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Feelings of hypocrisy were induced in college students to increase condom use. Hypocrisy was created by making subjects mindful of their past failure to use condoms and then having them persuade others about the importance of condoms for AIDS prevention. The induction of hypocrisy decreased denial and led to greater intent to improve condom use relative to the control conditions. The implications of these findings for AIDS prevention are discussed.

This experiment applied a new twist on cognitive dissonance theory to the problem of AIDS prevention among sexually active young adults. Dissonance was created after a proattitudinal advocacy by inducing hypocrisy-having subjects publicly advocate the importance of safe sex and then systematically making the subjects mindful of their own past failures to use condoms. It was predicted that the induction of hypocrisy would motivate subjects to reduce dissonance by purchasing condoms at the completion of the experiment. The results showed that more subjects in the hypocrisy condition bought condoms and also bought more condoms, on average, than subjects in the control conditions. The implications of the hypocrisy procedure for AIDS prevention programs and for current views of dissonance theory are discussed.

Recent experiments involving hypocrisy have been theorized to be a form of cognitive dissonance induction. As such, hypocrisy would constitute a new experimental paradigm for dissonance induction. However, these hypocrisy studies are open to alternative explanations. The present study attempts to rule out these alternative explanations by providing independent evidence that hypocrisy is a form of cognitive dissonance arousal. In the present study, a 2× 2 design manipulates whether hypocrisy is induced and whether subjects are given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to external factors. If hypocrisy is a form of dissonance, the misattribution manipulation should reduce behavior changes brought on by the induction of hypocrisy. The results support the predictions.