprimate categories, only primates preferred the novel item in experimental but not control trials, indicating that they resolved cognitive dissonance by devaluing the unchosen option only when an option was derogated by their own free choice. This finding suggests that this phenomenon might exist within but not outside of the primate order. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A conflict-theory interpretation of attitude change in forced compliance situations.

Attitude change following forced compliance was studied in a 4 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 design. Using one of four predesignated issues under two levels of incentive, subjects who had previously expressed either high or low interest in the issue, were invited to make a counter-attitudinal tape-recording. Half of the groups originated their own arguments while half read prepared arguments. Half of the subjects actually engaged in the role playing while half simply committed themselves to the task before answering a post-test questionnaire. It was found that the origins of the argument, role-playing performance, and high incentive levels were potent forces in promoting attitude change. High-interest subjects generally showed more attitude change than low-interest subjects. Both positive and negative relations between magnitude of incentive and attitude change were obtained. These results were found to be consistent with a conflict theory interpretation which relegates cognitive dissonance phenomena to a "special case" interpretation. Some theoretical implications of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive complexity and assimilative projection in attitude change.

"Students in two undergraduate psychology courses were administered the same attitude scales on two occasions. The second administration was accompanied by information concerning the expressed opinions of either generals or peers. As hypothesized, those students showing little change in their attitude scale scores were found to be high on a measure of cognitive simplicity. Those students who were influenced by peers perceived themselves as more similar to peers than students who were negative to peer influence." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Work Groups: A Group Norms Approach.

Although the relationship between unit-level organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and unit outcomes has been well established in recent years, the conceptual development of OCB at the unit level of analysis has not been adequately addressed. In an effort to fill this conceptual gap and to spur future research, the authors apply the literature on group norms to the concept of OCB. The resulting framework suggests a cyclical relationship between individual- and group-level processes and ultimately offers an explanation for how OCB norms are established and maintained in work groups. The authors demonstrate how this framework incorporates past research on the relationship between unit-level OCB and unit outcomes and how it extends previous research by suggesting multiple directions for future efforts related to unit-level OCB. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of expectancy on volunteering for an unpleasant experience.

In a laboratory experiment, Ss performed 2 tasks, one unpleasant, the other neutral. They were then led to expect that they would have to perform one of the tasks again. When subsequently presented with a choice, there was an increase in the probability of their choosing the expected task, even when it was objectively less pleasant. The results were interpreted in terms of an extension of the theory of cognitive dissonance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)