If dissonance theory rightly predicts short-term attitude changes, it has yet to prove its ability to predict long-term changes. Therefore, this paper will try to assess the persistence in attitude change following dissonance arousal in an induced-compliance paradigm. To this end, undergraduate students took part in two induced-compliance experiments (N = 52 in Study 1 and N = 40 in Study 2) following a 2 (free choice vs. no choice) X 2 (time of measure: short vs. long term) mixed design. The attitude change was measured immediately after the counterattitudinal essay and one month later. The results suggest that dissonance-provoked attitude change is durable over time. In fact, only the participants in the free-choice condition changed their attitude in the short term; their attitude change persisted one month after the experimental situation.

International audienceThis article examines if individual differences in preference for consistency affect the behavioral change in the induced-hypocrisy paradigm. Undergraduate students (N=108) completed the PFC scale either one month (no PFC-focus condition) or immediately before (PFC-focus condition) the induced-hypocrisy procedure; this procedure includes pro-socialadvocacy, transgression recall, and a behavioral change measure. Results demonstrated 1) that PFC-level predicts behavioral change only when the participants were focused on their own PFC, 2) a relationship between the number of recalled transgressions and behavioral change only for high-PFC participants in PFC-focus condition. The necessity of consideringsimultaneously PFC-level, PFC-focus and the number of recalled transgressions to better predict behavioral change in the hypocrisy-paradigm, is discusse

Abstract. This research examines if aggressive responses through a shooter bias are systematically generated by priming outgroups or if a threat stereotypically associated with the primed outgroup is required. First, a pilot study identified outgroups stereotypically associated and not associated with threat. Afterwards, the main study included a manipulation of target group accessibility – ingroup versus nonthreatening outgroup versus threatening outgroup. Following exposure to primes of the group categories, the participants in all conditions played a shooter game in which the targets were males and females with ambiguous ethnicity and religion. Results demonstrated that while only priming of an outgroup stereotypically associated with threat elicits aggressive responses, priming of both nonthreatening and threatening outgroups leads to an increase in the ability to distinguish between stimuli compared to ingroup priming. These effects are discussed in terms of priming effects, dimensions of threat, and possible interpretations of this ability increase.

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